Senior Vice President, Treasurer & Chief Accounting Officer, Lincoln National
Search every verified Adam Cohen interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Adam Cohen, a scientist and researcher, has given presentations on neuroscience and sustainable building design. In a 2016 TEDxCambridge talk, Cohen described his work developing optical techniques to both stimulate and record electrical activity in neurons. He explained that his laboratory created a system using light-sensitive proteins from microorganisms to create a "bidirectional optical interface" for neurons, allowing them to be stimulated with blue light and recorded with red light. Cohen stated that this approach enables the study of electrical impulses propagating through cells at high speed and that the technology has been used to study neurons derived from skin cells of ALS patients, contributing to a clinical trial for a potential treatment. In 2018, Cohen spoke at the North American Passive House Conference about the future of shelter and building materials. He discussed the need to move away from fossil-fuel-based materials toward biology-based alternatives, suggesting that buildings could be "grown" using materials like mushroom-based insulation. Cohen also commented on the resilience of natural and human systems, stating that while the current global system is "both robust and incredibly fragile," he expressed confidence that systems "would rebalance" after disruption. He advocated for a shift in mindset among designers and builders toward creating integrated, modular shelter systems that can be assembled and reassembled as needed.
“Individually weak but as a group they're really powerful — they're powerful enough to shake their environment and their species.”
“If insects were to be removed from our global system equation it would have an effect — it could be a balance that would be unstruck and then have to be restructured, but the thing that I have ultimate confidence in is that the system would rebalance because it always does.”
“If it were only so simple... the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being — who's willing to destroy a piece of its own heart? It brings it down to our individual responsibility in every action that we take.”
“Increasingly I feel that the climate imperative will be nested in this — escalate the movement of people on a very, very large scale; we know people will be moving miles.”
“Our current system is both robust and incredibly fragile — the fragility is based on the human nature of separating into individual countries or regions or companies, whereas if we're an endemic species working together these logistics become much more robust.”
“As designers and builders we need to switch our mindsets to integrate into one system of shelter — we need to provide a turnkey system of shelter that can be designed, manufactured, assembled, disassembled and reassembled as needed.”
“We have got logistics down in our global neoliberal society — we have learned how to move stuff efficiently from point A to point B and make efficient use of an optimized though imperfect economic system.”
“My future materials are not fossil-fuel and mineral-based and extractive, but biology-based and abiotic — I wouldn't be surprised to see us growing buildings, mushroom-coated houses, or growing insulation around our ability so we don't have to worry about energy.”
“We have a problem all right the climate is changing we need to decarbonize our energy system. The challenge is net zero emissions in the next 40 to 60 years and the challenge is to keep that curve below 450 degree or a 450 ppm so that we can keep the rise in temperature below 2 degrees C.”
“Mission innovation is 20 countries committed to doubling their R&D budget over the next five years including the u.s. appropriations. We have put in a sizable increase the US government baseline wide so the thing that's going to double is six point four billion dollars and seventy-five percent of that or pretty close t...”
“I actually think nuclear is a critical component. I think there are other models that just like I showed the Renewable case for eighty percent nuclear could provide a substantial chunk maybe up to eighty percent. There are some issues with nuclear that are outside of the do is control but do we needs to shine the spotl...”
“The labs work as a system. We have something called inter entity work orders... it's very clear that they're working as a network. We're seeing an increase in the number of publications that involve a university and then the smaller bars the Orange has it at most one other lab involved and the red has at least two othe...”
“I think we owe it to ourselves to make the case that there is no question that climate change needs to be a motivating factor if not the motivating factor. I have no disagreement that energy security and economic security could be the drivers that lead congress to enact something that would be great but we can't ignore...”
“Inside our brains we have about 86 billion neurons and these neurons are each connected to each other by about 10,000 synaptic connections; these neurons signal to each other with little electrical blips about a tenth of a volt high and one 1,000th of a second long — every thought, feeling, dream, sensation that we hav...”
“These blips are the internal language of our neurons…and they are misregulated in every disease of the nervous system; everybody in this room knows somebody who has suffered a disease of the brain.”
This is the last part of Adam Cohen's presentation at the North American Passive House conference.
Every thought, feeling, sensation, and idea you have is encoded in little electrical impulses that travel through the neurons in your ...
So and not the boring stuff let's just get right to Adam he's got um a great presentation he's going to do a lot of introduction I ...
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