Great Scientists - Aristotle

Dr Allan Chapman - Oxford University Professor and historian of science - presents this humorous and entertaining series charting the life and times of some of the world's most influential scientists. Using a blend of archive, animation and comedy dramatisations, Chapman presents engaging and accessible introductions to the complex theories and ideas of Aristotle, Galileo, Newton, Darwin and Einstein.

Nancy Brinker

By Cokie Roberts

When Nancy Brinker, 61, meets up with her sister Susan G. Komen on the other side of the pearly gates, she will be able to say, "I did what you asked." The foundation Nancy established after her sister died of breast cancer in her mid-30s has become a household name around the globe.

It was more than 25 years ago that Nancy accompanied her big sister on the odyssey that follows a breast-cancer diagnosis. Before she died, Susan begged her can-do little sib to help the half a million women worldwide who are diagnosed with breast cancer every year. Not long after, Nancy organized women in Dallas to "Race for the Cure" for breast cancer. Now more than a million people all over the world run to support research and community health—raising almost $1 billion over the past quarter-century.

After being named ambassador to Hungary in 2001, Nancy brought breast-cancer awareness to a wider world, and now, as White House chief of protocol, she has enlisted the ambassadors to a dozen countries to race in recognition of the needs of local women.

What a difference she has made! Research grants dispensed by Susan G. Komen for the Cure have contributed to new treatments that have led to a marked decrease in the mortality rate. Along with millions of other breast-cancer survivors, I'm grateful to Nancy Brinker. She's done her sister proud.

Roberts is a news analyst for NPR and a veteran reporter for ABC

Harold McGee

By Alton Brown

I know of no chef worth his salt who doesn't keep a copy of Harold McGee's masterwork, On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, close at hand. Simply put, it is the Rosetta stone of the culinary world. Before it, cooking was governed by tradition, superstition and dogma. Armed with reason and natural curiosity, McGee flipped on the science switch, and suddenly there was light.

Whereas Julia Child taught "how," McGee explains "why." Now we know why eggs, meat, water, sugar and countless other ingredients do the things they do. We know what happens during the sauté and the roast. The agents of fermentation, of leavening, of caramelizing are no longer mysteries. McGee, 56, is so influential a figure not because he was the first to write about such things but because he was the first to approach them as a cook rather than as a lab technician. You don't need a chemistry degree to grasp what he's saying. McGee's work is readable, practical and as useful as duct tape. I feel certain that were it not for McGee, the course of my own life and career would be very different indeed.

Brown is host of Good Eats and Iron Chef America and a James Beard Award winner

Mehmet Oz

By Eric Ripert

I met Mehmet Oz at a luncheon in 2004 and had no idea who he was—a fact that even then put me in a minority. The Columbia University heart surgeon, 47, who now has a series of best-selling health books and a forthcoming TV show, was already a famous face. As we talked, it became clear that I was as intrigued by his work in the hospital as he was by mine in the kitchen of Le Bernardin, so we agreed to try out each other's job.

For two days, I went to the OR with Mehmet, followed him on his rounds and even tried operating on a pig heart. I thought I did well but later learned that if the heart had belonged to a human, the patient would have died. Mehmet did a lot better in my world than I did in his. He immediately took charge of my kitchen, was completely at ease leading my team of 40 cooks and even took time to greet guests. But it was not when he was interacting with diners and cooks that I learned the most about him; it was when he was interacting with patients. He is a man of extraordinary compassion and strength, remarkably suited both to caring for his own patients and to carrying a message of health to a larger world. Perhaps when you've had the powerful experience of opening human hearts, you find it a little easier to open your own.

Ripert is executive chef and co-owner of Le Bernardin in New York City

Jeff Han

By John King

By Jeff Han's description, he was "one of those troublemaker kids." Five years ahead in math learning levels. A soldering iron in hand at age 6. Taking things apart to see how they worked. Even putting some of them back together.

Han, 32, was an obscure New York University computer-science researcher two years ago when he made a presentation introducing the concept of multi-touch sensing screens. Now his work is coveted by clients ranging from the CIA to CNN, all of which realize that the era of the single-touch screen (think ATMs) is over and the multi-touch screen (imagine a piano keyboard on a screen) is upon us.

My fingers are part of that new world. Tune in to CNN on any major election night as I navigate the ever-changing map that the folks at CNN call the Magic Wall. CNN owns one map, with a second on the way. The intelligence and military communities use the technology, and Han says new educational, medical and creative applications are in the works.

"Multi-touch-sensing was designed to allow nontechies to do masterful things while allowing power users to be even more virtuosic," Han says. Count me in the nontechie column. Count me too as someone who believes Han has done more than start a great business; he has also dramatically changed the way we interact with our computers.

King is CNN's chief national correspondent and its former senior White House correspondent

Larry Brilliant

By Jimmy Carter

Larry Brilliant spent decades in training for the challenge and adventure of heading one of the most promising corporate philanthropic enterprises of our time, Google.org. What Google has done for the wired world, it could exceed with the philanthropic world. If so, it will have Brilliant at least partly to thank.

A physician and epidemiologist, Brilliant, 64, has earned this opportunity through his record of concern for social good and his ability to convert ideas into action. He was a key player in the World Health Organization's eradication of smallpox and has worked with the U.N. to combat blindness in the developing world. In these and other enterprises, he sought innovative approaches and obtained a ground-level view of the complex issues that can impede great goals that are otherwise medically and technologically possible. His humanitarian spirit and grasp of science make him one of our leading social entrepreneurs.

It is this suite of talents that drew the leaders of Google to name Brilliant head of Google.org, a still new organization that hopes to take on such daunting challenges as developing cheaper renewable energy, commercializing plug-in vehicles, increasing capital to small business in the developing world and predicting and preventing emerging threats such as environmental conditions and climate change. Behind Google.org is the wind of an inspiring corporate ethic—"Don't be evil," but instead use influence to do good. I've spoken to employees at Google. There were tears in their eyes when I told them about Guinea worm disease, a horrible affliction nearing eradication thanks to the effort of an international coalition.

Many corporations have learned that investing in philanthropy attracts concerned investors and talented employees, builds brand loyalty, burnishes reputations and helps create a healthier and more prosperous economy for all of us. But not all exude the genuine spirit to make positive change in the world that shines so brilliantly both at Google and within its new philanthropic chief.

Carter was the 39th U.S. President and founded, with wife Rosalynn, the Carter Center

Jill Bolte Taylor

By Dick Clark

One night I went to bed able-bodied and woke up handicapped. It happened that quickly, as it can to anyone who has a stroke. Some people are totally immobilized, and others recover completely. Jill Bolte Taylor did even better than that.

A neuroanatomist and professor at Indiana University School of Medicine, Taylor, 48, realized one day in 1996 that she was suffering a brain hemorrhage. She felt her faculties slipping away and, as a brain scientist, understood exactly what was happening to her. Over the next decade, she fought to recover her abilities and continue studying the brain through the one she knows best: her own. In 2006 she published her book, A Stroke of Insight, about her experiences and brain science as a field. Through her writings and lectures, she has done perhaps more than anyone else to explain, both to the healthy and the stricken, what a stroke is.

Those of us struggling with the residual effects of stroke certainly don't need to be reminded of what it means when the brain is damaged. Some of us must struggle with the day-by-day frustrations of not being able to mount a flight of stairs, pick up a piece of paper or cross the room to get a magazine. But there is comfort in better grasping what has gone wrong, and enlightenment for those around you when they grasp it too. None of us needs sympathy; what we do need is a helping hand and understanding. Someone like Taylor provides that, helping a terrible blow become far less so.

Clark is a host and producer of numerous TV shows and specials