Search Results for: design

You can't see it, but there's a diverse ecosystem of microbes sharing your office with you. In fact, as science speaker Jessica Green says in a Smart Planet article, “in the place where we spend 90 percent of our lives—indoors—there’s as great a diversity as you would see in a tropical rainforest.” These microbial ecosystems are […]

“Everything is covered in invisible ecosystems made of tiny lifeforms: bacteria, viruses, and fungi,” science speaker Jessica Green reveals in an exciting new TED Talk. “Our desks, our computers, our pencils, our buildings—all harbor resident microbial landscapes.” If we know that these worlds exist—even though they are invisible—why shouldn't we develop all of our products […]

Each individual's body is complexly unique. The problem with this, science speaker Nina Tandon says in a TED Talk, is that it can lead to major complications when you fall ill. Since our bodies are all different, and react differently and unpredictably to standard medical treatments, it can be difficult to treat health problems using […]

Lavin keynote speaker Nina Tandon is featured in the October 2015 issue of Inc. magazine (appropriately, in the publication’s “Most Innovative Women” section). As CEO and co-founder of EpiBone—the world’s first company growing living human bones for skeletal reconstruction—Tandon has a unique entrepreneurial story behind forming, and funding, a company at the forefront of what she calls “biology as […]

Stand-up powerhouse and Parks and Recreation star Aziz Ansari releases his first book today, Modern Romance—a hilarious, thought-provoking look at dating. To write it, Ansari star teamed up with NYU sociology professor (and Lavin speaker) Eric Klinenberg. Together, the comedian and the sociologist designed a massive research project spanning hundreds of interviews across continents, from […]

Sociologist and speaker Eric Klinenberg is releasing a new book this June. Modern Romance: An Investigation is a collaboration with comedian Aziz Ansari that explores the pleasures and perils of modern love: from texting to Tinder to the delicate use of the pizza emoji (check out the video above for a short clip of Ansari's […]

“We need to think about the social infrastructure as much as we do about the hard infrastructure of power lines and transit systems and communications networks,” cities speaker Eric Klinenberg tells Urban Omnibus. In a new series of interviews, the Going Solo author shows how important neighborhood cohesion and social planning is to the health […]

Last week, approximately 10 percent of the population celebrated Left-Handers’ Day. Maria Konnikova, a science speaker and psychologist, just published an article in The New Yorker that will give lefties even more reason to celebrate their uniqueness. Not only has new research shown that being a left-hander doesn't necessarily live up to the “sinister” stereotypes […]

“More and more and more, data is becoming a part of our everyday lives,” Jer Thorp says in a new interview in Mashable. “We're producing so much data, we're consuming so much data, but we haven't really, I think, as a culture thought about that transition and what it actually means and what some of […]

“Not only does Nina Tandon grow living hearts, she makes it sound easy.” That's what Katie Couric and Dove, partners in the Women Who Should Be Famous Initiative, wrote about the TED Fellow and Tissue Engineer; and it is one of the reasons they nominated her to be featured in the campaign. It is also her […]

New Lavin speaker and TED Senior Fellow Jessica Green is showing us the amazing and important role microbes play in our everyday lives—in our bodies, our forests, and even our buildings—and she's doing it in visually stunning ways. A Professor at both the University of Oregon and the Santa Fe Institute, Green uses art, animation, […]

Nina Tandon, one of Lavin's newest exclusive speakers, was recently named as one of Fast Company's 100 Most Creative People in Business. The TED Fellow is doing extraordinary things with bodily tissues and has been researching and experimenting with electrical signaling, with the ultimate end goal of creating artificial hearts and bones. One day, she […]

This month, Janna Levin—the theoretical cosmologist who spoke at TED about the sounds of the universe—was named a 2012 Guggenheim Fellow. Levin teaches physics and astronomy at Barnard College, and is a Lavin Agency exclusive speaker. She recently talked to us about her research, her thoughts on innovation, and why it’s “incredibly exciting to hear […]