Dr. CAROLE BALDWIN

Dr. Carole Baldwin is a well-respected authority on marine biology, especially tropical-marine and deep-sea fishes. Her face will be familiar to any of you who have seen the Smithsonian 3-D IMAX film, Galapagos, for which she was a scientific advisor and on-air talent.

WADE DAVIS

Wade Davis is an Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society. He holds degrees in anthropology and biology and received his Ph.D. in ethnobotany, all from Harvard University. Mostly through the Harvard Botanical Museum, he spent over three years in the Amazon and Andes as a plant explorer, living among fifteen indigenous groups in eight Latin American nations while making some 6000 botanical collections.

His work later took him to Haiti to investigate folk preparations implicated in the creation of zombies, an assignment that led to his writing Passage of Darkness (1988) and The Serpent and the Rainbow (1986), an international best seller which appeared in ten languages and was later released by Universal as a motion picture.

MYTHBUSTERS

MythBusters, The Discovery Channel's quirky new science and technology series, takes a light-hearted look at modern misconceptions and the bizarre claims of Urban Legends. However this series doesn’t just retell the stories… it puts them to the test! Meet the hosts, Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman, as they use every trick in the book to design and execute their experiments.

JOE SIMPSON: TOUCHING THE VOID

Joe Simpson’s presentation, "Touching the Void," has become one of the all time classics of mountaineering, hailed as an account of psychological, even philosophical witness of the rarest compulsion.

It is a tale of two men thrown into a nightmare of terrifying life and death choices and heartbreaking decisions. It is about agony and terror, courage and weakness. It tells of trust and friendship tested to the very limits of human endurance.

ROBERT ZUBRIN, PH.D.

Mars Direct: Humans to the Red Planet within a Decade
While many have said that such an endeavor would be excessively costly and take many decades, a small team at Martin Marietta drew up a daring and cost-effective plan to send a group of American astronauts to Mars within ten years. The plan, known as Mars Direct, has attracted international attention and broad controversy. Dr. Robert Zubrin, principal author of the Mars Direct plan, is a former a Staff Engineer at Lockheed Martin Astronautics and the founder of the international organization The Mars Society.

DAVID MAGNUS, PH.D.

Cloning, GMOs, and Stem Cell Research
The 21st century has been called  the Biotech CenturyØ and we have already witnessed the birth of many technologies with the power to transform society. Genetic testing raises a host of issues, from threats to privacy to the potential for a new eugenics movement. Join a frontrunner in biotechnology research as he breaks down this heavily debated frontier of science.

MICHAEL SHERMER, PH.D.

- Why People Believe Weird Things
- The Science of Good and Evil
- Does God Exist? A Debate with Dr. Doug Geivett
Ever wonder why people believe in UFO abductions, mind-reading, reincarnation, urban legends, not to mention "scientific creationism" and the pernicious myth that the Holocaust never happened? Where do we get our system of beliefs? If we evolved by natural forces then what was the natural purpose of morality? Did God create man or did man create God? Dr. Michael Shermer, the Founding Publisher of Skeptic magazine, is a genuine ghost-buster, a relentless crusader against superstition and pseudoscience.

JONATHAN WATERMAN

Adventure in Alaskan Wilderness and Arctic Culture
Jonathan Waterman is internationally renowned for his Northern adventures, and for his award-winning books and films-replete with breath-taking photography and candid narratives. His seventy-minute programs include slides and video, gorgeous detail in an already spellbinding presentation.

DR. MICHAEL J. BALICK

Between Plants and People
Dr. Michael J. Balick is one of the world’s most prominent ethnobotanists, a little known branch of biological science whose practitioners study the relationship between plants and people. Nowhere is that relationship more apparent than in the world’s indigenous cultures inhabiting some of the most remote and beautiful regions of the tropics—and these are the areas Dr. Balick calls his “laboratory.”

GERRY ELLIS

Acclaimed nature photojournalist Gerry Ellis presents Wild Orphans: Sharing the Earth, a visual presentation that propels audiences into the world of wildlife beyond nature TV and glossy magazines. This unique show speaks to audiences about environmental destruction and conservation through the lives of baby animals caught on the edge of survival. Over two years in the making, it is a heart-rending follow-up to his Earth 2000 program.