One Polymath's Obsession(s) with Cooking, Global Warming, Energy Independence and ... Seeking E.T.

Dr. Nathan Myhrvold, former Microsoft CTO, co-founder of Intellectual Ventures and Author of Modernist Cuisine: The Art & Science of Cooking, discusses:

- His gastronomic origins;
- Former career as Microsoft Chief Technology Officer;
- How science and technology applies to cooking;
- Heat, water and the kitchen;
- The basic biology of food­borne illnesses;
- His ideas on eliminating global warming/climate change with 'geo-engineering';
- How such a configuration could "easily dim the sun by one percent, and even do it in a way that wouldn't be visible.";
- How, together with Peter Rinearson, helping Bill Gates write 'The Road Ahead', a book about the future that reached No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list in 1995 and 1996;
- Intellectual Ventures, the patent portfolio developer and broker you co-founded in 2000 after leaving Microsoft;
- Accusations of business practices that lead to IV being variously described by as a "patent troll";
- His bankrolling of SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute, the world's most prominent alien-seeker), and his search for extraterrestrial life as an intellectual challenge.