Dissolvable medical implants, drug cocktails that promise to make cancer  treatable like AIDS, green concrete and light trapping cells that could make solar energy competitive with oil and coal.  These are some of the cutting edge technologies that MIT's Technology Review believes will change the world in the coming years.  Jason Pontin, the journal's editor-in-chief and publisher, talks to us about those inventions, as well as 3-D on your mobile phones, social TV, and using sunlight to convert carbon dioxide into energy.

It sounds awfully low-tech, but human hair is being used to help clean up the oil in the Gulf Coast. The San Francisco non-profit Matter of Trust says that one pound of hair can mop up a quart of oil in about a minute's time. The group has collected more than 400,000 pounds of hair, and volunteers are furiously stuffing it into stockings to deploy as "hair sausages" in the Gulf Coast. Tyler Young, a volunteer coordinator, tells us how it all works.

Boston-area professional clown Leah Abel tells us about her recent trip to Haiti, with fellow members of the group "Clowns Without Borders." Aid groups asked the clowns to come back to earthquake-ravaged Haiti, to help hospitalized children recover from the trauma they've experienced.

The BBC's Paul Adams reports on a project called "Theater of War," which reaches back to the Greek tragedies to help veterans who are suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Adams saw the program in action and spoke with director and translator Bryan Doerries.

Our interview with author Rebecca Goldstein about her novel, "36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction," inspired, comforted, but mainly motivated listeners to send us their thoughts.

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• Yo La Tengo, "Madeline"
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• Eric Lindell, "Sunny Daze"