IRVINE, Calif. The National Academies announce today the winter 2007 program for Distinctive Voices at the Beckman Center, held at the Academies' Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center, 100 Academy Drive, Irvine, Calif. The winter series of speakers will explore the far-reaching role of science, technology, and medicine in our lives and highlight innovations, discoveries, and emerging issues in an engaging forum.

The curious will enjoy this opportunity to expand their understanding of current scientific issues from experts, including members of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine.

Event topics include optimizing mental functioning in later life, new developments for enabling the blind to see, reducing health care cost without compromising quality, turning good science into good television, the ongoing debate over teaching evolution in schools, transforming the U.S. energy system by replacing gasoline with hydrogen, and the creation of false memories.

Wednesday, Jan. 17, 7 p.m.
Growing Old or Living Long: Take Your Pick

Is mental decline inevitable as we age? Dr. Laura Carstensen describes gains that come with age. Explore recent scientific findings which challenge traditional models of the aging mind and understand the conditions that may optimize your own functioning in later life.

Laura Carstensen, Ph.D., is professor of psychology at Stanford University and founding director of the Stanford Center on Longevity. Her research is supported by the National Institute on Aging. She received Stanford University's Dean's Award for Distinguished Teaching and the Richard Kalish Award for Innovative Research. In 2003 she was selected as a Guggenheim Fellow, and in 2006 she received the Distinguished Career Award from the Gerontological Society of America.