Anna Leahy, 06/01/12

Director, Tabula Poetica: The Center for Poetry at Chapman University

No matter what the nation decides regarding the future of manned spaceflight, the success of Dragon these past couple of weeks have established that SpaceX will have a role to play in that future.

Matthew Hutson, 06/01/12

Science writer; author, 'The 7 Laws of Magical Thinking'

Scientists who study religion have come to agree that belief in God (or gods) relies on our ability, and propensity, to think about the minds of others. This means that if you are autistic and unable to "mentalize," you would be an atheist. New research provides fresh evidence for this claim.

David Ropeik, 06/01/12

Author, 'How Risky Is It, Really?'

A paper in this week's Nature Climate Change reinforces a really important insight about the limits of our ability to reason and think rationally. Dan Kahan and colleagues demonstrate how greater science literacy leads those who deny climate change to deny it more.

James H. Scully, Jr., M.D., 05/31/12

CEO and Medical Director of the American Psychiatric Association

In a recent piece on The Huffington Post, Allen Frances, M.D., demonstrates either an embarrassing lack of knowledge and understanding of financial reporting or an intentional misrepresentation of facts in his continuing effort to attack the forthcoming DSM-5.

Peter Bjerregaard, 06/01/12

Climate Analyst

Growth. It's not about plant growth, hair growth or growth in quality of life, it's about economic growth. And the kind that is measured in GDP. However, Rio 20 might mark a paradigm shift in the way we measure growth and wealth.

Allen Frances, 05/31/12

Professor Emeritus, Duke University

DSM 5 is in such public trouble now because it heedlessly missed every prior private opportunity to self-correct. The solution is not the production of more PR pablum. Instead, DSM 5 needs to regroup, solve its problems, and avoid racing over a cliff.

Anna Leahy, 05/31/12

Director, Tabula Poetica: The Center for Poetry at Chapman University

James A. Shapiro, 05/31/12

Author, 'Evolution: A View from the 21st Century'; Professor of Microbiology, University of Chicago

In studying and analyzing the computational feats of living organisms, we will learn how networks that are far more sophisticated than our own operate to solve problems.

Rick Tumlinson, 06/01/12

Founder, The EarthLight Institute, Space Frontier Foundation, Orbital Outfitters

Although space exploration began in the U.S.A., what role will Americans play in the space revolution, and will it be with the support of or in spite of our own government? The answers will determine the speed and scale of the most important leap forward in the history of our species.

Andrea J. Liu, 05/31/12

Hepburn professor of physics at the University of Pennsylvania, theoretical soft matter physicist

Can we help T cells, or hinder pathogens or cancer cells, by fiddling with their random walk statistics? With so much that remains to be understood, one thing is clear -- it will take the combined efforts of scientists to answer these questions.

Mark Anderson, 05/31/12

Author, 'The Day the World Discovered the Sun'

On June 5, Venus will pass in front of the sun in the same rare transit that sent men like Chappe, Hell and Cook racing to the ends of the earth and facing off against some of the gravest perils of a candlelit age.

Wray Herbert, 05/31/12

Author, 'On Second Thought: Outsmarting Your Mind's Hard-Wired Habits'

It's one of the paradoxes of human history that religious faith, the wellspring of morality and universal love, is also the source of so much cruelty and injustice, including cold-blooded murder.

Martin Greenwald, 05/30/12

Senior research scientist, MIT

What if there was an inexhaustible form of carbon-free, clean energy that was available 24/7, rain or shine, and was no larger than existing fossil fuel plants? Is that something you might be interested in?

Roberta Michnick Golinkoff and Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, 05/30/12

Students who enter research labs like ours gain a totally different perspective. They soon recognize that even people with Ph.D.s who publish articles in journals with fancy names put their pants on one leg at a time like the rest of us.

James M. Clash, 05/30/12

Adventurer

I caught up with former astronaut Scott Carpenter -- a retired U.S. Navy captain and one of only two original Mercury Seven "right stuff" astronauts still alive (the other is Glenn) -- on the half-century anniversary of his flight.

Richard Garriott de Cayeux, 05/31/12

The first second-generation astronaut

They share the goal to see the expansion of exploration but must acknowledge the new economic and political realities we face. Resistance will not help usher in the sustainable future they desire!

Phil Donahue, 05/31/12

Creator, The Phil Donahue Show

My brain caught fire the moment I first saw a Purple Martin, fluttering like a humming bird, diving like an osprey and performing eye-popping aerial maneuvers beyond the imagination of the world's best ballet dancers. What in the world are they doing up there?