Technology journalist Douglas Mulhall, the guest in hours 2-4, is a sustainable development specialist with years of experience developing adaptive technologies internationally. He describes the exponential changes that may be wrought by nanotechnology and robotic revolutions. Nanotechnology, he suggests, will be the building block of the future of technology. The term nanotechnology has been misused at times, he noted. It's the science and art of manipulating atoms at the scale of one billionth of a meter. The challenge is how to actually make and move these things around.
They are in some ways rearranging atomic structure, Mulhall explains. Scientists have discovered a nano-size bacteria that is smaller than most viruses – it is one of the only known pathogens to make calcium to disguise itself. The two discuss the possibility that nanotechnology might help us reach closer to immortality and how machines might be the next step in human evolution. Perhaps it's already happening with our personal technology, as we slowly become cyborgs.
In the first hour, Linda Moulton Howe reported on findings of a possible vast underwater complex near Cuba, and an ancient meteorite that may have destroyed an ancient civilization.