In the first half, Elaine LaLanne, wife of Jack LaLanne, joined Connie Willis (info) to discuss her life before, during, and after her marriage to the late fitness icon. She told the story of her own entry into show business in San Francisco, when Les Malloy, a local radio personality, asked her to produce a new television show he was working on. Soon she met Jack, they were married, and the two enjoyed a partnership that lasted until his death in 2011. There were no "favorite moments" together, LeLanne explained, because every moment was the best it could be.
Relentlessly intelligent, confident, and positive, Jack embodied a healthy lifestyle, LaLanne recounted. Never enamored of his celebrity status, he was down-to-earth and practical. And although he focused on physical fitness and proper diet in his professional life, Jack always emphasized the value of developing one's mind and character.
LaLanne now ninety-seven, also offered her insights on aging. "Never think you're over the hill," she advised. "Each stage [of life] is a wonderful stage." She cited her foray into writing, which didn't begin until she was sixty, as an example of what refusing to accept age as a limitation can lead to.
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In the latter half, senior fellow at the Institute for Global Futures Charles Ostman talked about nanotechnology as a core catalyst for accelerating next stage evolution. Although we may not be aware of it, nanotechnology, which involves components at the atomic level, touches (or will touch) numerous processes and products we encounter every day. Current medical research, for example, attempts to find ways to control virus and disease cells by mimicking the way cells currently operate, only they're designed to destroy, not perpetrate, the problem organisms.
Ostman explained that although a key feature of nanotechnology is its minuscule size, it's just as important to understand its complexity. While the traditional measure of technological development has been Moore's Law, he went on, nanotechnology is so far advanced that Moore's Law is almost irrelevant at this point. Moreover, nanotechnology doesn't just do things faster; it utilizes a completely different way to compute, opening up broad horizons for technology, medicine, manufacturing, and telecommunications. See related images.