2 Al Gore Climate-change prophet Once the US Vice President, then star of An Inconvenient Truth, now Nobel Peace Prize winner, Al Gore found a way to focus the world's attention on climate change. In doing so, he has invented a new medium -- the Keynote movie -- and reinvented himself. Unlike some in public office, Al Gore always intended to get something done, and since leaving Washington, DC -- following the tumultuous 2000 election -- he's still at it. In fact, his campaign for alerting the world to the dangers of climate change has only gained momentum. His Oscar-winning <a href="http://www.climatecrisis.net/" target="_blank">An Inconvenient Truth</a> is the third most successful documentary ever released at the box office. Gore's famed PowerPoint presentation has drawn in a reluctant public, with its meticulously researched content and lucid style. Meanwhile, Gore himself has found his footing as a communicator. The once "wooden" style has given way to a warmth and humor that reveal the depth of his experience as a soldier, congressman, senator, veep, TV executive, teacher and author. Arguably, Gore is better positioned today than he has ever been to affect the future of our environment and world. He was awarded the <a href="http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2007/">Nobel Peace Prize for 2007</a>, along with the <a href="http://www.ipcc.ch/">Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)</a>, "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change." al_gore 2007-02-13 10:43:00 2009-04-08 14:44:57 3 Amy Smith inventor, engineer Amy Smith designs cheap, practical fixes for tough problems in developing countries. Among her many accomplishments, the MIT engineer received a MacArthur "genius" grant in 2004 and was the first woman to win the Lemelson-MIT Prize for turning her ideas into inventions. Mechanical engineer Amy Smith's approach to problem-solving in developing nations is refreshingly common-sense: Invent cheap, low-tech devices that use local resources, so communities can reproduce her efforts and ultimately help themselves. Smith, working with her students at MIT's D-Lab, has come up with several useful tools, including an incubator that stays warm without electricity, a simple grain mill, and a tool that converts farm waste into cleaner-burning charcoal. The inventions have earned Smith three prestigious prizes: the B.F. Goodrich Collegiate Inventors Award, the MIT-Lemelson Prize, and a MacArthur "genius" grant. Her course, "Design for Developing Countries," is a pioneer in bringing humanitarian design into the curriculum of major institutions. Going forward, the former <a href="http://www.peacecorps.gov/" target="_blank">Peace Corps</a> volunteer strives to do much more, bringing her inventiveness and boundless energy to bear on some of the world's most persistent problems. amy_smith 2007-02-13 10:46:00 2010-06-30 11:15:45 4 Ashraf Ghani Expert on state-building Ashraf Ghani was a key figure in rebuilding Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban, and is a leading advocate for foreign investment (rather than foreign aid) as a tool for economic development and the eradication of poverty.  Before Afghanistan's President Karzai asked him, at the end of 2001, to become his advisor and then Finance Minister, Ashraf Ghani had spent years in academia studying state-building and social transformation, and a decade in executive positions at the World Bank trying to effect policy in these two fields. In just 30 months, he carried out radical and effective reforms (a new currency, new budget, new tariffs, etc) and was instrumental in preparing for the elections of October 2004. In 2006, he was a candidate to succeed Kofi Annan as Secretary General of the United Nations, and one year later, was put in the running to head the World Bank. He served as Chancellor of Kabul University, where he ran a program on state effectiveness. His message to the world: "Afghanistan should not be approached as a charity, but as an investment." With Clare Lockhart, he runs the Institute for State Effectiveness, which examines the relationships among citizens, the state and the market. The ISE advises countries, companies, and NGOs; once focused mainly on Afghanistan, its mission has expanded to cover the globe.In 2009, Ghani ran against Hamid Karzai in the 2009 Afghani presidential elections, emphasizing the importance of government transparency and accountability, strong infrastructure and economic investment, and a merit-based political system.     ashraf_ghani 2007-02-13 10:47:00 2010-06-15 15:40:36 5 Burt Rutan Aircraft engineer In 2004, legendary spacecraft designer Burt Rutan won the $10M Ansari X-Prize for SpaceShipOne, the first privately funded craft to enter space twice in a two-week period. He's now collaborating with Virgin Galactic to build the first rocketship for space tourism. Burt Rutan is widely regarded as one of the world's most important industrial designers, and his prolific contributions to air- and spacecraft design have driven the industry forward for decades. His two companies, <a href="http://www.rutanaircraft.com/" target="_blank">Rutan Aircraft Factory</a> and <a href="http://www.scaled.com/" target="_blank">Scaled Composites</a>, have developed and flight-tested more new types of aircraft than the rest of the US industry combined. He has himself designed hundreds of aircraft, including the famous Voyager, which his brother piloted on a record-breaking nine-day nonstop flight around the world. Rutan might also be the person to make low-cost space tourism a reality: He's one of the major players promoting entrepreneurial approaches to space exploration, and his collaboration with <a href="http://www.virgingalactic.com/" target="_blank">Virgin Galactic</a> is the most promising of these efforts. SpaceShipTwo, a collaboration between Richard Branson and Rutan completed its first "captive carry" in March of 2010, marking the beginning of the era of commercial space exploration.Ever the maverick, Rutan is known for both his bold proclamations and his criticism of the aerospace industry. Witness the opening line of his presentation at TED2006: "Houston, we have a problem. We're entering a second generation of no progress in terms of human flight in space." burt_rutan 2007-02-13 10:49:00 2010-06-15 15:58:14 6 Chris Bangle Car designer Car design is a ubiquitous but often overlooked art form. As chief of design for the BMW Group, Chris Bangle has overseen cars that have been seen the world over, including BMW 7 Series and the Z4 roadster. American designer Chris Bangle understands that it can be difficult to see a car in terms of Art with a capital A. As such, he separates his work into issues of "automobiles" (unemotional products, causing problems such as pollution and congestion) and "car-iness" (an expansion of the human, and ultimately a truly artistic expression). Satisfying the tensions between these problems -- and the tensions between engineers and designers -- is, for him, the essence of his work. Offering radical forms and ideas, Bangle has been a polarizing figure within the industry; he has overseen all of the brands within the <a href="http://www.bmw.com/" target="_blank">BMW</a> family, including <a href="http://www.mini.com/mini_worldwide/mini_worldwide.html" target="_blank">Mini</a> and <a href="http://www.rolls-roycemotorcars.com/" target="_blank">Rolls-Royce</a>. In 2009, Bangle left BMW to pursue his own personal design interests and develop his consulting firm, Chris Bangle Associates. chris_bangle 2007-02-13 10:59:00 2010-06-15 16:00:03 7 Craig Venter Biologist, genetics pioneer In 2001, Craig Venter made headlines for sequencing the human genome. In 2003, he started mapping the ocean's biodiversity. And now he's created the first synthetic lifeforms -- microorganisms that can produce alternative fuels. Craig Venter, the man who led the private effort to sequence the human genome, is hard at work now on even more potentially world-changing projects. First, there's his mission aboard the <a href="http://www.sorcerer2expedition.org/version1/HTML/main.htm" target="_blank">Sorcerer II</a>, a 92-foot yacht, which, in 2006, finished its voyage around the globe to sample, catalouge and decode the genes of the ocean's unknown microorganisms. Quite a task, when you consider that there are tens of millions of microbes in a single drop of sea water. Then there's the <a href="http://www.jcvi.org/" target="_blank">J. Craig Venter Institute</a>, a nonprofit dedicated to researching genomics and exploring its societal implications. In 2005, Venter founded <a href="http://www.syntheticgenomics.com/about.htm" target="_blank">Synthetic Genomics</a>, a private company with a provocative mission: to engineer new life forms. Its goal is to design, synthesize and assemble <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycoplasma_laboratorium" target="_blank">synthetic microorganisms</a> that will produce alternative fuels, such as ethanol or hydrogen. He was on <a href="http://www.time.com/time/" target="_blank">Time</a> magzine's 2007 list of the <a href="http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/time100" target="_blank">100 Most Influential People in the World.</a> In early 2008, scientists at the J. Craig Venter Institute announced that they had manufactured the entire genome of a bacterium by painstakingly stitching together its chemical components. By sequencing a genome, scientists can begin to custom-design bootable organisms, creating biological robots that can produce from scratch chemicals humans can use, such as biofuel. And in 2010, they announced, they had created "synthetic life" -- DNA created digitally, inserted into a living bacterium, and remaining alive. craig_venter 2007-02-13 11:00:00 2011-05-06 15:04:20 8 David Pogue Technology columnist David Pogue is the personal technology columnist for the New York Times and an Emmy Award-winning tech correspondent for CBS News. He's also one of the world's bestselling how-to authors, with titles in the For Dummies series and his own line of "Missing Manual" books. Which cell phone to choose? What software to buy? Are camera-binoculars a necessity or novelty? As release cycles shorten and ever-shrinking gadgets hit the market with dizzying speed, it's harder and harder to know what's worth the investment. A tireless explorer of everyday technology, David Pogue investigates all the options so we don't have to. After happily weathering installation nightmares, customer service hiccups, and an overwhelming crush of backups, upgrades and downloads, Pogue reports back with his recommendations via his many <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/david_pogue/index.html" target="_blank">columns</a>, TV appearances and <a href="http://www.missingmanuals.com/" target="_blank">how-to books</a>. And he does it all with relatable insight, humor and an unsinkable sense of pun, er, fun. All that, and he sings, too. david_pogue 2007-02-13 11:01:00 2010-06-30 14:03:49 9 David Rockwell Architect, experience designer Architect David Rockwell draws on his love of drama and spectacle to create fantastic, high-impact restaurants, malls, airline terminals, theater sets -- and playgrounds. David Rockwell does dramatic design, from the sleek interiors of Nobu and the W Hotels to the exuberant Mohegan Sun Casino, from the pop-tastic scenery for the Broadway musical Hairspray to the sublimely hilarious high-modern sets for Team America: World Police. He won the Presidential Design Award for his extraordinary work renovating New York's Grand Central Station, and his firm, the <a href="http://www.rockwellgroup.com/" target="_blank">Rockwell Group</a>, is designing the interior for the JetBlue terminal at New York's JFK Airport. Rockwell has published several books on his architectural and design process, including <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Pleasure-Architecture-Design-Rockwell-Group/dp/0789308029/ref=sr_1_7/002-9598594-4856004?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1180364723&sr=1-7" target="_blank">Pleasure</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Spectacle-David-Rockwell/dp/0714845744/ref=sr_1_1/002-9598594-4856004?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1180364723&sr=1-1" target="_blank">Spectacle</a> -- two qualities that abound in his work. But Rockwell is no mere drama junkie. His designs for a temporary viewing platform at Ground Zero, constructed in the days after 9/11, demonstrate his ability to tune in to the requirements of each space. Meanwhile, a recent project takes the playfulness inherent in his work to its logical conclusion: the Imagination Playground is a free-play space for kids. The first playground is being built at Burling Slip in Manhattan, and plans are afoot to bring the concept nationwide in partnership with KaBOOM! The Burling Slip Imagination Playground is scheduled to open July of 2010. With <a href="/speakers/chee_pearlman.html" target="_blank">Chee Pearlman</a>, Rockwell was co-curator of the TED2012 session "The Design Studio." david_rockwell 2007-06-12 05:02:00 2012-04-04 16:42:24 10 Dean Kamen Inventor Dean Kamen landed in the limelight with the Segway, but he has been innovating since high school, with more than 150 patents under his belt. Recent projects include portable energy and water purification for the developing world, and a prosthetic arm for maimed soldiers. Dean Kamen is an innovator, but not just of things. He hopes to revolutionize attitudes, quality of life, awareness. While an undergraduate, he developed the first portable infusion device, which delivers drug treatments that once required round-the-clock hospital care. And, through his <a href="http://www.dekaresearch.com" target="_blank">DEKA Research and Development</a>, which he cofounded in 1982, he developed a portable dialysis machine, a vascular stent, and the <a href="http://www.ibotnow.com/" target="_blank">iBOT</a> -- a motorized wheelchair that climbs stairs (Stephen Colbert took one for a spin). Yes, he's a college dropout, but he's a huge believer in education, and in 1989 established the nonprofit <a href="http://www.usfirst.org/" target="_blank">FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology)</a> to inspire teenagers to pursue careers in science. FIRST sponsors lively annual competitions, where students form teams to create the best robot. His focus now is on off-grid electricity and water purification for developing countries; another recent project, previewed at TED2007, is a <a href="http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/08/08/dean-kamen-lends-a-hand-or-two/" target="_blank">prosthetic arm</a> for maimed soldiers (read an update <a href="http://spectrum.ieee.org/feb08/5957" target="_blank">here</a>). He's also working on a power source for the wonderful <a href="http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2007/08/01/100138830/index.htm?eref=rss_topstories" target="_blank">Think car</a>. And, with more funding in the works, we haven't seen the last of the <a href="http://www.segway.com/" target="_blank">Segway</a>. dean_kamen 2007-02-13 11:03:00 2009-04-13 10:28:25 11 Dr. Dean Ornish Physician, author Dean Ornish is a clinical professor at UCSF and founder of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute. He's a leading expert on fighting illness -- particularly heart disease with dietary and lifestyle changes. Dr. Dean Ornish wants you to live longer, and have more fun while you're at it. He's one of the leading voices in the medical community promoting a balanced, holistic approach to health, and proving that it works. The author of <a href="http://www.harpercollins.com/books/9780061096273/Eat_More_Weigh_Less/index.aspx" target="_blank">Eat More, Weigh Less</a> and several other best-selling books, Ornish is best known for his lifestyle-based approach to fighting heart disease. His research at the <a href="http://www.pmri.org/?p=0&pj=index" target="_blank">Preventive Medicine Research Institute</a> (the nonprofit he founded) clinically demonstrated that cardiovascular illnesses -- and, most recently prostate cancer -- can be treated and even reversed through diet and exercise. These findings (once thought to be physiologically implausible) have been widely chronicled in the US media, including <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3037964/site/newsweek/" target="_blank">Newsweek</a>, for which Ornish writes a column. The fifty-something physician, who's received many honors and awards, was chosen by LIFE Magazine as one of the most influential members of his generation. Among his many pursuits, Ornish is now working with food corporations to help stop America's obesity pandemic from spreading around the globe. dr_dean_ornish 2007-02-13 11:03:00 2009-04-08 14:40:43 12 Jane Goodall Primatologist; environmentalist Jane Goodall, dubbed by her biographer "the woman who redefined man," has changed our perceptions of primates, people, and the connection between the two. Over the past 45 years, Goodall herself has also evolved -- from steadfast scientist to passionate conservationist and humanitarian. Jane Goodall hasn't exactly found the missing link, but she's come closer than just about anyone else on Earth. Her extensive research into the behavior of chimpanzees, which started in Africa in the 1960s and continues today, fundamentally altered scientific thinking about the relationship between humans and other mammals. Goodall, who founded a research institute in her name in 1977, is an internationally recognized authority on the primate world. She's written books for adults and children, contributed to documentaries, and serves as a National Geographic explorer-in-residence, a United Nations peace messenger, and the president of Advocates for Animals. For her efforts to observe and preserve all species, Goodall has received honors and accolades from governments, nonprofits, universities, and professional organizations, including a medal from UNESCO and the French Legion of Honor in 2006. jane_goodall 2007-02-13 11:04:00 2010-09-18 16:50:01 13 Eva Vertes Student, cancer researcher Eva Vertes is a microbiology prodigy. Her discovery, at age 17, of a compound that stops fruit-fly brain cells from dying was regarded as a step toward curing Alzheimer's. Now she aims to find better ways to treat -- and avoid -- cancer. Eva Vertes may not yet have the answers she needs to cure cancer, but she's asking some important -- and radical questions: If smoking can cause lung cancer, and drinking can cause liver cancer, is it possible that cancer is a direct result of injury? If so, could cancer be caused by the body's own repair system going awry? She asks this and other breathtaking questions in her conference-closing 2005 talk. Her approach marks an important shift in scientific thinking, looking in brand-new places for cancer's cause -- and its cure. Her ultimate goal, which even she calls far-fetched, is to fight cancer with cancer. eva_vertes 2007-02-13 11:05:00 2008-06-22 02:30:25 14 Frank Gehry Architect A living legend, Frank Gehry has forged his own language of architecture, creating astonishing buildings all over the world, such as the Guggenheim in Bilbao, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in LA, and Manhattan's new IAC building. Frank Gehry is one of the world's most influential architects. His designs for the likes of the <a href="http://www.guggenheim-bilbao.es/ingles/edificio/el_edificio.htm" target="_blank">Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao</a> and the <a href="http://wdch.laphil.com/about/overview.cfm" target="_blank">Walt Disney Concert Hall</a> in LA are bold statements that have imposed a new aesthetic of architecture on the world at large, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/23/arts/design/23ouro.html?ref=arts" target="_blank">enlivening streetscapes</a> and creating new destinations. Gehry has extended his vision beyond brick-and-mortar too, collaborating with artists such as Claes Oldenberg and Richard Serra, and designing watches, teapots and a line of <a href="http://www.tiffany.com/shopping/category.aspx?cid=130340&mcat=148204&menu=1&hppromo=CUS2&" target="_blank">jewelry</a> for Tiffany & Co. Now in his 80s, Gehry refuses to slow down or compromise his fierce vision: He and his team at <a href="http://www.foga.com/" target="_blank">Gehry Partners</a> are working on a $4 billion development of the <a href="http://www.atlanticyards.com/" target="_blank">Atlantic Yards</a> in Brooklyn, and a spectacular <a href="http://www.guggenheim.org/press_releases/release_159.html" target="_blank">Guggenheim museum in Abu Dhabi</a>, United Arab Emirates, which interprets local architecture traditions into a language all his own. Incorporating local architectural motifs without simply paying lip service to Middle Eastern culture, the building bears all the hallmarks of a classic Gehry design. frank_gehry 2008-01-17 00:06:00 2010-07-01 10:50:42 15 Golan Levin Experimental audio-visual artist Half performance artist, half software engineer, Golan Levin manipulates the computer to create improvised soundscapes with dazzling corresponding visuals. He is at the forefront of defining new parameters for art. Having worked as an academic at MIT and a researcher specializing in computer technology and software engineering, Golan Levin now spends most of his time working as a performance artist. Rest assured his education hasn't gone to waste, however, as Levin blends high tech and customized software programs to create his own extraordinary audio and visual compositions. The results are inordinately experimental sonic and visual extravaganzas from the furthest left of the field. Many of his pieces force audience participation, such as <a href="http://www.flong.com/telesymphony/index.html" target="_blank">Dialtones: A Telesymphony</a>, a concert from 2001 entirely composed of the choreographed ringtones of his audience. Regularly exhibiting pieces in galleries around the world, and also working as an Assistant Professor of Electronic Time-Based Art at Carnegie Mellon University, Levin is unapologetically pushing boundaries to define a brave new world of what is possible.His latest piece, <a href="http://www.flong.com/projects/snout/" target="_blank">Double-Taker (Snout)</a>, is installed at the Pittsburg Museum of Art. golan_levin 2007-02-13 11:06:00 2009-04-08 15:01:07 17 Helen Fisher Anthropologist; expert on love Anthropologist Helen Fisher studies gender differences and the evolution of human emotions. She's best known as an expert on romantic love, and her beautifully penned books -- including Anatomy of Love and Why We Love -- lay bare the mysteries of our most treasured emotion. Helen Fisher's courageous investigations of romantic love -- its evolution, its biochemical foundations and its vital importance to human society -- are informing and transforming the way we understand ourselves. Fisher describes love as a universal human drive (stronger than the sex drive; stronger than thirst or hunger; stronger perhaps than the will to live), and her many areas of inquiry shed light on timeless human mysteries, like why we choose one partner over another. Almost unique among scientists, Fisher explores the science of love without losing a sense of romance: Her work frequently invokes poetry, literature and art -- along with scientific findings -- helping us appreciate our love affair with love itself. In her research, and in books such as <a href="http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780449908976" target="_blank">Anatomy of Love</a>, <a href="http://www.holtzbrinckpublishers.com/henryholt/search/SearchBookDisplay.asp?BookKey=1291747" target="_blank">Why We Love</a>, and her latest work Why Him? Why Her?: How to Find and Keep Lasting Love, Fisher looks at questions with real impact on modern life. Her latest research raises serious concerns about the widespread, long-term use of antidepressants, which may undermine our natural process of attachment by tampering with hormone levels in the brain. helen_fisher 2007-02-13 11:08:00 2010-07-01 11:14:11 19 Janine Benyus Science writer, innovation consultant, conservationist A self-proclaimed nature nerd, Janine Benyus' concept of biomimicry has galvanized scientists, architects, designers and engineers into exploring new ways in which nature's successes can inspire humanity. In the world envisioned by science author Janine Benyus, a locust's ability to avoid collision within a roiling cloud of its brethren informs the design of a crash-resistant car; a self-cleaning leaf inspires a new kind of paint, one that dries in a pattern that enables simple rainwater to wash away dirt; and organisms capable of living without water open the way for vaccines that maintain potency even without refrigeration -- a hurdle that can prevent life-saving drugs from reaching disease-torn communities. Most important, these cool tools from nature pull off their tricks while still managing to preserve the environment that sustains them, a life-or-death lesson that humankind is in need of learning. As a <a href="http://www.biomimicryinstitute.org/" target="_blank">champion</a> of <a href="http://www.biomimicry.net/" target="_blank">biomimicry</a>, Benyus has become one of the most important voices in a new wave of designers and engineers inspired by nature. Her most recent project, <a href="/admin.php/speakers/edit/speakerid/%20www.asknature.org">AskNature</a>, explores what happens if we think of nature by function and looks at what organisms can teach us about design. janine_benyus 2007-02-13 11:09:00 2010-03-15 10:18:37 20 Kevin Kelly Digital visionary Kevin Kelly has been publisher of the Whole Earth Review, exec editor at WIRED, founder of visionary nonprofits, and writer on biology and business and "cool tools." He's admired for his new perspectives on technology and its relevance to history, biology and religion. Perhaps there is no one better to contemplate the meaning of cultural change -- bad? good? too slow? too bold? -- than Kevin Kelly, whose life story reads like a treatise on the value of technology. Whether by renouncing all material things save his bicycle (which he then rode 3,000 miles), founding an organization (the All-Species Foundation) to catalog all life on earth, or by touting new gadgets in WIRED, Kelly hasn't stopped exploring the phenomena of technical and biological creation. In articles for the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, among others, he has celebrated scientific breakthroughs, and at <a href="http://longnow.org/" target="_blank">the Long Now Foundation</a>, where he serves on the board, he champions projects that look 10,000 years into the future. One such project is the Rosetta Project, which will catalogue more than 1,000 languages on a disks to be placed nearby the 10,000 Year Clock. Kelly's newest book What Technology Wants asks what appears to be his life's core question: "How should I think about new technology when it comes along?"Kelly discusses the <a href="http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/kelly07/kelly07_index.html" target="_blank">7th Kingdom</a> at length in the July 18, 2007, edition of Edge.org. kevin_kelly 2007-02-13 11:10:00 2010-07-01 11:49:45 21 Malcolm Gladwell Writer Detective of fads and emerging subcultures, chronicler of jobs-you-never-knew-existed, Malcolm Gladwell's work is toppling the popular understanding of bias, crime, food, marketing, race, consumers and intelligence. Malcolm Gladwell searches for the counterintuitive in what we all take to be the mundane: cookies, sneakers, pasta sauce. A New Yorker staff writer since 1996, he visits obscure laboratories and infomercial set kitchens as often as the hangouts of freelance cool-hunters -- a sort of pop-R&D gumshoe -- and for that has become a star lecturer and bestselling author. Sparkling with curiosity, undaunted by difficult research (yet an eloquent, accessible writer), his work uncovers truths hidden in strange data. His always-delightful <a href="http://gladwell.typepad.com/gladwellcom/" target="_blank">blog</a> tackles topics from serial killers to steroids in sports, while provocative recent work in the New Yorker <a href="http://www.gladwell.com/2007/2007_12_17_c_iq.html" target="_blank">sheds new light on the Flynn effect</a> -- the decades-spanning rise in I.Q. scores. Gladwell has written four books. <a href="http://www.gladwell.com/tippingpoint/index.html" target="_blank">The Tipping Point</a>, which began as a New Yorker piece, applies the principles of epidemiology to crime (and sneaker sales), while <a href="http://www.gladwell.com/blink/index.html" target="_blank">Blink</a> examines the unconscious processes that allow the mind to "thin slice" reality -- and make decisions in the blink of an eye. His third book, Outliers, questions the inevitabilities of success and identifies the relation of success to nature versus nurture. The newest work, What the Dog Saw and Other Adventures, is an anthology of his New Yorker contributions. He says: "There is more going on beneath the surface than we think, and more going on in little, finite moments of time than we would guess."   malcolm_gladwell 2007-02-13 11:10:00 2011-06-10 20:31:26 22 Mena Trott Blogger; cofounder, Six Apart Mena Trott and her husband Ben founded Six Apart in a spare bedroom after the blogging software they developed grew beyond a hobby. With products Movable Type, TypePad, LiveJournal and Vox, the company has helped lead the "social media" revolution. Time's 2006 Person of the Year is "You," which is to say, everybody: "The many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing." The tools of this revolution have come in no small part from <a href="http://www.sixapart.com/" target="_blank">Six Apart</a>, a 2002 startup that helped enable the blogging boom with its products. And co-founder Mena Trott, who rose to Internet fame with her own blog, <a href="http://mena.vox.com/" target="_blank">DollarShort</a>, has become a strong voice explaining the role of personal blogging in today's culture.Trott and her husband Ben developed <a href="http://www.movabletype.org/" target="_blank">Movable Type</a> for their own use in 2001, but it became immensely popular and they dove in full-time. By the time they were preparing their blog-hosting service <a href="http://www.typepad.com/" target="_blank">TypePad</a>, investors were knocking on the door. In 2004, the company grew from seven employees to 50, with Mena Trott serving as chief executive, as well as an interface designer. Today, having acquired <a href="http://www.livejournal.com/" target="_blank">LiveJournal</a> and introduced rich-media sharing platform <a href="http://www.vox.com/" target="_blank">Vox</a>, <a href="http://www.sixapart.com/" target="_blank">Six Apart</a>'s software gives online voice to millions of people and organizations worldwide. mena_trott 2007-02-13 11:11:00 2010-06-15 15:54:03 23 Michael Shermer Skeptic Michael Shermer debunks myths, superstitions and urban legends, and explains why we believe them. Along with publishing Skeptic Magazine, he's author of Why People Believe Weird Things and The Mind of the Market. As founder and publisher of <a href="http://www.skeptic.com/" target="_blank">Skeptic Magazine</a>, Michael Shermer has exposed fallacies behind intelligent design, 9/11 conspiracies, the low-carb craze, alien sightings and other popular beliefs and paranoias. But it's not about debunking for debunking's sake. Shermer defends the notion that we can understand our world better only by matching good theory with good science. Thus, in order to explore a conspiracy theory that pre-planted explosives caused the World Trade Center towers to fall on 9/11, the magazine called on demolition experts. Shermer's work offers cognitive context for our often misguided beliefs: In the absence of sound science, incomplete information can powerfully combine with the power of suggestion (helping us hear Satanic lyrics when "Stairway to Heaven" plays backwards, for example). In fact, a common thread that runs through beliefs of all sorts, he says, is our tendency to convince ourselves: We overvalue the shreds of evidence that support our preferred outcome, and ignore the facts we aren't looking for. michael_shermer 2007-02-13 11:12:00 2009-12-16 10:18:59 20 1134