Dr. Dominic D’Agostino, who over the past 10 years has been a frequent guest on STEM-Talk, returns to the podcast to discuss his recent research into ketogenic metabolic therapies, ketone supplements and hyperbaric oxygen therapy for traumatic brain injuries. Dom is a Senior Visiting Research Scientist at IHMC as well as an Associate Professor in the Department of Molecular Pharmacology and Physiology at the University of South Florida’s Morsani College of Medicine. In addition to developing and testing metabolic-based therapies, Dom’s lab at South Florida also investigates seizure disorders, brain cancer, neurodegenerative diseases and rare genetic-metabolic disorders. In episode 196,… Read More

IHMC’s robotics team has just completed an off-site demonstration of its newly developed humanoid robot, Alex. “Things went really well,” said Senior Research Scientist Robert Griffin. “I believe the Office of Naval Research was impressed by the progress we’ve made over the past 10 months.” The Office of Naval Research (ONR) awarded IHMC a multi-year and multimillion-dollar contract to develop a robot capable of offsite and outdoor urban operations. The goal for Alex and its successors is to be nimble enough to operate in extreme environments, especially those involving military scenarios and disaster response where the risk for human casualty… Read More

At IHMC, we are all about advancing the human condition and, as such, excited to bring you a more dynamic digital newsletter that will provide the most up-to-date information about the exciting work that goes on here at the institute. With this new format for the newsletter, we will be able to incorporate multimedia to better bring our research to life. For example, you will not only be able to read about our ground-breaking work, but also view videos of our research in action. In early April at our annual open house, IHMC’s robotics team unveiled Alex, our new advanced… Read More

The Russian-Ukrainian War has evolved over the past four years into the world’s first drone military conflict. Ukraine turned to inexpensive off-the-shelf drones at the beginning of the war to combat Russia’s larger and better-equipped army. The off-the-shelf drones were so effective at tracking Russian troops and bombing enemy targets that Ukraine quickly created manufacturing assembly lines capable of producing a million drones a year. With support from the U.S., Ukraine began innovating the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that led to a new generation of sophisticated drones that have rapidly transformed the nature of warfare. These innovations in… Read More

Four days after the astronauts of NASA’s Artemis II mission splashed down in the Pacific, STEM-Talk host Dr. Ken Ford interviewed Doug Cooke, an aerospace consultant who spent 38 years at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston and NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. Ford, IHMC founder and a former Associate Director of NASA’s Center of Excellence in Information Technology, talked to Cooke about the Artemis mission’s 10-day roundtrip from the Earth to the Moon as well as NASA’s plans to return humans to the lunar surface by 2028. During his 38 years at NASA, Cooke played critical roles in the… Read More

The nature of military conflicts has changed. In the past, drones and unmanned systems had a small impact. But as we are seeing in Iran and Ukraine, unmanned systems are now having a dominant impact. “It shouldn’t come as a surprise that drones and other unmanned autonomous systems are having a bigger impact than they did 10 years ago,” says IHMC Senior Research Scientist Matt Johnson. “It also should not be a surprise that if you can scale unmanned systems better, you will have a significant advantage in future conflicts.” The problem in terms of military conflicts is that each… Read More

Dr. Marcas Bamman likes to think of exercise as a miracle drug. “I’ve long believed that we need to leverage exercise as a true form of medicine,” says Bamman, a Senior Research Scientist at IHMC and Director of the Institute’s lab for Healthspan, Resilience and Performance Research. “If we could bottle exercise into a pill, it would be a miracle drug.” Right now, with Pensacola’s help, Bamman and his colleagues at IHMC are in the midst of a clinical trial designed to demonstrate exercise’s potential to slow down and even reverse the hallmarks of aging.  Called Multidimensional Modeling to Maximize… Read More

Drs. Nicole Rendos and Luigi Penco, a pair of up and coming research scientists at IHMC, were recently appointed to high-level positions in two of the nation’s most prestigious organizations representing scientists and researchers not only in the U.S., but around the world. The Southeast Chapter of the American College of Sports Medicine named Rendos its president for 2026 while Penco was appointed co-chair of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Robotics and Automation Society’s Technical Committee on Telerobotics. “Nicole and Luigi have been fantastic additions to IHMC,” said IHMC CEO, Morley Stone. “It’s nice to see the two… Read More

  More than 500 people attended IHMC’s open house where the public had its first opportunity to see the robotics team’s new humanoid robot, Alex. The open house is held annually in conjunction with National Robotics Week, which was established by Congress in 2010 to give students, teachers and the public an opportunity to meet with scientists and engineers to learn about their work in robotics and technology. “We had a great turnout,” said IHMC COO Cassie Guilliams. “It was so rewarding to see how people, especially children, were fascinated with the work and research that goes on here at… Read More

Dr. Tommy Wood rejoins Drs. Ken Ford and Dawn Kernagis for the second of his two-part interview about his just released book, “The Stimulated Mind: Future-Proof Your Brain from Dementia and Stay Sharp at Any Age.” Tommy is a neuroscientist and associate professor at the University of Washington where he runs a neuroscience lab. He also is a visiting research scientist at IHMC who has been a frequent STEM-Talk guest and occasional co-host. In today’s part two of his interview, Tommy shares science-backed strategies to enhance mental sharpness and prevent cognitive decline, including Alzheimer’s disease. Dawn and Ken talk to… Read More

At this year’s IHMC open house on April 10, the public will have its first opportunity to meet Alex, the institute’s new advanced humanoid robot. “We are so excited to show off Alex,” said Senior Research Scientist Robert Griffin, who leads HMC’s robotics group. “Alex has been developed to step outside of the lab and perform in real-world environments. It’s a big step for us. The maneuverability, autonomy and search skills of Alex will allow it to serve as a human avatar for first responders in emergency situations.”  Alex is built upon the cutting–edge research that IHMC did with Nadia,… Read More

Today Dr. Tommy Wood joins Drs. Ken Ford and Dawn Kernagis to talk about his book, “The Stimulated Mind: Future-Proof Your Brain from Dementia and Stay Sharp at Any Age.” Tommy is an associate professor at the University of Washington where he runs a neuroscience lab. He also is a visiting research scientist at IHMC who has been a frequent STEM-Talk guest and occasional co-host. In today’s part one of his two-part interview, we talk to Tommy about his mission to dispel the myth that the brain is doomed to decline with age. “The Stimulated Mind” offers science-backed strategies to… Read More

Dr. Francisco Gonzalez-Lima appeared on STEM-Talk five years ago to share his research into Alzheimer’s disease and how low-dose methylene blue as well as the application of near-infrared light can protect people from neurodegeneration. Since then, he and his colleagues at the Gonzalez-Lima lab have produced dozens of more studies and papers that have advanced their research. Today, Gonzalez-Lima returns to STEM-Talk in episode 191 to give us an update on his continuing investigations into methylene blue and the use of transcranial lasers for neuroprotection and the treatment of neurocognitive disorders. Francisco and his lab at the University of Texas… Read More

Dr. Judith Curry, a climatologist known for her criticism of alarmist doomsday rhetoric about climate change, returns to STEM-Talk for her second appearance. Curry was one of five researchers commissioned by the Department of Energy last year to draft a Climate Assessment Report summarizing the current state of climate science, particularly with a focus on how it relates to the United States. In Curry’s interview today, episode 190, STEM-Talk host Ken Ford has a conversation with Curry about the climate report’s key points, including the finding that carbon-dioxide induced warming of the planet appears to be less damaging economically than… Read More

The United States risks losing the race to return humans to the Moon to the People’s Republic of China, which will pose serious threats to our national security. This is one of the key takeaways of STEM-Talk Episode 189, which features a conversation with Drs. Michael Griffin and Lisa Porter, two scientists with extensive backgrounds at NASA, the Department of Defense and in national security issues. IHMC’s founder and CEO Emeritus Dr. Ken Ford’s timely interview with Griffin and Porter came just 10 days before Griffin appeared before the U.S. House Committee on Science, Space and Technology to give testimony… Read More

The Florida Institute for Human & Machine Cognition (IHMC) has entered into a strategic partnership with Conduit Venture Labs, a venture studio leader in venture creation and deep-tech commercialization in physical artificial intelligence, the acceleration and commercialization of frontier technologies emerging from IHMC’s research. The engagement is designed to broaden IHMC’s real-world impact across defense and commercial markets while creating new pathways for revenue generation to support IHMC’s long-term research mission to advance and elevate the human condition. IHMC has pioneered advancements in exoskeletons, human-machine teaming, embodied AI, and physical system intelligence. Through this partnership, Conduit will apply its venture-building… Read More

Operational medicine is a common theme in Dr. Jeff Phillips’ research. His expertise in the effect of common aviation stressors (i.e. hypoxia) on operator performance dates back decades. In this newest iteration of his work, Phillips and his team are researching ways to support military operations and maximize human potential in extreme environments. The goal of a servicemember making better decisions and reacting faster in a challenging scenario calls for a new generation of psychometric tests that gather human performance metrics. Two recent projects Phillips has led at the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC) have shown promise… Read More

Military aviators breathe rarefied air — figuratively and literally. They operate elite aircraft at altitude in stressful conditions with protections in place to ensure that the atmosphere they breathe in flight helps ensure their physical and cognitive performance doesn’t suffer in the extreme conditions they are asked to navigate. Finding ways to ensure proper ventilation in pilots is what underlies an ongoing research project at the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition sponsored by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory. It aims to assess the effects of exogenous ketones on operator ventilation. “When you’re dealing with these oxygen delivery systems… Read More

Some people call it “walking on ice”— the careful steps and slower pace that older people take on when they walk. Biomechanically it is a way to prioritize stability over economy — we slow down to decrease the chances we will fall and use our hips more than we use our ankles. But “walking on ice” costs our bodies more metabolically and reduces walking speed, both of which have downstream consequences for healthspan. Learning more about that intersection is the heart of a recent award by the National Institute on Aging (NIA) to Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition… Read More

Alex is going out into the world. The Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition’s newly developed robot is the latest chapter in IHMC’s long history of excellence and innovation in the field of humanoid robotics. It takes the lessons of years of work on integrated controls and behaviors as well as in-house hardware design to prioritize out-of-the-lab testing and experimentation. Alex is a multi-year, multimillion dollar project funded through the Office of Naval Research (ONR). It builds upon the design work the Robotics team did on Nadia, a humanoid that advanced the genre — and gained YouTube notoriety playing… Read More