Science Comedian

Paul Simon – The Way We Look to a Distant Constellation

November 25th, 2008

These are the days of mir­a­cle and won­der
This is the long dis­tance call
The way the cam­era fol­lows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all
The way we look to a dis­tant con­stel­la­tion
That’s dying in a cor­ner of the sky
These are the days of mir­a­cle and won­der
And don’t cry, baby, don’t cry
Don’t cry

- Paul Simon, “The Boy in the Bub­ble” (from the Grace­land album)

Lightning in Slow Motion

November 25th, 2008

And, while we’re admir­ing dis­plays of light in the skies of the Earth, here’s some great video of light­ning in slow motion.

Slow motion, I have just learned, was invented in 1904 by August Mus­ger, an Aus­trian priest and physicist.

Boy, those are two occu­pa­tions you don’t typ­i­cally find in one man.  It sounds like the start of a joke:  A priest and a physi­cist walk into a bar…  or per­haps they are play­ing golf.  Any­way, that’s the sort of joke it sounds like the start of.  I mean, “of which it sounds like the start.”

Mus­ger is also notable for hav­ing an extra­or­di­nar­ily brief Wikipedia entry.  But, then, who am I to talk?

Link to video

Meteor Caught on Video Over Edmonton

November 25th, 2008

A police dash cam caught this amaz­ing mete­oric fire­ball on video near Edmon­ton, Alberta, Novem­ber 20, 2008.  It lights up the sky!

Link to video

For a bit more detail, here’s a story in the Edmon­ton Sun and a story in the Edmon­ton Jour­nal.  Look under “Related Links” for addi­tional video.

I’ve only wit­nessed one or two good meteor show­ers, away from city lights (and, in the case of San Fran­cisco, away from the Fog).  I hope to see more.

Accord­ing to Star­Date – the pub­lic edu­ca­tion and out­reach arm of the Uni­ver­sity of Texas McDon­ald Obser­va­tory – there is one remain­ing meteor shower for 2008, the Gem­i­nids, the night of Decem­ber 13.  But, they also point out, there will be a gib­bous moon that night, over­pow­er­ing all but the bright­est meteors.

LabLit Interviews Science Comedian

November 24th, 2008

I was gone but now I’m back, apparently.

Rea­son­ably objec­tive third-party proof of my exis­tence is to be found in the form of an inter­view with me on LabLit.com – a web­site ded­i­cated to “the cul­ture of sci­ence in fic­tion & fact.”

I met LabLit edi­tor Jen­nifer Rohn at Sci­Foo this year.  She’s a cell biol­o­gist at Uni­ver­sity Col­lege Lon­don, a writer for pub­li­ca­tions such as Nature, and a fre­quent blog­ger.  Her first novel, Exper­i­men­tal Heart, has just been pub­lished, too.  It’s avail­able from Ama­zon or directly from the pub­lisher, Cold Spring Har­bor Lab­o­ra­tory Press. And, of course, it’s an exam­ple of “lab lit” – it’s described as a “roman­tic thriller set against the back­drop of con­tem­po­rary sci­en­tific research.”

Jenny attended my sci­ence com­edy ses­sion at Sci­Foo, and I par­tic­i­pated in a ses­sion that she and John Gilbey pre­sented enti­tled, “Seduc­ing the Pub­lic with Sci­ence.”  It was one of my favorite ses­sions and was attended by Ann Druyan, Brother Guy Con­sol­magno, Kevin Gra­zier, Ben Goldacre, Tim O’Reilly, Euge­nie Scott, Shel­ley Batts and others.

Any­way, Ian Brooks inter­viewed me and LabLit is an excel­lent web­site worth explor­ing and here’s a great place to start:

LabLit’s inter­view with sci­ence come­dian Brian Malow.