About This Episode

On November 27th, 2012, StarTalk Live brought a little science to the world of dollars and cents at the Business Insider IGNITION conference. Now you’re invited to hear astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, comic co-host Eugene Mirman and guest futurists Jason Silva and Melissa Sterry answer questions that lie at the intersection of technology, human biology and urban planning. Will bio-ware and nanotechnology allow humans to reprogram our biology? Can smart-materials, adaptive structures and sensor nets help city planners and policy makers create smart cities that adapt to environmental change the way forests do? Are we really approaching a “technological singularity” of emerging super-intelligence beyond which events cannot be predicted – and has humanity actually experienced one before?

NOTE: All-Access subscribers can listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: StarTalk Live: Building the Future.

Music:

The Future is Now, The Offspring

Reach for the Stars, Will.i.am

Bionic, Christina Aguilera

Travellin Man, Mos Def

This City, Patrick Stump, featuring Lupe Fiasco

Empire State of Mind, Alicia Keys and JayZ

Eve of Destruction, Screaming Jets (cover)

Orbital, Impact (The Earth is Burning)

Changing, The Airborne Toxic Event