Maya Elhalal’s Blog

The amazing Eric Lewis performs Going Under in TED2009. I went to see him again a few days ago in Joe’s Bar in Manhattan and he was phenomenal. It’s 10 minutes of pure magic…

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A couple of days ago I got my hands on this book, Biology of Cancer by Robert A. Weinberg and as weird as this may sounds, I couldn’t put it down!

Science and Nature thought it was good too:

The Biology of Cancer is no doubt the definitive statement on its topic today. -Science, 11 August 2006: Vol. 313. no. 5788

There is no comparable text in cancer biology and no single book that is so current and informative. -Nature, November 30, 2006, Vol 444

I was just struck by how dated popular cancer treatment is in comparison to new discoveries in cancer research. It’s far from an uplifting read but unfortunately a very important one for all of us.

Robert A. Weinberg is MIT Professor known for his brilliance in research of oncogenes and the genetic basis of human cancer.

The Meatrix Trilogy tells the truth about factory farming.
Informative, entertaining, brilliant!

And since we’re on the topic, here’s a great TED talk by Mark Bittman about Why Our Bad Eating Habits Put the Entire Planet at Risk

When a person takes into account the particular circumstances of a situation and makes a decision accordingly, we say “she made a judgment call”. Why have we stopped trusting people to do that?

This was one of my favorite talks in TED this year. Barry Schwartz, author of ‘The Paradox of Choice’ argues that more rules and bureaucracies only fail us as a society. He calls for practical, everyday wisdom to help rebuild our world. I say AMEN to that!

Oldie but still such a goodie…

I don’t know about Microsoft’s ‘me too’ plan to open retails stores but Bill Gate’s talk in TED2009 was one of the most inspiring. In this funny 18 minutes talk, followed by Q&A session with TED curator Chris Anderson he raises two big questions and shares his solution. With admirable self humor, he also releases some new bugs into the world…

For me, this was one of the most moving moments in TED2009. Elizabeth Gilbert, author of the bestseller Eat Pray Love muses on the impossible things we expect from artists and geniuses and shares the radical idea that, instead of the rare person “being” a genius, all of us “have” a genius.

If your hand is up, you can relate…

To:
Architect – Alex Cohen
Interior Architect – Sharon Edery
Contractor – Eli Levi
Carpenters – Asaf Swartz and Yaniv Bashari

and to all the other teams of wonderful people who worked on our house for your endless creativity, the amazingly professional work and for being such supportive friends throughout the process.

And congrats to  Sharon Edery on the great article in this month’s Trend Magazine!

The story of the life of an impoverished Indian teen Jamal Malik, who becomes a contestant on the Hindi version of “Who Wants to be A Millionaire?”, wins, and is then suspected of cheating.

It’s so well made it kicks you in the stomach.