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Alan Alda and Dr. Harold Varmus discuss the 2012 World Science Festival, May 30 – June 3. The Foundation’s mission is to cultivate a general public informed by science, inspired by its wonder, convinced of its value, and prepared to engage with its implications for the future.

Patsy Brannon, Professor of Nutrition, Cornell University explains what vitamins do and which are most important.

Journalist Andrew Blum explains what and where the Internet is physically. His book Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet tells the story of the Internet's physical infrastructure and chronicles the its development, explains how it works, and takes an in-depth look inside its hidden monuments.

A Moscow-based cyber security team has discovered the most advanced computer program for spying ever – they say a nation wrote it to spy on the Middle East, though they don't know which nation specifically. They’re calling it “Flame.” Roel Schouwenberg, a senior policy analyst for Kaspersky Labs, the company that discovered Flame, explains exactly what makes this worm so special. And Kim Zetter, a senior writer at Wired Magazine, discusses what this means for the future of espionage and security.

Few on our planet know what it might take to launch civilians into space, and Mae Jemison is one of them. Jemison famously became the first black woman to travel in space when she boarded the Space Shuttle Endeavour in 1992. Today, she’s helped found the Dorothy Jemison Foundation, an organization dedicated to creating a space program for civilians within the next 100 years. 

This week we're revisiting some of the best Takeaway interviews from the last year. Here, John talks with Jonah Lehrer, science journalist and author of "Imagine: How Creativity Works," about what made some of history's most creative minds tick. They'll discuss W.H. Auden's drug of choice and why Skype hasn't replaced the face-to-face encounter.

James Fallows discusses China’s plan to expand its airlines, build more airports, and jump-start its aerospace industry. In China Airborne, he shows the extraordinary scale of this project and explains why it is a crucial test case for China’s hopes for modernization and innovation in other industries.

Nick Paumgarten, staff writer for The New Yorker, explains what drones are, how they work, and the technological advancements that are making drones more prevalent in military and civilian life. He’s the author of “Here’s Looking at You” in the May 14 issue of The New Yorker.

Paul Zak tells us about oxytocin, a chemical messenger that accounts for why some people are generous, trustworthy, and faithful and others aren’t. His book The Moral Molecule: The Source of Love and Prosperity looks at decades of research on what oxytocin is and how it works.  

Robin Hesketh, professor in the department of Biochemistry at the University of Cambridge, gives a history the science of cancer and the medical advances made over the decades. In Betrayed by Nature: The War on Cancer, he leads a tour of human biology to show what happens to the body when the disease develops and how it’s treated.

John Sparks, associate curator and curator-in-charge, department of Ichthyology at the American Museum of Natural History, and David Gruber, assistant professor at the City University of New York and a research associate at the museum, discuss the variety of bioluminescent organisms—from fungus to dinoflagellates to jellyfish—and explain the various ways they glow, the functions of bioluminescence, and how scientists study it. The exhibition Creatures of Light: Nature’s Bioluminescence is on view at the American Museum of Natural History through January 6, 2013.

Geneticist Bryan Sykes discusses examining America, one of the most genetically diverse countries in the world, through its DNA, and what it says about how we perceive race. His book DNA USA: A Genetic Portrait of America takes readers on a historical genetic tour, interviewing genealogists, geneticists, anthropologists, and everyday Americans about their ancestral stories.

Dr. Doug Roble, the Creative Director of Software at Digital Domain, the multiple Academy Award-winning visual effects studio in Venice, California, talks about the history of special effects in filmmaking and explains the art and science of creating them.   

David Gallo, Director of Special Projects at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, talks about the mission to map the Titanic wreck, and other underwater expeditions, such as the search for Air France flight 447. He explains how scientists explore the ocean and what they’ve found.

Science writer Dick Teresi examines why what we think of as life and death, consciousness and nonconsciousness, is not exactly clear, and he looks at how this problem has been complicated by the business of organ harvesting. His book is The Undead: Organ Harvesting, the Ice-Water Test, Beating Heart Cadavers—How Medicine Is Blurring the Line Between Life and Death.

SpaceX and Orbital will be the first private companies to fly missions to the International Space Station. The two companies have multi-billion dollar contracts to supply cargo to the station after the NASA shuttle program shut down. BBC's science reporter Neil Bowdler was granted exclusive access to Orbital's launch facilities in Virginia.

For this week's Please Explain, Jonathan McDowell, astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Boston, and Laura Grego, senior scientist in the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, tell us how satellites are designed, launched, and how they to make things like GPS and cable television possible. 

Nobel Prize-winner Eric Kandel traces the ideas and advances made by the intellectual pioneers in Vienna in 1900–Freud, Schnitzler, Klimt, Kokoschka, and Schiele. His new book The Age of Insight places these five innovators in the context of today’s cutting-edge science, and gives us a new understanding of modernist art and a foundation for future work in neuroscience and the humanities.

Paleontologist Ian Tattersall discusses the wide range of other early humans and looks at why homo sapiens were vaulted forward. Masters of the Planet explains the physical traits and cognitive abilities that made homo sapiens stand apart and thrive.

In late 2008, researchers found a strain of malaria that was resistant to a drug that held had promise for eliminating malaria in western Cambodia. Matthew Power, a contributing editor to Harper’s Magazine, explains why officials are now trying to contain the region – and why that containment strategy is almost impossible to implement. His article, “Slipping Through the Net” is in the April issue of Harper’s.