Search Results for: science

How will we address the needs of everyone on earth as the population continues to grow? Susan Hockfield—Neuroscientist, author, and former president of MIT—suggests we turn to biology for answers.  By the year 2050, there will be almost ten billion people on earth. Unsurprisingly, the population increase will put a significant stress on our resources: […]

Art and science have long enjoyed a fruitful partnership (da Vinci, anyone?) and Lavin’s speakers are no exception to the rule. In light of the release of physicist and writer Alan Lightman’s latest novel, Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine, we rounded up three of our speakers whose work brings together science and the humanities […]

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 […]

“Scientists who ask the right questions at the right time can make history and change the world,” writes Business Insider. The publication has complied a new list of 50 groundbreaking scientists who are changing the way we see the world, from human happiness, evolutionary biology, neutrino physics, biotechnology, archeology, and more. Three exceptional Lavin science speakers […]

One of the best parts of working at The Lavin Agency is watching inspirational keynote speeches by the world's most original movers and shakers. Every week, we'll focus on a few of the great talks that our speakers have given. And, we'll discuss the key takeaways that make our speakers great picks for speaker buyers […]

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 […]

Bringing research results from the lab into public discourse can sometimes be costly and time consuming. As science speaker David Eagleman wrote in a recent report, the process can take away crucial time from busy researchers. But, as the recent recipient of the Society for Neuroscience Science Educator Award argues, sharing research breakthroughs is a crucial […]

Our prison system works as a one-size-fits-all institution. Science speaker David Eagleman believes that modern neuroscience research and better use of big data could change that. The sought-after neuroscientist recently addressed the subject in Smart Planet. He explained that physiologically driven behavior isn't always taken into account during sentencing, and, that there could be more effective […]

William Shakespeare's Juliet, from Romeo & Juliet, famously asked “What's in a name?” While she hypothesized that a “rose by any other name would still smell as sweet,” science speaker Adam Alter has documented numerous studies showing that different names actually can change how we perceive an event, an object, or a person. “Arbitrary linguistic traits […]

Not only is science speaker Janna Levin a well-known theoretical astrophysicist who studies the intricacies of black holes and the big bang, she is also a PEN Award-winning author. Her books—How The Universe Got Its Spots and A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines—bridge fiction and non-fiction, science and literature, and provide a complex but digestible […]

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 […]

In a new talk with Edge.org, science speaker and NYU Professor Adam Alter discussed the role that metacognition plays in our lives. He isn't studying what people are thinking, so much as what is it like to think. As he explains there are two layers to our thought process: the basic level where we process […]

Imagine requiring a new heart and receiving a transplant organ, made of living tissue, that was grown by a scientist in a lab. Sounds like science fiction, right? Nina Tandon says the idea isn't as far fetched as we may think. As she explains in an exclusive interview with Lavin, scientists have been able to […]

We all know that we are supposed to suspend our disbelief when we watch movies and television shows. As Janna Levin explains in a video segment on the BBC, this is especially true when it comes to the science shown in film and on TV. Levin was one of several prominent real-life scientists asked to […]

2012 was a good year for David Eagleman, a renowned neuroscientist and internationally bestselling author. His keynote on the perception of time was listed as one of the top ten science speeches of the year by FORA.tv, and his book, Incognito (named as a “Book of the Year” by The Boston Globe) got a ringing […]

“Albert Einstein famously said, only two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity,” cosmologist, author, and science speaker Janna Levin says in a new talk on The Moth, “and then he added: and I'm not so sure about the universe.” As one of her biggest inspirations, Levin agrees with Einstein's theory. Well, in terms […]

The Better Angels of Our Nature, Steven Pinker's New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year, has been shortlisted for another prestigious award: The Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books. The book is one of six nominated for the award. When asked why they picked Pinker's book, the judges said that it, […]

When you think of the study of cosmology, generally notions of high-tech telescopes and complex lab equipment come to mind. Science speaker Janna Levin, however, likes to do things a little bit differently. “I really like to work in pen and paper in math,” she explains in an interview with the BBC. What is she […]

“Violence, in many ways, has plunged over the course of history,” science speaker Steven Pinker tells Bill Gates in a recent interview. “Half a century without a great power war is unprecedented.” In a series of interviews with the former chief executive of Microsoft, Pinker discusses findings he presented in his groundbreaking book, The Better Angels […]

“At some point there will be a crime committed…and we will find that the perpetrator had a brain tumor,” neuroscience speaker David Eagleman tells CNN. “Then, society is going to have to deal with [the] very difficult question about [the] relationship between brain and behavior and [the] question of culpability.” As the founder and director […]

In a recent article in The Guardian, Lavin speaker David Eagleman debated Raymond Tallis on the age-old question of whether our personalities, desires, and actions are governed by our unconscious mind, or whether the human condition is much more complicated. Eagleman's New York Times bestseller Incognito explores this question in accessible detail, pointing out that […]

This week, neuroscientist David Eagleman spoke at a Google 'Debates' series addressing the war on drugs. Other luminaries on the bill included Vincente Fox, Julian Assange, Eliot Spitzer, Richard Branson, and Russell Brand. “The reason why we're losing the war on drugs,” Eagleman said, “is because we're attacking supply, and that's like a water balloon: […]

Nina Tandon’s company EpiBone has received FDA clearance to begin its first clinical trial—making it one step closer to providing patients with precision-fit skeletal implants grown from their own cells. Nina Tandon believes we are close to unlocking the regenerative capabilities of our own bodies. As the founder and CEO of EpiBone, Tandon uses stem […]

Hidden Figures—Margot Lee Shetterly’s runaway New York Times bestseller and the inspiration for the Academy Award nominated film—is being developed by the original producers into a series for Nat Geo, National Geographic’s cable channel. Shetterly’s book recounts the true story of the black women mathematicians at NASA who helped achieve some of America’s greatest achievements in space, […]

On Thursday, March 31, we spoke with cosmologist, author, and TED Speaker Janna Levin as part of our ongoing #AskASpeaker series: live Q&As on Twitter with our social media-savvy speakers. Levin’s currently promoting her recently-published third book, Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space (Knopf): “a fascinating, firsthand history of the scientific pursuit to […]

Hot on the heels of the astounding discovery of gravitational waves comes Janna Levin’s newest book, Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space. Available on March 29, Black Hole Blues is the authoritative story of the scientific campaign to record the soundtrack of our universe, told in gripping prose by one of the world’s […]

After decades of searching, scientists have finally detected gravitational waves from black holes—a discovery that confirms another aspect of Einstein’s theory of relativity, and marks a moment in science comparable to the discovery of the Higgs particle or the DNA sequence. For Lavin keynote speaker Janna Levin, this revelation also heralds the release of her […]

How well is your brain working? Just ask David Eagleman. A new iPad app developed by the visionary neuroscientist and TED speaker can assess your brain function in less than five minutes, and has the potential to revolutionize the way we measure brain health in athletes, at work, in our aging population, and much more. […]

Ever wonder why we so easily fall for scams, cons, and schemes? Why do we find exploiters and conmen so persuasive? To bestselling author Maria Konnikova, those too-good-to-be-true, once-in-a-lifetime offers are a perfect match for our brain chemistry. In fact, we’re wired to believe in the most duplicitous deals, and no one’s immune. In her new […]

Our calendars are marked: the new six-part series The Brain with David Eagleman debuts on PBS on Wednesday, October 14th (just 20 days away). But while you wait, you can check out seven exclusive clips on the PBS website, each revealing another fascinating aspect of the series (the video below shows David Eagleman working through […]

Renowned NYU sociologist Eric Klinenberg recently spoke with Fast Company about Modern Romance—his #3 New York Times bestseller and hilarious collaboration with Aziz Ansari. The book studies human behavior in the age of online dating, touching on the new and varied ways people communicate in today’s digital world. For Klinenberg, it was a way to […]

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 […]

“This is the story of how your life shapes your brain, and how your brain shapes your life,” begins the just-released trailer for David Eagleman's new PBS series, The Brain with David Eagleman. On the show, Eagleman will explore the human brain in an epic series that reveals the ultimate story of us, why we […]

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 […]

Late last year, New York Times bestselling author of Drunk Tank Pink Adam Alter published a fascinating new study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences with Hal Hershfield. They revealed that age is more than just a number: as we approach a new decade in chronological age, we search for meaning. Here's the study's […]

David Eagleman is one of a kind—a neuroscientist, Guggenheim Fellow, and bestselling author who connects the science of the brain to literature, advertising, social media, and our justice system. His forthcoming book, Livewired: How the Brain Rewrites its Own Circuitry (Spring 2015), is a fascinating presentation of his new theory about the brain's capacity to […]

TED Senior Fellow and science speaker Nina Tandon is the co-founder of EpiBone, the world’s first company growing living human bones for skeletal reconstruction. In a new TED video (embedded above), Tandon and her co-founder Sarindr Bhumiratana describe the work they're doing and the incredible impact it could have on human health. “If you need […]

“You'll laugh, you'll gasp, you'll shake your head in disbelief as [Adam Alter] shows you that we are all, to some degree, balls in a giant pinball machine.” That's what fellow Lavin speaker Jonathan Haidt said of Alter's Drunk Tank Pink. In the New York Times bestseller, the science speaker shows us that many of […]

It's summertime: The sun is shining, the weather is beautiful, and you're sitting at your desk—wishing you were anywhere else. Maria Konnikova, author of Mastermind, says you aren't the only one whose brain metaphorically wilts in warm weather. In fact, the science speaker points to new research that shows most of us experience decreased productivity […]

Science speaker David Eagleman has unlocked fascinating new explanations about the way our brains work. A highly sought after voice on neuroscience, Eagleman is a bestselling author and the founder/director of the Initiative on Neuroscience and Law. Here are a few of his latest Big Think articles that tap into the puzzling processes that happen […]

The idea that we make decisions based on completely rational thinking is what Adam Alter calls “comfortable fiction.” We tell ourselves that we are in control of the actions we take. We do this so we feel that our choices matter. But in fact, the science speaker and Drunk Tank Pink author says cues in […]

With the onset of President Obama's BRAIN Initiative, neuroscience has been pushed to the forefront of public discourse. David Eagleman, a renowned neuroscientist and science speaker, has argued that we've barely scratched the surface of what we know about our brains. What's more, we are still trying to uncover the way our physical brains and […]

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 […]

Angelina Jolie recently made headlines when she announced that she'd elected to have a preventative double mastectomy. In a provocative new Salon article, science speaker Maria Konnikova uses Jolie's case as the springboard for a discussion on evaluating personal risk. While the Mastermind author says there's much to applaud both in Jolie's decision to have […]

A deadly new virus, by the name of the Middle East Respiratory Symptom coronavirus (MERS), has emerged as a growing global threat. If there's anyone you want on your side to assess these kind of threats, it's science speaker and virus hunter Nathan Wolfe. In a recent edition of The National Geographic, Wolfe was asked […]

While memories of being read Sherlock Holmes as a child always seemed to pop up throughout her life, science speaker Maria Konnikova says it wasn't until fairly recently that she re-read the books in their entirety. And when she did, she recalls being “absolutely flabbergasted at how many psychological concepts I recognized in Conan Doyle's […]

In his new book, Drunk Tank Pink, science speaker Adam Alter has uncovered some fascinating findings about how cues in our environment impact our behavior. Since scientists are now able to pinpoint these cues, Malcolm Gladwell asks Alter why we can't identify them as they happen to us. Why aren't we able to tell that […]

“I think the effects of nature on behavior, our cognition, how we feel and think and react to all sorts of stresses, I think those effects are phenomenal, profound, and very powerful,” science speaker Adam Alter told Malcolm Gladwell recently. The two authors, gathered to celebrate Alter's New York Times bestseller Drunk Tank Pink, spoke […]

“The human mind is incredibly averse to uncertainty and ambiguity,” science speaker Maria Konnikova explains in an intriguing new post in The New Yorker. “From an early age, we respond to uncertainty or lack of clarity by spontaneously generating plausible explanations.” We have developed a “Need For Closure,” says Konnikova. Because of our desire to […]

In a talk Janna Levin gave for TVO's Big Ideas Series (embedded above), the science speaker says an idea presented in her book, A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines, still haunts her today and influences the work she does as a mathematical physicist. The book is a cross between science and fiction that chronicles the […]

“The metaphor that I think of for the state of the world at the moment is that we are engaged in a horse race,” science speaker Jared Diamond says in an Earth Day keynote, “a race between the horse of destruction and the horse of sustainability.” This horse-race-as-climate-change metaphor, he explains, is not a normal […]

Prospect Magazine has released its list of World Thinkers 2013—naming four of Lavin's exclusive speakers to the ranks! Rounding out the top 3 was science speaker Steven Pinker for the ideas presented in his latest book, The Better Angels of Our Nature. Also honored on the list was Jared Diamond, James Robinson, and Daron Acemoglu. […]

In Drunk Tank Pink, science speaker Adam Alter lists example after example of unexpected cues in our environment that shape and influence our behavior. He explains that everything from the color of your shirt to the first initial of your name can profoundly influence how you—and others you come into contact with—behave. If these effects […]

Science speaker Adam Alter says Drunk Tank Pink (the name of his new book) is the same hue as “the worst antibiotic you had to take as a kid.” This “bright pinkish, sickening color,” seems to have powerfully positive impacts on those exposed to it. In fact, it has been shown that this particular color […]

Inception, the nearly one billion dollar-grossing blockbuster film from director Christopher Nolan, explores the way our brains perceive time in relation to dreams. While it may not have gotten the facts exactly spot-on, neuroscience speaker David Eagleman still found it to be compelling fodder for further discussion. As the renowned neuroscientist tells Metro, he wanted […]