Not Impossible

Two inventors -- one who created a cute little robot, the other who created an app to help kids learn to read -- take on the greatest challenge of their lives: Women are dying in Rwanda at an alarming rate – and they think they have an idea that could save them.

A special episode for the Fourth of July: After reporting on tragedy after tragedy, a TV journalist struggling with anxiety discovers a cure in technology prescribed by her doctor – and quits her job to devote herself to using that technology to help America’s war veterans. She and the doctor team up to enhance that technology – doing some of the nation’s first hard-science experiments on blending virtual reality and biofeedback – and soon this simple solution begins to have far-reaching implications in the treatment of psychological disorders for veterans, first responders, and those suffering from PTSD in all walks of life.

Day to day, we rarely think about facial control software unless it's to play silly games on our iPhones or Snapchat. But a crazy inventor and a rehab specialist developed a way to let people who are paralyzed with spinal injuries use it to surf the web, paint – do anything you can do on a computer. Just with a head tilt, a raised eyebrow, and... the kissyface.

What happens when an engineer loses his legs in a mountain-climbing accident? In the case of Hugh Herr, he uses his brilliant mind to overcome his physical disability – and the result is a set of prosthetic legs like none ever seen before. Now Herr climbs at a more advanced level than he had before the accident – both literally and figuratively: His achievements have led him to the brink of discoveries on the future of human-computer interaction. Will we all be cyborgs one day? Hugh Herr says he has the answer.

Steve Keating and his team at MIT have taken 3D printing to a place it’s never been before – and hope to take it places NO one has ever been before. They have invented a 3D printer that can print an entire building, using no other “ink” than what it finds around it in nature – and they say it’s capable of printing buildings out of ice... on Mars. Host Mick Ebeling talks with The Amazing Mister Keating, and finds out why this machine is only the SECOND-coolest 3D project he’s ever done.