Astrobiologists have been looking for signs of life on Mars since 1976, thus far without success. Now they're pinning hopes on the Mars rover, Curiosity, which is currently analyzing soil samples. Researchers like Elke Rabbow from the German Aerospace Center hope that the results will provide answers to whether Mars might once have supported life. Rabbow says it's possible that simple forms of life might once have existed on Mars, since research back here on Earth has shown that simple microorganisms can survive in extremely inhospitable conditions.

The prevalent view is that abnormal protein deposits in the brain called plaques are the cause of Alzheimer's. Recent research has demonstrated that the story is more complex.Another kind of deposit, known as tangles, evidently plays a role too, and it may be that the interplay of the two contributes to the development of the disease. This discovery opens up the prospect of a new class of drugs to treat this degenerative condition.

Charlie Kennel, Former Scripps Institution of Oceanography directorand chair of the National Academy's Space Science Board, will review what NASA's space program has accomplished, what it is doing now, and what the future holds for human space exploration.

One of the enduring questions of human origins is when, where and how we "Behaviorally Modern Humans" emerged and why and how we eventually replaced all the other human-like species. This series takes a fresh look at the situation today with a critical examination of the available evidence from multiple sources. Ofer Bar-Yosef (Harvard Univ) leads off with a talk about Evidence for the Spread of Modern Humans, followed by Christopher Ehret (UCLA) on Relationships of Ancient African Languages, and Iain Davidson (Univ of New England, Australia) on Stone Tools and Cognition: Lessons from Australia.

One of the enduring questions of human origins is when, where and how we "Behaviorally Modern Humans" emerged and why and how we eventually replaced all the other human-like species. This series takes a fresh look at the situation today with a critical examination of the available evidence from multiple sources. Chris Stringer (Natural History Museum, London) leads off with a talk about the Fossil Record of Anatomically Modern Humans, followed by Michael Hammer (Univ of Arizona) on Interbreeding with Archaic Humans in Africa, and Richard "Ed" Green (UC Santa Cruz) on Interbreeding with Archaic Humans outside Africa.

UC San Diego alumni share their career identities and journeys to building successful businesses. From a chief creative officer to a electrical and computer engineer, the panel's range of experiences provide valuable insights to take your personal startup to the next level, and inspire you to imagine more. This panel is presented by Career Boost Camp 2013, sponsored by UC San Diego.

One of the enduring questions of human origins is when, where and how we "Behaviorally Modern Humans" emerged and why and how we eventually replaced all the other human-like species. This series takes a fresh look at the situation today with a critical examination of the available evidence from multiple sources. Rick Potts (Smithsonian Institution) leads off with a talk about African Climate of the Last 400,000 Years, followed by Alison S. Brooks (George Washington Univ/Smithsonian Institution) on East African Archaeological Evidence, and Lyn Wadley (Univ of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg) on South African Archaeological Evidence.

Rachel Carson's legacy is well known, but what has not been as widely recognized are the challenges she faced as a woman in science 50 years ago. While much has changed in the last five decades, three women active in science today assess the hurdles that remain. Join Dorothy Sears of the UC San Diego School of Medicine, Christina Deckard of the SPAWAR Systems Center and science journalist Lynne Friedmann for an insightful discussion on the landscape for women in science in 2013.

The Protected Resources Division of NOAA's Southwest Fisheries Science Center conducts research on marine mammals and turtles in all oceans of the world. Join Division Director Lisa Ballance as she describes the research and programs that are informing how we can protect and sustain some of our most precious ocean resources.

In the deep sea off Antarctica, marine researchers continue to make remarkable discoveries. Every expedition reveals a just a bit more of this mysterious and vast habitat. Much of what they bring up from the Antarctic Ocean's depths has never been seen before by human eyes. The marine biologists are discovering more and more new species here.

Author and Career Counselor Robin Ryan focuses on turbo charging your career by offering strategies and techniques to promote your personal brand as you pursue more promising and satisfying work. This keynote address is presented as part of the 2013 Career Boost Camp, sponsored by UC San Diego. Reo Carr, Editor in Chief of the San Diego Business Journal, moderates the audience Q&A that follows Ryan's inspirational talk.

Owls hardly make a sound while they fly, and they're extremely efficient as well. Researchers at Aachen Technical University and the German Aerospace Center DLR want to find out what characteristics of owls' wings allow them to fly so well. Using high-speed cameras mounted on dollies and light beams, they're recording and registering the movements and geometry of owls' wings. The goal is to uncover the secret of how owls generate lift at low speeds. That would allow engineers to develop better wings for airplanes and rotor blades for wind turbines.

Authors Jonathan Lethem and Kim Stanley Robinson engage in a thoughtful conversation on the literary imagination with visual artist and computer scientist Sheldon Brown. This event marks the opening of the Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination at UC San Diego.

German painter and sculptor Georg Baselitz is one of the leading artists of his generation, widely known for standing his figures on their heads. Many of them reflect aspects of German history. These days, he lives quietly. But he agreed to let a film maker observe him for several years in his studio, as he created his works, and join in the family life of a world-famous artist.

Interviews with UCLA Bruin coaches, student-athletes and staff.

Actor and activist Richard Dreyfuss presents the Dreyfuss Initiative, a national campaign to improve how civics are taught in schools so that American children will understand democracy before they are called upon to run the country. Dreyfuss is the featured guest of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at UC San Diego.

NASA Mars Science Laboratory team geologist Dawn Sumner gives us a tour of the Curiosity rover and the instruments the probe carried to the red planet. An array of cameras, lasers and drills will conduct experiments to determine the composition of the planet's rocks.

Implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) are small devices making big changes in the lives of patients at risk for sudden cardiac death. Dr. Ulrika Birgersdotter-Green joins our host Dr. David Granet to explain the impact of ICDs on the heart's electrical system, the ins and outs of living with your ICD, and lowering the risk for sudden cardiac death.

The members of The Refugees come from Afghanistan and Africa, and are waiting for permission to stay in Germany permanently. They're also talented musicians who are touring Germany with a mix of dub, reggae, hip-hop and Balkan beats. They need special permission from the authorities for every single performance.

One "window of susceptibility" that may represent periods of particular vulnerability to specific chemical, dietary, or psychosocial stresses that influence breast cancer risk is menopause. Speakers in this session are: Marcia Stefanick, and Mary Beth Terry and Marj Plumb.

James Kugel, director of the Institute for the History of the Jewish Bible at Bar Ilan University, argues that the Hebrew Bible was, from the beginning, the Interpreted Bible. In the third and second centuries B.C.E. - well before the last books of the Bible were written - groups of interpreters were puzzling over the stories of Abraham and Sarah, Jacob and Esau, and other ancient figures. Their interpretations were often fanciful, and sometimes wildly inventive, but their grasp of the very idea of the Bible is still with us and continues to influence today's readers.

Host Peter Cowhey of UC San Diego leads an enlightening discussion with Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs, Vizio CEO Willliam Wang, former Gateway CEO Ted Waitt and journalist James Fallows on strategies to bring manufacturing jobs to the United States while keeping their companies competitive in the global marketplace. The program is presented by The Atlantic Meets the Pacific, CONNECT and the School of International Relations and Pacific Studies at UC San Diego.

Robert Brandom, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh, argues that genealogies (Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Foucault) present the revenge of naturalism on rationalism. Hegel teaches us how to replace the genealogical hermeneutics of suspicion with a hermeneutics of magnanimity that allows us to see naturalism and rationalism as complementing rather than competing with one another.

More than any other lawyer in the country, Paul Hoffman is responsible for turning an obscure 1789 law called the Alien Tort Statute into a potent weapon. Under the ATS, Hoffman has, on behalf of the tortured, successfully sued foreign nationals, as well as corporations, in U.S. federal courts for acts committed abroad. In March 2013, UC Hastings law professor Naomi Roht-Arriaza interviewed Hoffman in San Francisco.

Interviews with UCLA Bruin coaches, student-athletes and staff.

Host Harry Kreisler welcomes Rory Stewart, Member of the British Parliament,for a discussion of his remarkable odyssey. Reflecting on his background and drawing on his work as a diplomat, soldier, explorer, provincial governor, policy advisor, university research fellow, director of an NGO, and parliamentarian, he describes what he has learned from these multiple experiences. Analyzing the failure of intervention by the West in Iraq and Afghanistan, he focuses on the contradictions between the abstract theories that guide Western policy and the social structures, the geography and history that define the realities of the people and places of Afghanistan and Iraq His conversation concludes with advice for students on preparing the future in an uncertain world.

Dr. Jay Levyan, an AIDS and cancer researcher at UCSF, discusses the discovery of HIV and its basic science. Then, Dr. C. Bradley Hare, Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine and Medical Director, UCSF HIV/AIDS Division at San Francisco General Hospital, explores HIV and its diseases through case presentations from the clinic.

Vince Battaglia leads a behind-the-scenes tour of Berkeley Lab's BATT, the Batteries for Advanced Transportation Technologies Program he leads, where researchers aim to improve batteries upon which the range, efficiency, and power of tomorrow's electric cars will depend. This is the first in a forthcoming series of videos taking viewers into the laboratories and research facilities that members of the public rarely get to see.

Mario D. Garrett, PhD discusses the scientific revolution currently happening in dementia studies, dementia errors that impact research, and the importance of social interaction for patients with demntia.

The hill near the town of Ascona in Switzerland is something of a legend. In the early twentieth century, Monte Verità - or the Hill of Truth - became a center for utopian radicals of all sorts, including anarchists, strict vegetarians, mystics and sexual revolutionaries. Now a literature festival aims to revive this legacy.

Join geophysicist Michael Hedlin as he describes how the exciting new field of atmospheric acoustics is allowing researchers to listen to Earth as never before. Discover how researchers tune into sounds in the atmosphere to learn more about dynamic Earth processes-from earthquakes and volcanic eruptions to meteorite impacts. You'll be surprised at what you can hear when you know how to listen!

Forty years ago, Dr. Joel Dimsdale started researching concentration camp survivors. Little did he know where his journey of discovery would lead him. After a visit from a Nuremberg executioner, he switched from studying victims to perpetrators. His latest research is based on an analysis of Rorschach inkblot tests administered at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial. Using extensive archival data, Dimsdale reviews what the Nuremberg Rorschachs can (and cannot) tell us about the Nazi mass murderers.

Domestic dogs, Canis familiaris, have insinuated themselves into our society and imagination: long present in our art and narratives, they are now ubiquitous in American homes. Alexandra Horowitz, Branard College, Columbia University, discusses the dog's historical and contemporary role, attributions typically made to dogs, and an alternative empirical approach to considering dogs.

California Health and Human Services Secretary Diana Dooley discusses the Governor√s Let's Get Healthy California Task Force, which she cochaired. The task force was charged with developing a 10-year plan to make Californians healthier. Dooley speaks about the task force√s report and its framework for assessing Californians' health across the lifespan.

Host Harry Kreisler welcomes William Cronon, Research Professor of History, Geography, and Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin, for a discussion of the challenges of historical scholarship. Reflecting on his formative experiences, Cronon, a former President of the American Historical Association, discusses the influence of his parents, his education, and the culture and environment of Wisconsin. He analyzes the essential features of a liberal arts education, the importance of storytelling in history, the implications of the digital revolution for research and teaching, and the contribution of environmental history to the environmental movement. He concludes with advice to students as they prepare for the future.

Elysa Marco, Nina Dronkers and Maya Henry explore how brains communicate, and how that changes with autism, dyslexia and aphasia.

Award winning writer and poet C. S. Giscombe has written many poems, books, and plays. He was the 2010 recipient of the Stephen Henderson Award given by the African American Literature and Culture Society. His poetry book Prairie Style won a 2008 American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. Two of his recent plays (Lycanthropes/ Entre Chien et Loup and Lycanthropes/ Loup-Garou!) have been produced in San Francisco. Back Burner, a collection of essays about poetry, color, transportation, cooking, etc., will be published in 2013. He teaches at the University of California, Berkeley.

Composed by Anthony Davis with a libretto by playwright Allan Havis, "Lear on the 2nd Floor" is a contemporary take on Shakespeare's "King Lear." It tells the story of Nora Lear, a neuroscience researcher suffering from early-onset Alzheimer's. As Nora loses her bearings and autonomy, she is increasingly at the mercy of her three quarreling daughters. In this version, Nora's dead husband Mortimer is Shakespeare's fool and her constant companion, as she wanders through a world where past and present blend and reality bends. Davis's music incorporates diverse styles and influences, ranging from classical opera to jazz to reggae.

In this video, Berkeley Lab astrophysicists and Nobel laureates, George Smoot and Saul Perlmutter -- joined by Berkeley Lab physicist Eric Linder and UC anthropologist Gerardo Aldana -- explore the cultural and scientific connections between Mayan astronomers and modern cosmologists as they look to the skies for answers to how the universe evolved, how it might end, and our place in it. The fundamental human curiosity about our origins and fate, a quest that persists across time and cultures, has been enriched by recent discoveries about dark energy, the Big Bang, and the accelerating universe. New knowledge has only increased our sense of wonder about the cosmos and deepened our appreciation for what the Mayans achieved using only the naked eye.

Like all cities, Hamburg has its troubled districts. One of them is Wilhelmsburg, located directly across from the trendy new Hafencity development. Once a traditional working-class area, it's now home to many ethnic minorities. This part of Hamburg is now to be massively upgraded. The urban renewal venture is part of the International Building Exhibition project (IBA).

The Polarstern research vessel is underway in the Antarctic. One of the tasks scientists on it are carrying out is a whale census. Until now, there has been little reliable data on how many of these marine animals there are. Counts have been done on the open seas, but not in the polar sea between the ice floes. From a helicopter, the researchers on the research voyage have the opportunity to discover whales several meters below the ice. They record not only the number of whales sighted, but also the water depth and distance from the coast. Later this information will be used to create a mathematical model that should help estimate the whale population.

Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes Professor Alexandra Horowitz for a discussion of her book, Inside of a Dog. Professor Horowitz discusses her formative experiences, her interest in cognition in animals, and what led her to focus on dogs. In her analysis, understanding dogs requires consideration of wolf ancestry, cognitive skills and anatomy, and the ways in which dogs interact with humans and how that interaction has affected their evolution.

A panel of experts analyzes President Obama's re-election victory, and the prospects for his second term in the White House. The President won a clear but narrow victory, carrying fewer states and receiving a lower share of the popular vote than he did in 2008. At the same time, voters stuck with the status quo in Congress -- a Republican House and a Democratic Senate. So was the election a mandate for the President or merely a rejection of Republican nominee Mitt Romney? In either case, what should we expect from the second Obama Administration? Will it be more of the same, or a changed style of leadership? How much of the President's agenda is tied to the economy? What about foreign policy events over which the President has no control? Join us for this discussion that look backs at the election of 2012 and ahead to the next four years.

Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel, the vice provost for global initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania and the founding chair of the Department of Bioethics at the National Institutes of Health, addresses the ethical dilemmas posed by setting global health priorities, and the tough choices policymakers need to confront. He highlights some of the world's most pressing public health challenges and assesses some approaches that can be taken to promote health in developing nations.

Could simple worms help unravel complex human brains? Dr. Aimee Kao, Dr. Dena Dubal and Jennifer Yokoyama explore the role genes play in the brain.

Cathy Park Hong's first book, Translating Mo'um, was published in 2002 by Hanging Loose Press. Dance Dance Revolution, her second collection, received the Barnard Women Poets Prize. Her third and most recent book of poems, Engine Empire, was published in May, 2012. Hong is also the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. She lives in Brooklyn and is an Associate Professor at Sarah Lawrence College.