The Newsmaker Hour

The World Affairs Council began the new year by welcoming Director General Daniel T.C. Liao to speak at their January 10th event. As the current Director General of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Houston, Mr. Liao spoke about Taiwan's current role in the global community.

Take a special look at women living in the Arab/Muslim world of the 21st century in this presentation on gender in the Middle East.  Dr. Jen'nan Read is a tenured professor of sociology at Duke University and serves as associate director for special initiatives at the Duke Islamic Studies Center.

Read is also a Carnegie Scholar whose research focuses on how culture and religion shape the assimilation experiences of Arab Americans and Muslim Americans, including issues of women's employment, immigrant health, and political integration.

Carlos Francisco Jackson, professor of chicana/o studies at the University of California-Davis, and George Vargas, professor of art history at Texas A & M University-Kingsville, discussed the meaning of the term "Chicano" in 2012. Ricardo Romo, President, The University of Texas at San Antonio, moderated the conversation.

What is the current status of teleportation, faster than light phenomena, and gravitational shielding? Quantum teleportation, lightning effects such as “Elves”, and levitating frogs have all been in the news, and are effects that are actually observed. They are also related to the ideas that make such science fiction series as Star Trek work. But are the observed effects really related to their science fiction counterparts, or is this all just smart marketing? And what is the current status of the research? The answers are perhaps even more surprising than the fiction.

*This Lecture Aired on KSTX's The Newsmaker Hour November 18th 2012.

Pulitzer Prize nominee Steven Kotler wants to push your perceived limitations. Telling an audience of St. Mary's University Students and community members on October 31st, 2012, that the future is brighter than our own biases will allow us to believe.   His lecture spanned topics as vast as his imagination, from vertical farming to homemade drone aircraft.

Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas is a well-known Mexican politician and son to Lázaro Cárdenas, one of Mexico’s most respected presidents. Cárdenas served as Senator of his home state of Michoacán from 1974 to 1980, and later as Governor of same state from 1980 to 1986. He was mayor of Mexico City from 1997 until 1999. Cárdenas is a founding member of Mexico's Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD) and has run for president on 3 different occasions.

This Presentation Aired on The Newsmaker Hour on 10/14/2012

Alzheimers affects 5.4 million people and is the 6th leading cause of death in the U.S.; it is the only top-ten killer that can't be prevented, cured or slowed. On The Newsmaker Hour, the Mind Science Foundation presented two of the top scientists in the research of this disease. Dr. George Perry, one of the world's top Alzheimer's disease researchers, and Donald Royall, M.D., a leading geriatric psychiatrist, discuss the latest in research and treatment options.  This presentation took place September 2012.

This Presentation was broadcast on The Newsmaker Hour 02/03/2013