Launching on Kickstarter last week, Soma is a new company out of San Francisco that aims to make Brita and other plastic water filters obsolete with their radical new design and 100 percent compostable filter.

Historically, Soma was a mystical drink able to help warriors overcome their fears...

Rockdrive began four years ago with the vision of creating a philanthropic concert series that was a bit different. Unlike the highly publicized, how-big-can-we-go charity concerts that we're used to hearing about every so often, typically benefitting communities that are continents away or noble, but intangibly long-term issues like global...

The internationally-focused TEDGlobal recently wrapped a fantastic week of stimulation and inspiration, centered around the theme of Radical Openness. Hosted and curated by Bruno Giussani, the European Director of TED, the international non-profit dedicated to "Ideas Worth Spreading." TEDGlobal is the TED Conference's flagship event with a global focus, weighing...

Seventy years ago, Abraham Maslow proposed the idea that human beings have a set of fundamental needs which must be met in order to unlock the full spectrum of one's intellectual abilities. The most basic of which are what you'd expect: food, water, safety, security, non-celibacy, etc. Moving...

A recent Rick Perry campaign video was so skewed in its ideology that it got me thinking about one of my favorite topics: evolution. Specifically, a concept called island gigantism. Island gigantism is a biological phenomenon in which the physical size of animals isolated on an island increases...

I had the recent pleasure of attending TEDYouth, the first-ever TED event for young people. Coinciding with more than 100 self-organized TEDxYouthDay events happening worldwide over a 48-hour period, the theme for the day was "Play, Learn, Build, and Share". For those who don't know, I happen to...

We're hard-wired to have a physiological response to the actions observed in others, but are our psychological states mirrored in the outside world, as well? On a macro scale, the functioning of countries may seem far more spectacular than our own inner workings, but, scale aside, may not...

The first line of C.S. Lewis' A Grief Observed, a collection of stream-of-consciousness reflections on the experience of bereavement following the death of his wife, is, "No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear." He goes on: "I am not afraid, but the sensation is...

As if the development and implications of Watson weren't enough to win our affections for IBM, their new THINK exhibit at Lincoln Center may do the trick. It. Is. Awesome. I recently got to experience this fully-immersive ode to the collision of art and...

Videos on the Internet really run the gamut, don't they? Short-form to long-form, LOLCats to TED Talks. My favorite clips to share, like the pinnacle of any art form, inspire their audience to a greater vision of life -- a vision of what's possible that they might not...

I don't claim to have a 30,000-foot view of the current state of the healthcare system -- I am neither a medical doctor nor a politician. I do have a greater-than-average interest in both fields, read often, and pursue -- however informally -- an education in science and technology every...

The annual TED Conference just wrapped up for 2011 and, having attended, I couldn't help but think of its striking similarity to a certain other annual gathering of "wonder junkies." Columnist Mark Morford once wrote: "It's the feeling of being outside yourself, of knowing and not...

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."—Margaret Mead

Rockdrive began in 2008 with a show that I was playing at a small rock club on the Sunset Strip. A last minute gig in the...

This weekend, in Washington, DC, a couple of my friends pulled off the seemingly impossible. Seven guys, all in their twenties -- none of which with permanent mailing addresses, and all of whom affectionately refer to each other as samurais -- staged a 750-people-plus, invitation-only gathering attended by the world's...

For those who don't know of TED, it is a curatorial organization that brings together the brightest minds in technology, entertainment and design, and bestows upon them an annually occurring safe-haven to incubate big ideas amongst like-minded idealists. Since the TED conference is of limited engagement -- and a fairly...

We recently had the privilege to interview William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer, the co-authors of The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind. When Kamkwamba was a 14 year old growing up in Malawi, he spent much of his time in salvage yards, using what most people would consider "junk" to create...

Jason and I stopped in to visit Douglas Caballero on Current Exposed to fill him in on our favorite charity causes and non-profits that need your help -- despite the economic downturn.

We are Jason Silva and Max Lugavere, hosts and producers for Current TV, the Emmy-winning international cable network co-founded by Al Gore and Joel Hyatt.

What has always excited us about Current is its call for audience participation and engagement. Finally, a platform for meaningful exchange, existing on television, taking...