On Today's Show

Pete Bils - Sleep Expert
Pete Bils is an associate clinical faculty member at Northwestern Health Sciences University in Minneapolis. He is also a member of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, an organization dedicated to the assurance of quality care for patients with sleep disorders, the advancement of sleep research, and public and professional education. As the vice president of sleep innovation and clinical research, Bils continually researches, investigates and creates the use of new technologies to promote better sleep, including a computerized pressure mapping system, which shows the effects of sleep surfaces on the human body.  Pete Bils, who joined Select Comfort in 1996, is the vice president of sleep innovation and clinical research. Select Comfort designs, manufactures, markets and supports a line of adjustable-firmness mattresses featuring air-chamber technology, branded the Sleep Number bed, as well as foundations and sleep bedding accessories.  As Vice President of Sleep Innovation and Clinical Research at Select Comfort, Bils is responsible for exploring the vital relationship between sleep and health. He manages the direction of the company's efforts in clinical sleep research, from study design to laboratory execution.  Bils continually researches and investigates the use of new technologies to promote better sleep, such as computerized pressure mapping to demonstrate the effects of various sleep surfaces on the human body.  In addition, Bils is a polysomnographic technician in the Select Comfort research network and is an associate clinical faculty member at Northwestern Health Sciences University in Minneapolis. He is a member of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, an organization dedicated to the assurance of quality care for patients with sleep disorders, the advancement of sleep research, and public and professional education. He is also on the Better Sleep Council, a member of the National Sleep Foundation.


  Live from the consumer electronics show (CES) in Las Vegas
"The Gizmo Girl" Jamie Sorcher reveals to your listeners the hottest new must-have electronics!  The Biz of "The Gizmo Girl": The most popular and sought-after gizmo and gadget guru in the country and a renowned expert on the latest consumer products, both practical and weird, "The Gizmo Girl" (whose real name is Jamie Sorcher) has been sharing her gadget and gizmo expertise with consumers nationwide as the "It Girl" guru of gotta-have-it gadgets and gizmos! In addition to her hugely popular "Gadget Girl" column; her contributions to "Ty Pennington at Home" and "Road and Track Road Gear"; and hundreds of television appearances, "The Gizmo Girl" produces "Premiere" Magazine's "Techknowledge" column and "Tech" section for "Home" Magazine as well as writes "Sound and Vision" online magazine's monthly celebrity interview column "Backtalk". "The Gizmo Girl" is a graduate of LeHigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and the London School of Economics.

Dr. Susan Nolen-Hoeksema " THE POWER OF WOMEN: Harness Your Unique Strengths at Home, at Work, and in Your Community"
New research by Yale psychologist Dr. Susan Nolen-Hoeksema shows that women today are thriving because they have been able to transform the obstacles and adversities they have faced over the millennia into a unique set of psychological strengths—strengths that are particularly well suited to succeeding in today's world.  In THE POWER OF WOMEN: Harness Your Unique Strengths at Home, at Work, and in Your Community (Times Books/an imprint of Henry Holt and Company; $25.00; on sale: January 5, 2010), Nolen-Hoeksema teaches women how to discover and then learn to fully utilize their exceptional psychological strengths in problem solving and in leading, motivating, and relating to others. Drawing on original research and the instructive stories of remarkable women, Nolen-Hoeksema identifies the skill sets that women, based on their biology and social roles, bring to challenges:  Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, PhD, is the author of Women Who Think Too Much and Women Conquering Depression, and is a professor of psychology at Yale University . She and her research on women's mental health have been covered on the Today show and in The New York Times, USA Today, and The Wall Street Journal. She lives in Connecticut .


Anne E. Kornblut  White House Reporter - Washington Post
She has been a political reporter in Washington since 1998 - covering, from start to finish, the three most recent presidential campaigns. She worked for the Boston Globe and the New York Times before joining the Washington Post in 2007 where she is currently a White House reporter. Was 2008 the "Year of the Woman"? It appeared to be, with a woman mounting the most serious campaign for the presidency in history and the Republican Party putting a woman on their presidential ticket for the first time. Currently women occupy the positions of Speaker of the House, Secretary of State, Homeland Security director, and Supreme Court judge. It seems as though the "gender gap" in politics has closed. Or has it? Esteemed journalist and WASHINGTON POST White House correspondent Anne Kornblut argues that America is surprisingly not quite ready for a woman president. In her first book, "NOTES FROM THE CRACKED CEILING: HILLARY CLINTON, SARAH PALIN, AND WHAT IT WILL TAKE FOR A WOMAN TO WIN" (Crown; December 29, 2009), Kornblut disputes the conventional wisdom about how women run for political office. Kornblut conducted exclusive, in-depth interviews with the most prominent women in politics today, including former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Homeland Security Director Janet Napolitano, former president and CEO of eBay Meg Whitman, Senator Claire McCaskill and many others. Kornblut asks tough questions, provides valuable insight and indisputable facts, and even offers some hope that women can prevail if certain things change. A blunt, honest look at the role of women in politics today and what needs to be done in order for them to break through that cracked ceiling. Kornblut followed Hillary Clinton starting in the spring of 2006, when she was running for re-election to the Senate, until she resigned from the presidential candidacy race in June 2008. Kornblut then covered the Obama campaign and also spent several weeks during the general election on the road with Sarah Palin. What she found were old stereotypes revived, a divided women's movement, and a setback on equality in the political sphere.