Mathematics and the "Age of Biology"
Dr. Ben Cole
Technical Director of Research, NSA

Abstract: I will address what I feel will become the most significant new technical challenges that lie ahead of us - specifically the manner in which humans will join with the information network - thereby highlighting both the promise and the peril of human enhancement. I will attempt to show why computer science, engineering, physics and mathematics are the basic disciplines that will lead the way in forcing new biological understandings of what it means to be human. I will mention a new effort that has just begun at NSA to understand the place of neuroscience in computation and communication, then conclude with a look at some of the new things that you can get this Christmas which will allow you, yourself to become an actual "player" in the Age of Biology that is dawning.