What You Put Your Attention On...Grows Stronger in your Life: Nathan Myhrvold, inventor

Nathan Myhrvold, inventor

In Nathan Myhrvold's world, mosquito repellent is so old-fashioned.

The inventor, former Microsoft Corp. executive and CEO of Intellectual Ventures is developing a prototype device that would create walls of lasers that are impenetrable by malaria-causing mosquitoes.

Myhrvold demonstrated the technology at the TED Conference and said lasefortresses could surround health clinics in the developing world.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/02/16/ted.people/

TED2010: Ten fascinating people you've never heard of:

Temple Grandin, autistic professor

Temple Grandin sees her autism as a gift, not a disability. The professor at Colorado State University, who has become a prominent animal rights activist, spoke at TED about how people's brains work in different ways -- and how that's something that should be appreciated, not stigmatized. Grandin, for instance, thinks in pictures, "like Google for images," she said.

She also grabs hold of details, a brain function she feels could help politicians.

"I get satisfaction out of seeing stuff that makes real change in the real world," she said. "We need a lot more of that and a lot less abstract stuff." One of her biggest real-world accomplishments, she said, was that a mother recently told her that her autistic child had gone to college because of Grandin's inspiration.

Grandin's life also is the subject of an HBO film.

TED2010: Ten fascinating people you've never heard of: Philip Howard

A partner in the New York-based law firm Covington & Burling, Philip Howard is a crusader against the excesses of his own profession. Howard, author of "Life Without Lawyers: Liberating Americans from Too Much Law," gave a blistering talk at TED about how "the land of the free has become a legal minefield."

He cited the Florida school district that banned running at recess as an example of how "people no longer feel free to act on their best judgment" for fear of getting sued. "People are acting like idiots," he said. "For law to be a platform for freedom, people have to trust it."

Howard pushes for policy changes in health care, education and other fields through an organization he founded, Common Good, which describes itself as "a non-profit, non-partisan legal reform coalition dedicated to restoring common sense to America."

TED2010: Ten fascinating people you've never heard of. 1. Esther Duflo, poverty economist

A 37-year-old MacArthur "genius" award winner, and professor at MIT, Esther Duflo sidesteps the grand armchair debate about whether charitable aid to poor countries does more harm than good. The French economist has been a champion of using random trials, like those used for prescription drugs, to test whether some aid policies work in the real world.

Such tests have shown, for example, that giving a kilo of lentils to a family in India to get them to immunize a child against disease sharply increases the rate of immunizations. The same approach can be used to study the merits of giving out free bed nets to fight malaria and to examine ways to get children in developing countries to go to school.