Science Comedian

Stand Up for Evolution!

February 28th, 2009

Con­tin­u­ing our cel­e­bra­tion of 2009 as The Year of Sci­ence, this is my sec­ond video for the COPUS Project.

Read the rest of this entry »

Astronomy in Science Fiction

February 24th, 2009

When I attended the Uni­ver­sity of Texas, in Austin, back in the last cen­tury, I took a few astron­omy classes and the most inter­est­ing one was called “Astron­omy in Sci­ence Fiction.”

Through the fog of mem­ory that sits like inter­stel­lar dust between me and Total Recall, I can only say with a level of cer­tainty lim­ited by more than just Heisenberg’s equa­tions that we read at least one novel for the class – Tau Zero by Poul Ander­son – and numer­ous short sto­ries, includ­ing the clas­sic “Night­fall” by Isaac Asi­mov and a few Larry Niven sto­ries.  I’m pretty sure “There is a Tide” was one of them, and per­haps “The Hole Man.”  I rec­om­mend them all.

We read the sto­ries and then we dis­cussed the astron­omy and sci­ence con­cepts con­tained in them.  It was fun and edu­ca­tional, a great way to teach and learn science.

Mike Broth­er­ton had a sim­i­lar idea, which is not ter­ri­bly sur­pris­ing, con­sid­er­ing he’s both an assis­tant pro­fes­sor in the depart­ment of physics and astron­omy at the Uni­ver­sity of Wyoming, and a sci­ence fic­tion author him­self.  He’s writ­ten two hard-SF nov­els – Star Dragon and Spi­der Star – and some short sto­ries, one of which is fea­tured in his new anthol­ogy (one of the perks of being the edi­tor of a book is the increased odds of being included in it).

Dia­monds in the Sky is avail­able for free online and was funded with a grant from the National Sci­ence Foun­da­tion.  How cool is that?

Accord­ing to Mike’s web­site, its pur­pose is…

“to pro­vide sto­ries with ample and accu­rate astron­omy span­ning a range of top­ics cov­ered in intro­duc­tory courses.  Instruc­tors in high school and col­lege may these sto­ries use­ful, as some stu­dents may learn con­cepts more eas­ily through story than from lec­ture.  Fans of sci­ence fic­tion with good sci­ence should also enjoy these sto­ries.  Con­tri­bu­tions include both orig­i­nal sto­ries and reprints from some of the top sci­ence fic­tion writ­ers work­ing today.”

One of the sto­ries, “Planet Killer,” is co-written by my friend, Kevin Gra­zier, who is a plan­e­tary sci­en­tist at JPL and the edi­tor of The Sci­ence of Michael Crich­ton, The Sci­ence of Dune, and the upcom­ing The Sci­ence of Bat­tlestar Galac­tica (he’s also sci­ence advi­sor to Bat­tlestar).

I men­tioned Dia­monds in the Sky in the new arti­cle about me at The Man­i­to­ban:  Q&A: Brian Malow, sci­ence come­dian.

Early in the inter­view, stu­dent jour­nal­ist Trevor Beko­lay asked about the role of sto­ry­telling in teach­ing sci­ence and we talked a bit about sci­ence fiction’s influ­ence.  It was cer­tainly a big influ­ence in my life – and con­tin­ues to be.  I credit Isaac Asi­mov, Arthur C. Clarke, and Larry Niven, in par­tic­u­lar, with cap­ti­vat­ing me early on with their cre­ative use of real sci­ence con­cepts in their sci­ence fiction.

It’s a great way to get acquainted with sci­ence – in the con­text of an engag­ing story.

Check out Dia­monds in the Sky for free online.

Links:
Dia­monds in the Sky

Q&A: Brian Malow, sci­ence comedian

Related post: 
Sci­ence Come­dian in The Manitoban

Science Comedian in The Manitoban

February 24th, 2009

There’s a new Q&A with me up at The Man­i­to­ban – the inventively-named offi­cial stu­dent news­pa­per of the Uni­ver­sity of Man­i­toba, in Canada.

Stu­dent jour­nal­ist Trevor Beko­lay con­tacted me two weeks ago, intend­ing to write a short arti­cle about sci­ence and humor (or “humour,” as he calls it) but, after tran­scrib­ing our tele­phone con­ver­sa­tion, he decided to just run it as a Q&A with a brief intro…

“No one has explored the con­nec­tion between sci­ence and humour more than Brian Malow.  A vet­eran standup come­dian, Malow frames his witty obser­va­tions with sci­en­tific the­ory, ask­ing from his audi­ence a basic under­stand­ing of the uni­verse and reward­ing them with laugh­ter from start to finish.

“Malow is tread­ing in uncharted ter­ri­tory for a standup comic…”

Thanks, Trevor!

One of the top­ics we dis­cussed was sci­ence and sci­ence fic­tion, which leads me to my next post – Astron­omy in Sci­ence Fic­tion – about Mike Brotherton’s fan­tas­tic new anthol­ogy of sci­ence fic­tion sto­ries that fea­ture accu­rate por­tray­als of sci­ence concepts.

Links:
Q&A: Brian Malow, sci­ence comedian

Related post:  Astron­omy in Sci­ence Fiction

Star Trek Trailer & Kirk's Reaction

February 23rd, 2009

First there’s the trailer for the new J.J. Abrams Star Trek movie, which I think looks pretty cool.  Even if purists are get­ting upset with Abrams’ tam­per­ing with Trek canon – the visu­als look sweet!

Check the lower right-hand cor­ner for the option to watch in higher quality.

Link:  New Star Trek Trailer – Includes Old Spock

And how do you think William Shat­ner would reply?…

Link:  Shat­ner com­ments on the new Star Trek XI trailer

Related post:  Trans­porter Pie

Comedy.com Brian Malow Videos

February 23rd, 2009

Comedy.com has some videos of me on stage at the San Fran­cisco Punch Line Com­edy Club, from about two years ago, I think. If you fol­low the links to their web­site, you can also rate the video…

Brian Malow – Exit Strat­egy link: 

http://www.comedy.com/video/brian-malow-exit-strategy

Brian Malow – Canine Lives link:
http://www.comedy.com/video/brian-malow-canine-lives

Brian Malow – Bed, Bath and Beyond Repair link:
http://www.comedy.com/video/brian-malow-bed-bath-beyond-repair

Science Comedian, Lincoln, and Darwin on Time.com

February 16th, 2009

If you know me, you prob­a­bly know I’ve always had a thing about Abra­ham Lin­coln.  Noth­ing kinky.  It goes back as far as 2nd grade – at least that’s my old­est sur­viv­ing writ­ing about Abe.

Now, com­bine that with my obvi­ous respect for Charles Dar­win – who shares his birth­day with Lin­coln (Feb­ru­ary 12, 1809) – and you’ll know how excited I am to have tied it all together in a video piece cel­e­brat­ing their birth­days – and also the 150th anniver­sary of the pub­li­ca­tion of Darwin’s “On the Ori­gin of Species.”

I wrote the piece and it was pro­duced by Craig Duff – and today it’s fea­tured on the front page of Time.com – as a “Must See” video about Lin­coln and Darwin.

“Lin­coln and Dar­win – Birth­days and Evolution”

Check it out, let me know what you think – and please feel free to for­ward it to EVERYONE!

* Update 2/23/09: Although it was only a “Must See” video for a short time, now it’s dis­played as one of the most pop­u­lar videos!