Our guest on this episode of Stanford Engineering's The Future of Everything podcast, Elaine Treharne , is an English professor and an authority on ancient manuscripts. She's using modern tools like machine learning to unlock the secrets hidden inside these aged pages. Despite frequent predictions of the demise of physical writing, she says, books will never go away. Physical writing, she believes, is a perfectly human manifestation of our humanity—an effort by transient beings to create somethi...
Nov 04, 2022•31 min•Ep. 201
On this episode of Stanford Engineering's The Future of Everything podcast, robotics expert Oussama Khatib takes us on a deep dive into the vagaries of creating robots that swim. His most recent project is OceanOneK, a 200-pound, humanoid robot with stereoscopic vision and opposable thumbs that can travel nearly a thousand meters below the surface. When the pressure was on, Khatib had to redesign everything he thought he knew about robots, he says, beginning with a new glass-like shell good to 6...
Oct 28, 2022•30 min•Ep. 200
On this episode of Stanford Engineering's The Future of Everything podcast, Stanford infectious disease expert Desiree LaBeaud talks trash, literally. She says carelessly discarded plastics can collect water, providing a perfect nursery to mosquitoes that then spread dengue, chikungunya, Zika, yellow fever and other killer diseases worldwide. Plastic trash has become a public health nightmare as LaBeaud tells host Russ Altman and listeners of The Future of Everything. Reducing it is now a critic...
Oct 21, 2022•29 min•Ep. 198
Civil and environmental engineer Alexandria Boehm joins Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast to discuss how a new form of epidemiology is using the tools of engineering to test wastewater to track COVID-19’s true spread. The wastewater that enters a treatment facility is really just one big biological sample, Boehm says. Testing it is far more accurate than COVID-19 case data, and it is useful for tracking other diseases in our communities, as well. Listen in to this episode o...
Oct 14, 2022•29 min•Ep. 199
On this episode of Stanford Engineering's The Future of Everything podcast, Stanford bioengineer Jan Liphardt talks about the challenge of getting good medical recommendations and diagnoses while guaranteeing that a patient's health secrets remain private. Computing on encrypted data is the way, he says. Tune in as health data expert Liphardt and host Russ Altman discuss the future of health privacy. Connect With Us: Episode Transcripts >>> The Future of Everything Website Connect with ...
Oct 07, 2022•28 min•Ep. 197
Stanford pediatrics professor Anisha Patel tells us how engaging a local community about their health concerns can lead to impactful discoveries and interventions. She recounts how a visit to a middle school helped her team realize that simple access to drinking water was a problem in schools across the nation. Patel also shares how similar interactions during the COVID pandemic created a system of free lunches at public schools that helped ensure food security for children throughout the countr...
Sep 20, 2022•27 min•Ep. 196
To better understand the inner workings of glacier — which are often many kilometers in depth — researchers are using ice-penetrating radar, which sends radio waves through the ice, to create maps of what it looks like inside. In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything, Stanford radio glaciologist Dustin (Dusty) Schroeder explains how this technique works and how the data it generates can help us understand the implications of climate change here on Earth. Together with h...
Sep 19, 2022•28 min•Ep. 194
When we think of synchrony, we often think of positive things, like ice skaters gliding in tandem. But if there’s too much synchrony in the brain – when neurons fire simultaneously – it can be a problem. In fact, abnormal neural synchrony underlies many neurological conditions, including Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy, and dystonia. In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything, Stanford professor of neurosurgery Peter Tass joins host, Stanford bioengineer Russ Altman , to di...
Sep 07, 2022•28 min•Ep. 195
Primary care medicine represents 52% of all care delivered in the United States, but when it comes to AI innovation, it’s been largely left behind. In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything, Stanford physician Steven Lin , explains how AI could improve healthcare logistics, optimize patient care, and significantly lower costs by reducing the clerical burdens that cost the U.S. healthcare system billions of dollars a year and keep physicians from spending more time with t...
Aug 18, 2022•28 min•Ep. 193
Take a look around your neighborhood and you’ll see a few things you like -- and, most likely, a few you don’t. Maybe you need a crosswalk near the senior home. Or garbage keeps getting dumped on the sidewalk. Now imagine if you and others in your community could document what you saw, collect those data, identify and agree on issues to prioritize, and then find feasible solutions for them? In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything, Stanford faculty member Abby King , pr...
Aug 16, 2022•28 min•Ep. 191
Algorithms inform the news you read, the TV shows you watch, and the advertisements that appear on your internet searches – and they also have a say in who gets a bank loan, what medical procedures are covered by insurance, and who gets selected for a job interview. As algorithms are used to make these decisions, how do we make sure they’re fair? And what does fairness even mean? In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything , computer science professor Omer Reingold explain...
Aug 08, 2022•28 min•Ep. 192
Unfortunately, not every medical procedure is 100% successful. Due to the complexity of breast cancer lumpectomies, for instance, 16–25% of surgeries fail to remove the entire tumor, requiring patients to repeat the procedure. But to improve surgery success rates, and their efficiency, physicians are now looking to technologies from a surprising source: the gaming industry. In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything , Bruce Daniel , a professor of radiology, explains how ...
Jul 25, 2022•27 min•Ep. 190
Since they were invented more than a century ago, airplanes have gone from carrying a single person to ferrying many hundreds of people and several tons of cargo. Despite the increase in size and capacity, commercial aircraft have actually become quieter over the past several decades, thanks to a few key design changes informed by fluid mechanics, a branch of physics that studies fluids in motion. In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything, Sanjiva Lele , a professor of a...
Jul 18, 2022•28 min•Ep. 189
Data shows that greater gender diversity on company leadership groups leads to improved business outcomes, says Stanford cardiologist Hannah Valantine. Likewise, she says, in medical research, where diversity boosts the development of new technologies. In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything , Valantine, the former inaugural chief officer for scientific workforce diversity at the National Institutes of Health, as well as a senior investigator at the National Heart, Lun...
Jul 18, 2022•28 min•Ep. 188
In our deeply polarized society, the prospect of holding thoughtful discussions on policy issues seems impossible. But it doesn’t have to be. In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything, James Fishkin , a professor of communication at Stanford, describes the deliberative polling model, a system of structured and moderated small group discussions that can help bring people together and bridge differences in perspective on even some of the most politically fraught issues. To...
Jun 24, 2022•28 min•Ep. 187
Many of the lies, distortions, and pieces of disinformation online are easy to spot. But as technology advances it will become harder to tell the difference between video and images that are true and accurate and those that are manipulated or outright made up. In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything, Jonathan Dotan , of Stanford’s Starling Lab for Data Integrity, and host, bioengineer Russ Altman , discuss what researchers are doing to keep ahead of advances in deep fa...
Jun 17, 2022•28 min•Ep. 186
Physicians diagnose Alzheimer’s disease with tests that measure memory loss and behavioral change. But many years before these symptoms appear, the disease is changing the brain, leading to the buildup of misfolded proteins and brain shrinkage that cause cognitive decline. In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything, Stanford mechanical engineer Ellen Kuhl explains how she’s using databases of brain images of both Alzheimer’s patients and healthy individuals to create comp...
Jun 14, 2022•27 min•Ep. 184
Humans have been trying to predict when earthquakes will happen for centuries, with little success, by developing earthquake detectors and by wondering if unusual animal behavior could be a sign of an incoming temblor. In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything, Eric Dunham , a geophysicist at Stanford University, explains that while we’re still unable to predict when earthquakes will happen, advanced computers and new sensors on the seafloor are pushing the field of natu...
Jun 14, 2022•27 min•Ep. 185
Computer chips are everywhere: your cellphone, your car, even your refrigerator. And they’re essential to enabling advances in artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, and faster and better computers -- and to solving global challenges such as climate change. The omnipresence of this foundational technology has been growing for decades, but the pandemic accelerated the digital transformation of society, significantly increasing the demand for more and better chips. In this episode of Stanfo...
May 25, 2022•27 min•Ep. 183
Search online and you’ll find lists of all the skills entrepreneurs should have - among them are imagination, creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship. But are entrepreneurs born with these relevant skills, or can they be taught? In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything, Tina Seelig , professor of the practice in the Department of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford, explains the differences between imagination, creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship, an...
May 25, 2022•27 min•Ep. 182
The consequences of climate change have already been devastating: wildfires, drought, coastal flooding, and increased temperatures, among them. And there are massive economic, societal, and geopolitical and security costs as well. It's no wonder that many people may feel the situation at this point is hopeless. But in this episode of the Future of Everything, Stanford’s Chris Field tells host and bioengineer Russ Altman that the world has made more progress than we might have expected a decade a...
May 17, 2022•28 min•Ep. 181
The vast majority of substances are neither liquid, solid, nor gas – but an alternative form that shares characteristics of liquids and gases. Among them are gels, glasses, and colloidal suspensions, and they’re an essential part of everyday products like toothpaste, paint, hair products, and even windows. Stanford chemical engineer Roseanna Zia is an expert on the gel-like substance known as colloids. In this episode of Stanford Engineering's The Future of Everything, Zia joins host Russ Altman...
May 05, 2022•28 min•Ep. 180
Conducting a surgery is one of the most complex tasks an individual can do — but how do you recognize the difference between the highly skilled surgeons performing at the top of their game and those still honing their techniques? With the help of wearable sensors, motion tracking and video, physicians can now watch surgeons in action, quantify their movements, and determine how highly skilled physicians accomplish the unique choreography of surgery. In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The ...
Apr 15, 2022•27 min•Ep. 178
Are U.S. adults happy? Sad? Depressed? One can answer these questions by calling thousands of people and surveying their psychological state, a strategy that’s both costly and time-consuming. But with the help of machine learning and artificial intelligence, you can also measure a population’s well-being by turning to social media platforms and tracking what millions of people are talking about. In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything, computational social scientist Jo...
Apr 07, 2022•27 min•Ep. 179
Start an email with “I hope” and before you can type the next word, the program will suggest you complete it with “all is well.” You may not have realized it, but this is AI-generated text. In the past several years, this technology has advanced beyond completing sentences in emails: It can now respond to others’ emails, and write essays, hip-hop songs, public health messages, and much more. What’s more, it can sometimes be even more effective than humans at conveying certain messages. In this e...
Apr 04, 2022•28 min•Ep. 177
The world has made remarkable gains in pediatric medicine and public health over the past several generations. The average American child of the 21st century has access to clean water and milk, fully functioning sewage systems, and antibiotics, vaccines, and other medicines. Result: Child mortality rates have declined dramatically over the past century. At the same time, a widening income gap in the United States has led to vastly different prevalence rates for health conditions between low- and...
Mar 23, 2022•28 min•Ep. 176
It may not be immediately obvious, but there are huge financial, environmental and security costs associated with storing all the selfies, videos, documents and other digital assets the world is generating. One way to address this issue is by developing better compression algorithms that can represent the data more succinctly. Another is by creating new ways of storing the information itself, including, potentially, within biological molecules. In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Futur...
Mar 13, 2022•28 min•Ep. 175
Children have an amazing capacity for healing after injury. Break a leg, the bone grows back; cut a finger, the skin heals. But as we age, most tissues no longer heal easily, and tissue loss is unavoidable due to aging, degenerative diseases such as arthritis, and cancer. In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything, Fan Yang and host and fellow bioengineer Russ Altman, discuss how biomaterials created in a lab can be injected into wound sites to enable tissue regeneration ...
Mar 12, 2022•27 min•Ep. 174
You might not realize it, but AI-driven systems are integrated into virtually every aspect of our lives. But how can we be certain the values AI systems are striving for reflect what we want for ourselves and for society? And how can scientists and engineers do a better job of increasing people’s trust in AI? Stanford computer scientist Carlos Guestrin is a leading voice on how to advance and implement a more trustworthy AI. Learn about his work in this area, and his particular interest in AI an...
Feb 22, 2022•28 min•Ep. 172
Anyone who’s ever been to a hospital knows that the healthcare system is extremely complex. Every patient has their own challenges – and they will typically see multiple physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and other healthcare practitioners, and come into contact with a slew of medical technologies, protocols, and billing and insurance systems. Sara Singer, a Stanford professor of medicine, is an expert on integrated care – the development of tools, technologies, and processes designed to improve t...
Feb 18, 2022•28 min•Ep. 173
