Recent news from the CERN laboratory in Geneva has revealed the existence of a heavy unstable particle that had been predicted by the theory that unifies two of the forces of nature. This is the last missing piece of ou…

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Steve Weinberg

The nation's space agency has embraced the use of social media to reach out, engaging new audiences in new ways and giving people behind-the-scenes access to areas rarely seen by the public. By using tweets, blog posts a…

Beginner

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John Yembrick, Ron Garan

Space promises enormous opportunities to those who first explore it. Can we all be part of this endeavor? Will you be part of it? With the arrival of the crowd-sourcing and open-source movements, never before have hum…

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Anousheh Ansari, Christopher Gerty, Darlene Damm, Edward Wright

Don't panic: the next big science revolution isn't just for asteroid miners or CERN scientists. Just as science fiction has often shown the way to future inventions, the act of hacking is now generating prototypes that a…

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Ariel Waldman

Once upon a time, our phone, the fridge and TV were distinct devices, manufactured in distinctly different environments. Not anymore. Today, our devices share technologies in an unprecedented manner. We can use our phone…

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Joe Weinman, Karen Bartleson , Oleg Logvinov, Wael Diab

As president of The University of Texas at Austin, Bill Powers has become a thought leader on the role of the research institution in our rapidly transitioning economy. He rejects the notion that large institutions stifl…

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Bill Powers

Everybody is talking about user experience design, but what does experience actually mean? And how can we work with experience in design? Experience is what we do and what we feel, together in a flow. It corresponds to …

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Daniel Rosenberg

Many people think of science as abstract and numerical. But most of science is remarkably visual. Design plays an important role in science communication, but it’s more than just creating pretty pictures. Joe Hanson (bio…

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, Jennifer Jongsma

There is beauty in the brain's electric, neural storm when it knows what you’re doing just isn’t good enough. Yet many people abhor criticism, direct conflict resolution, or a task that truly challenges their brains. Gen…

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Niki Weber

We are aging but are we aging well? There are currently 17,000 nursing homes in America, and the same number of reasons not to move into them. These facilities could be construed as little more than warehouses for the el…

Intermediate

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Hunter Tura, José Colucci, Matthias Hollwich, Sari Gilman

Felice C. Frankel is a research scientist in the Center of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT and a noted science photographer and expert in visual expression of scientific and technical information. She has receiv…

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope will be the most ambitious telescope ever constructed. Hubble’s tennis court-sized successor will be 100 times more powerful and orbit far beyond Earth’s Moon, where it will beam back im…

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Presenters

Alberto Conti, Blake Marie Bullock, Charles Mountain, Jonathan Fay

Joe Weinman will appear at the South by Bookstore to sign copies of “Product Details Cloudonomics, + Website: The Business Value of Cloud Computing” following his panel session. Joe Weinman has been described by IDG as…

Did the human race almost go extinct? Can genetics explain a crazy cat lady’s love for felines? How does DNA lead to people with no fingerprints, or humans born with tails? And how did the right combination of genes crea…

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Presenters

Sam Kean

Wael Diab will appear at the South by Bookstore to sign copies of “Ethernet in the First Mile: Access for Everyone” following his panel session. Wael Diab is the Senior Technical Director, Office of the CTO at Broadcom …

Sam Kean will appear at the South by Bookstore to sign copies of “The Disappearing Spoon” and “The Violinist’s Thumb” following his Featured session. Sam Kean is author of the New York Times bestsellers The Disappearing…

Join Astronaut Ron Garan, Nicholas Skytland, John Yembrick and others from NASA, in the Meet Up Pavilion to socialize and discuss the latest innovations in space technology. Mingle with the pros and exchange stories abou…

A tweet that will live in infamy, "GALE CRATER, I AM IN YOU" heralded a new era of space exploration and conversation between NASA and the general public. As the Curiosity Mars rover touched down on the Red Planet, the …

Beginner

Presenters

Doug Ellison, John Beck, Stephanie Smith, Veronica McGregor

Learn about tomorrow from the experts! Futurists, who play an integral role in today's business world, are invited to brainstorm, deliberate, analyze and above all predict the future in our Meet Up Pavilion.…

What kind of software would you design to support astronauts aboard a space station? Well, in this session, we'll show you. We are two NASA designers who want to share a little about what we do, the situations we design…

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Sam Hashemi, Steve Hillenius

Most of us dream about space exploration - but haven't yet touched those stars ourselves. Can earth science and other open data connect us physically and personally to the exploration of the universe? It could be that th…

Advanced

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, Ali Llewellyn, David McGloin, Jon Rogers

Dr. Richard Garriott de Cayeux is a key member of the commercial spaceflight revolution that is changing how NASA is planning its future in space. Garriott de Cayeux will discuss what the next generation of space vehicle…

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Richard Garriott de Cayeux

Stephen Wolfram has spent his life trying to automate everything; to do with computers what people used to have to do for themselves. What happens when he succeeds? Distinguished scientist, inventor, and best-selling…

Beginner

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Stephen Wolfram

Private space exploration projects have made headlines recently with companies like Space X, Planetary Resources and Virgin Galactic, but the first woman of color in space, Dr. Mae Jemison, has grander ambitions. In 2012…

Intermediate

Presenters

, Benjamin Palmer, Jill Tarter, LeVar Burton

Will we ever understand complex human experiences such as consciousness or emotions? Will there ever be a way to build synthetic brains or brain-like computers? The brain is a network of billions of interconnected cells …

Intermediate

Presenters

Paul Laurienti

Tempers run hot in the tech community anytime you mention the names Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla. At the dawn of the 20th century both men had incredibly accurate predictions for the future and each were talented inven…

Intermediate

Presenters

Stephen Wolfram will appear at the South by Bookstore to sign copies of “New Kind of Science”.…

NASA and various international space agencies have spent an estimated $100 billion on the development and construction of the ISS . The ISS was envisioned as being an on-orbit microgravity laboratory “that will make val…

Intermediate

Presenters

Thomas Pickens

The Pentagon has fast become one of the leading agencies funding -- and conducting -- neuroscience research. From prosthetics for soldiers controlled directly by the brain's signals, to Terminator-like cameras that are c…

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Sharon Weinberger

Supercomputing is for solving BIG problems, and doing so faster than 'regular' collections of servers. Supercomputing is fundamental for scientific advances, and is increasingly being used by companies industries to prod…

Beginning

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Jay Boisseau

With the landing of the space shuttle Atlantis in July of 2011, NASA effectively took itself out of the manned spaceflight game—at least for now. In the months that followed, an array of private companies have filled tha…

Intermediate

Presenters

Jeffrey Kluger, Marsha Ivins, Michael Griffin, Sara Seagar