Great Minds Gather Here (Audio)

Dr. Talmadge King, Jr. is Dean of the UCSF School of Medicine and Vice Chancellor for Medical Affairs at UCSF. Dr. King is an internationally known expert on interstitial lung diseases. In the interview with current chair of UCSF’s Department of Medicine, Dr. Bob Wachter, Dr. King describes his remarkable journey from a small town upbringing –including segregated schools –to the pinnacle of academic medicine. Dr. King is the recipient of several major honors, including the Trudeau Medal, the highest honor of the American Thoracic Society. Prior to assuming his role as dean, he was chair of UCSF’s Department of Medicine and Chief of the Medical Service at San Francisco General Hospital. Series: "Great Minds Gather Here" [Health and Medicine] [Business] [Show ID: 32874]

Erwin Chemerinsky, one of the country’s preeminent constitutional scholars and dean of the University of California, Berkeley’s law school, looks at the intersection of the First Amendment and higher education in this talk sponsored by Student Affairs, the Office for the Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination, and the Law and Society Program at UC San Diego. Series: "Great Minds Gather Here" [Public Affairs] [Education] [Show ID: 33388]

Michael Green, neuroscientist and professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at UCLA, has been fascinated with the human brain, behavior and mental illness since his undergraduate days. In particular, his research focuses on schizophrenia, a chronic brain disorder that affects about 1 percent of the population. In this UCLA Faculty Research Lecture, he describes how his lab uses discoveries in psychology and social neuroscience about normal brain functioning to inform his schizophrenia research. And now, Green and his colleagues are moving into new territory, studying the causes of social isolation among people who do not have schizophrenia. You’ll learn about the tools they use such as functional MRI, that measures and maps brain activity, and EEG, that detects electrical activity in the brain, and how they do research to answer questions about social isolation in the general public. Series: "UCLA Faculty Research Lectures" [Health and Medicine] [Science] [Show ID: 32573]

A legendary director noted for his uncompromising passion, Werner Herzog joins Carsey-Wolf Center Director Patrice Petro for a discussion about his 1979 film “Nosferatu The Vampyre” which he says is a tribute to the classic 1922 film "Nosferatu” by F.W. Murnau. Herzog also discusses his career and the film’s significance as a bridge to the masterworks of interwar cinema. Series: "Carsey-Wolf Center" [Humanities] [Show ID: 33062]

In 2013 the price of Bitcoin surged to over $1100 causing central banks around the world to take notice. Four years later, the price of Bitcoin is twice as high as its previous peak and central banks around the world are exploring the benefits of issuing crypto-based digital representations of fiat monies, more commonly known as central bank digital currencies. Rod Garratt, UCSB Professor of Economics, describes his work on a project to build a proof of concept for a wholesale interbank payment system that facilitates payments of central bank digital currency using a distributed ledger. Series: "Great Minds Gather Here" [Business] [Show ID: 32757]

The best-selling author and UCSF endocrinologist Dr. Robert Lustig explores how industry has contributed to a culture of addiction, depression and chronic disease. Always provocative, Lustig reveals the science that drives these states of mind and offers solutions we can use. Series: "Great Minds Gather Here" [Health and Medicine] [Show ID: 32572]

Our neurons talk to each other but the language they use can change depending on what is happening in the environment around them. If the brain can adapt to our world in this way, what are the bigger implications? Nick Spitzer, Division of Biological Sciences, UC San Diego, explains neurotransmitter switching and how that process impacts our physical abilities, disease processes, and more. Series: "Great Minds Gather Here" [Health and Medicine] [Science] [Show ID: 32521]

2011 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Tawakkol Karman is the first Yemeni, the first Arab woman and the second Muslim woman to win a Nobel Prize. A human rights activist, journalist and politician, she was dubbed the “Mother of the Revolution” for her key role in the Arab Spring, during which she was imprisoned numerous times. An advocate for education, social equality and responsible investment as means to counteract poverty and oppression, Karman offers hopeful solutions to uphold the democratic spirit across the globe. Series: "Ethics, Religion and Public Life: Walter H. Capps Center Series" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 32452]

Robert Bjork, Distinguished Research Professor in the UCLA Department of Psychology, shares insights from his work as a renowned expert on human learning. Bjork has been studying learning and memory for more than four decades. Series: "UCLA Faculty Research Lectures" [Humanities] [Show ID: 30574]

Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes Professor V.S. Ramachandran, Director of the Center for Brain and Cognition, University of California, San Diego, for a discussion of his research on the brain. Professor Ramachandran describes his formative experiences, the richly textured methodology that forms his approach to the study of the brain, insights he has gained from studying phantom limbs, mirror neurons and synesthesia. He concludes with speculation on the origins of creativity and consciousness. Series: "Conversations with History" [Health and Medicine] [Show ID: 30562]

The amazing advances made in mapping the human genome don’t alter one longstanding fact: when it comes to unlocking the scientific secrets of life, fruit flies rule. Uptal Banerjee, Chair of the the Department of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology at UCLA, explains that most principles that have been laid out in developmental biology — from mechanisms of stem cell maintenance to how a head differs from a tail — came from work in Drosophila. Series: "UCLA Faculty Research Lectures" [Science] [Show ID: 30565]

Arch Getty explores the intriguing details surrounding Lenin’s body, which was embalmed shortly after his death in 1924 and has been on public display ever since in a mausoleum on Moscow’s Red Square. Getty is a Distinguished Professor in the UCLA Department of History. Series: "UCLA Faculty Research Lectures" [Humanities] [Show ID: 30567]

Efrain Kristal explores the shadow war cast over the life and writings of the Argentine Jorge Luis Borges whose family found itself comfortably stranded in neutral Switzerland during World War I, whose translations introduced the Spanish-speaking world to German expressionist poetry from that era and who later monitored the rise of Nazism with dismay. Series: "UCLA Faculty Research Lectures" [Humanities] [Show ID: 30566]

UC Berkeley lecturer Saru Jayaraman gives a rousing talk describing the harsh and unequal treatment of the nation’s restaurant staff as she argues for increasing the minimum wage in what is now the second largest and fastest growing industry in the country. Jayaraman is presented as the keynote speaker at the Fall 2014 Board of Advisors Dinner for the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley. Series: "Richard and Rhoda Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley" [Public Affairs] [Business] [Show ID: 28940]

The Neanderthals are the closest extinct relatives of all present-day human and the Neanderthal genome sequence provides unique insights into modern humans origins. Svante Pääbo, a biologist and evolutionary anthropologist, describe the current understanding of the genetic contributions of Neanderthals to present-day humans and to extinct human groups. He also describes preliminary analyses of genomic features that appeared in present-day humans since their divergence from a common ancestor shared with Neanderthals and discusses how they may be functionally analyzed in the future. Pääbo is the Director of Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Science] [Show ID: 28720]

Jan Nederveen Pieterse in conversation with Noam Chomsky, linguist, philosopher and political commentator. Chomsky is Emeritus professor of linguistics at MIT. Jan Nederveen Pieterse is professor of Global Studies and Sociology at University of California, Santa Barbara. Series: "Carsey-Wolf Center" [Humanities] [Show ID: 28120]

Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, founder of NantWorks, describes his vision for turning cancer into a chronic but controllable disease by using advanced rapid gene sequencing, supercomputing and other methods of analysis to transcend the genome to the proteome. This approach has the potential to redefine how cancer is diagnosed and to develop therapies precisely tailored to the molecular profile of a particular tumor. Dr. Soon-Shiong anticipates a revolution in drug research, development and delivery of molecularly designed cancer treatments to patients. Series: "Helen Edison Lecture Series" [Health and Medicine] [Show ID: 25909]

The Atlantic’s Steve Clemons leads a provocative session on energy issues with Pulitzer-Prize winning author Daniel Yergin, Steve Koonin of the US Dept. of Energy, Dan Kammen of the World Bank and biofuels expert Stephen Mayfield of UC San Diego. Alexis Madrigal follows with Amory Lovins, author of “Reinventing Fire: Bold Business Solutions for the New Energy Era. Series: "The Atlantic Meets The Pacific" [Public Affairs] [Science] [Show ID: 22775]

His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama returned to UC Irvine to engage students and the community about compassion and global leadership. Series: "Great Minds Gather Here" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 22640]

Steven Squyres, Professor of Astronomy at Cornell University, was the principle scientist behind the Mars Exploration Rover Project. He discusses the engineering challenges that had to be met in getting the rovers to Mars, as well as the scientific results obtained by both vehicles over more than seven years of exploration. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Science] [Show ID: 21040]