This week on "TechKnow," we go inside a wildfire with a team of U.S. Forest Service scientists who are working to make conditions safer for fire fighters battling blazes. 

"The best way to observe a fish is to become a fish." —Jacques Cousteau

This Saturday on an all-new episode, we Skype with Cousteau's grandson, Fabien, who is continuing his family's legacy at an intensive marine research station on the bottom of the ocean. (He even gets photobombed by one of his own SCUBA-equipped diving researchers.) 

O.J. Brigance is a former linebacker who played for the Super Bowl–winning Baltimore Ravens from 2000 to 2001. In 2007, he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease. He continues to work with the Ravens as a special adviser on player development.

We met Brigance as part of a story about voice message banking, in which people with ALS or other degenerative conditions record words, phrases and sounds before losing their ability to speak. The sound files are then loaded into a computer program that can be controlled by touch or even an eye-tracker.

This week, the Baltimore Ravens joined the viral #icebucketchallenge campaign to raise awareness and money for ALS research, with their head coach, general manager and many players joining in. Brigance taped an important reminder to everyone participating: 

Raising awareness about ALS hits home for the Ravens, as former player O.J. Brigance is currently battling the disease. Brigance is currently the team’s Senior Advisor to Player Development, and he released a statement Wednesday, urging people to donate for the cause.

“The viral support the #ALSIceBucketChallenge has grown an unprecendted support and awareness for the ALS community. We all have to thank Peter Frates for coming up with the challenge to make ALS a relevant topic. This has been a fun way to get the world talking about ALS.

“However, I want to challenge everybody to not only talk, or just accept the Ice Bucket Challenge, but to give. Please go to my website: BriganceBrigrade.org to make a donation to help us fight ALS. Keep the ice buckets dumping, everybody!” 

TechKnow executive producer Roland Woerner also stepped up for the challenge: 

Last year, TechKnow rode along with Oakland police officers who wear cameras on their uniforms, one piece of cop technology that—unlike the military-grade weaponry seen in Ferguson, Missouri—has a strong case to make for being both effective and potentially welcomed by communities and police departments alike. 

Producer Laura LeBlanc wrote more on our blog when the episode originally aired: 

When technology is used to expand the reach of those tasked with keeping us safe, figuring out where to draw the line is more challenging—and the stakes are even higher. Do unmanned military drone strikes save American lives by keeping American soldiers out of harm’s way or do they endanger American lives by killing innocent civilians and creating more people who want to do us harm? And do cameras that read license plates in a matter of seconds protect us from crime or do they create a system where our movements can be tracked by a “Big Brother” government?

As a resident of the community he polices, Oakland Police Department Capt. Ersie Joyner III, says he understands those “Big Brother” concerns. “I wear two hats. I'm a law enforcement person responsible and dedicated to, obligated to policing this city, as well as a lifelong Oakland resident who's also concerned about his privacy and the privacy of my family.”

For Joyner, technology like ShotSpotter, license plate readers (LPRs) and body cameras strike a fair balance between security and privacy.

“Everything that a license plate reader captures, everything ShotSpotter captures, everything our lapel camera captures is all within public view,” Joyner says. “I very much understand individuals' wants and needs for privacy. But I think there's a perfect balance in regards to public safety and being able to capture data that's in public review.”

The American Civil Liberties Union, an organization that admits to taking “a dim view of the proliferation of surveillance cameras,” has been tracking two of the technologies transforming police work—license plate readers and body cameras. And while they give a cautious thumbs-up to body cameras, they are sounding alarm bells for LPRs. In a report released in July of 2013, the ACLU acknowledged LPRs can serve a legitimate law enforcement purpose, but warned the technology poses serious threat to privacy and civil liberties:

“More and more cameras, longer retention periods, and widespread sharing allow law enforcement agents to assemble the individual puzzle pieces of where we have been over time into a single, high-resolution image of our lives… If not properly secured, license plate reader databases open the door to abusive tracking, enabling anyone with access to pry into the lives of his boss, his ex-wife, or his romantic, political, or workplace rivals.”

In October of 2013, the ACLU also released a report on law enforcement use of body cameras. The organization saw this technology as a potential win-win for the public and police.

“For the ACLU, the challenge of on-officer cameras is the tension between their potential to invade privacy and their strong benefit in promoting police accountability. Overall, we think they can be a win-win—but only if they are deployed within a framework of strong policies to ensure they protect the public without becoming yet another system for routine surveillance of the public, and maintain public confidence in the integrity of those privacy protections. Without such a framework, their accountability benefits would not exceed their privacy risks.”

Oakland PD’s Joyner says the public’s reaction to police officers wearing body cameras has been all over the map.

“We've had journalists questioning in regards to why didn't officers have their cameras on during this protest,” Joyner says. “We've had people say on camera that they were upset that officers were actually videotaping them. We also have a group of people that actually welcome the cameras because they feel like, ‘Hey, this camera's also going to help prove that I didn't do what these officers are alleging I did.’ And, they've actually said, ‘Hey, I hope the camera was on.’”

A recent study done in the Southern California city of Rialto suggests that body cameras can have a big impact on policing. The first year police wore the cameras, incidents where police officers used force dropped by close to 60 percent. Complaints filed against officers dropped by 88 percent.

Oakland PD Officer Brian Hernandez says the cameras hold the public accountable too. “It kind of puts the accountability not just on us,” Hernandez says. “It puts it on the person we're making contact with. So, they know everything's being documented. They can't just make us out to be the bad guy, which really works to our advantage.”

Meet baby Grace.

Read more on our site about how researchers at Duke University are using cord blood—from the umbilical cord, once discarded after birth as medical waste—to harvest and grow stem cells that can help treat and even cure diseases. 

This week on "TechKnow," we go inside an operating room for the third-ever U.S. surgery to implant the Argus II, a sensor placed directly on the retina that can help people see again. 

One bonus to having such a great team of super-smart contributors: Kosta Grammatis once actually designed a prosthetic eye equipped with a camera for a filmmaker.

Meet 18-year-old Petra Grutzik, whose award-winning research with UCLA neuroscientists is just the beginning.

Grutzik is from Manhattan Beach, Calif., and recently was recognized at the 2014 intel International Science and Engineering Fair for her research on a protein called FOXP2 and its link to speech disorders.

FOXP2 is found in both human brains and songbird brains. Songbirds learn to sing through social interaction the way humans learn to talk, and FOXP2 is expressed similarly in both.

With the help of mentor professors from uclaneuroscience, Grutzik conducted research over two years to determine how various levels of this protein affects the quality of communication through speech. 

“When a baby is first born, they cry,” Grutzik explains. “Finches learn how to sing, like we learn how to talk. FOXP2 is involved in speech development in humans and in songbirds. Scientists study FOXP2 in songbirds so they can learn more about it in humans.”

“It is the only single gene that, when mutated, results in a human speech and language disorder,” says UCLA’s Dr. Stephanie White.

“We have excellent undergrads at UCLA,” says Dr. Nancy Day, Grutzik’s mentor at UCLA. “But there’s something special about Petra. We saw it as an excellent opportunity to embrace this eager young woman so that we could not only challenge her but she could challenge us. Petra has infused an energy into the lab that we didn’t have before.”

Grutzik also tapped into her background in robotics to design and build a cage for the finches that was long enough and had two separate chambers in which she could conduct her testing on the birds.  

On this week's "TechKnow," we work with scientists who are trying to unlock the mysteries of one of the world's top predators—the tiger shark. 

"A holy grail in shark work is to determine some of these areas using for mating or gestating giving birth," says Dr. Neil Hammerschlag of the University of Miami's R.J. Dunlap Marine Conservation Lab. 

By inserting small tags—about the size of a AA battery—and installing about 30 hydrophones throughout the area of the Bahamas they're studying, they'll be able to track the sharks' ultrasonic signals for seven years. 

How to wrangle one-ton tiger sharks for scientific research in the open ocean:

1) Insert a pump that pushes oxygenated saltwater through the shark's gills (and gives her something to bite down on). Run a sonogram, take blood and fin samples, insert tracker.

2) Push her gently back into the water.

3) Let go.

4) Swim for a bit with the shark, petting her back.