Science Comedian

Helium – So Long and Thanks for all the Balloons!

January 6th, 2010

Some­how this didn’t make it into the blog ear­lier – our Time.com video about helium.  A flight in a zep­pelin, a visit with the Bal­loon Lady, and the end of an era?…

Related Post:
Sci­ence Come­dian Riffs on Hydro­gen and Helium at Ignite

Herschel Space Observatory – Time Magazine’s Best Inventions

November 15th, 2009

Read the rest of this entry »

Vega Next 3 Exits

March 17th, 2009

Oops…  I must’ve taken a wrong turn at Arcturus…

From the Wikipedia entry on Vega:

Vega is the bright­est star in the con­stel­la­tion Lyra, the fifth bright­est star in the night sky and the sec­ond bright­est star in the north­ern celes­tial hemi­sphere, after Arc­turus.  It is a rel­a­tively nearby star at only 25.3 light-years from Earth, and, together with Arc­turus and Sir­ius, one of the most lumi­nous stars in the Sun’s neigh­bor­hood.

Vega has been exten­sively stud­ied by astronomers, lead­ing it to be termed, “arguably the next most impor­tant star in the sky after the Sun”.^[8] His­tor­i­cally, Vega served as the north­ern pole star at about 12,000 BCE and will do so again at around 14,000 CE. Vega was the first star, other than the Sun, to have its pho­to­graph taken and the first to have its spec­trum pho­tographed. It was also one of the first stars to have its dis­tance esti­mated through par­al­lax measurements.

Also:   Vega became the first star to have a car named after it when Chevro­let launched the Vega in 1971.

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

Vega

January 27th, 2009

Oops.  I think I took a wrong turn…

Mike Brotherton and the Science Comedian

January 18th, 2009

Mike Broth­er­ton has a really nice blog post about me.  Mike is a sci­ence fic­tion writer who also hap­pens to be an asso­ciate pro­fes­sor at the Uni­ver­sity of Wyoming in the depart­ment of Physics and Astron­omy.  Quasars are his spe­cialty!  And there’s a lot of great con­tent in his blog.  Check it out.

I’m ecsta­tic that, of the two jokes he sin­gled out for men­tion, one is an anal­ogy that rarely gets the laugh I wish for it.  It’s about the abil­ity of a virus to take down a human.  We must out­weigh them by a fac­tor of a bil­lion or more.  It’s the ulti­mate David and Goliath…  “It’s like Luke Sky­walker tak­ing out the Death Star in a lit­tle X-Wing Fighter.”

Well, it is, isn’t it?

He also says this about the embed­ded video:

Next time I teach an intro­duc­tory sci­ence class, I’m going to show some of these. I might be able to deliver a cou­ple of the sim­pler jokes and fit them into lec­tures. I’m a good lec­turer, but not great, and wak­ing peo­ple up with a smart joke that has some real sci­ence in it isn’t pan­der­ing, it’s educating.

Too often I think thatI just get depressed about the never end­ing bat­tle with igno­rance and sci­ence illit­er­acy, with the folks who reject our best knowl­edge because it con­tra­dicts their polit­i­cal or reli­gious beliefs.  Get­ting peo­ple to laugh and want in on the joke is prob­a­bly a bet­ter method of doing some­thing other than preach­ing to the choir and bring­ing in some peo­ple who want to chuckle, too.

Thanks, Mike!

I haven’t read his two nov­els yet – Star Dragon and Spi­der Star - but they’ve been praised by David Brin and Paul Di Fil­ippo.  They are hard SF and have been com­pared to the books of Larry Niven and Robert L. For­ward.  Sounds good to me!

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.

Science Foo Camp 2008: Chapter 1 – The Wiki & What I Missed

August 19th, 2008

[I’ve made one pre­vi­ous Sci­Foo post, in antic­i­pa­tion (and trep­i­da­tion) of the approach­ing week­end.]

Where to begin? How to cap­ture the essence of such an over­whelm­ing expe­ri­ence? Nature! O’Reilly! The Google­plex! 200 cer­ti­fied sci­ence geniuses! No less than four (4) Nobel Lau­re­ates! And other incom­plete sentences!

By design, Sci­ence Foo Camp has no real agenda until we get there and cre­ate it, and even then, it’s com­pletely flex­i­ble. But, about three months in advance, a wiki was estab­lished for every­one to post to with descrip­tions of our­selves and ideas for ses­sions we’d like to see or lead. This was a great oppor­tu­nity to learn a lit­tle bit about our fel­low campers and to be that much more pre­pared by the time we got there, since time would be so pre­cious.

[Note to Lee Smolin: I’m not sure about the rest of the Uni­verse but, at Sci­Foo, the flow of time is very real and very fast.]

If you ever get the chance to attend Sci­Foo, take advan­tage of the wiki. Start early. Most of the campers posted brief bios with their areas of research and inter­ests and links to home­pages, blogs, com­pa­nies, and orga­ni­za­tions.  For the ones that didn’t, there’s Google.  If they’re at Sci­Foo, you won’t have any trou­ble find­ing ’em. Most of them have Wikipedia entries.

My only wish for “improv­ing” the amaz­ing crea­ture that is Sci­Foo would be to lengthen it just a bit. I want more!  Per­haps extend the Fri­day and Sun­day to full days. Give us just a lit­tle extra time to take it all in. There are so many fas­ci­nat­ing peo­ple, so many intrigu­ing ses­sions.  There’s no way to meet every­one or attend every ses­sion you’d like. With as many as four­teen (14!) simul­ta­ne­ous ses­sions in each hour time slot, no mat­ter how much you expe­ri­ence, there’s still a sense that you missed out on a lot of cool stuff.

Of course, even if it were a week long, I’m sure I’d feel the same.

For the first ses­sion of the week­end, I missed Carl Diet­rich’s “Energy for Long Dis­tance Trans­porta­tion” because I wanted to catch Betsy Devine’s “5-minute Talks by Smart Peo­ple About Web 2.0 Tools for Sci­ence” (fea­tur­ing Tim O’Reilly, Esther Dyson & Anne Woj­ci­cki, Chris Ander­son, Barend Mons, and Vic­to­ria Stod­den).

And I missed Carl again, for the last ses­sion of the week­end, when he talked about his fly­ing car, because I wanted to see Brother Guy Con­sol­magno explain why the Pope has an astronomer (and a mete­orite collection!).

I really should’ve been at “Trans­form­ing Edu­ca­tion – Mak­ing Sci­ence Fun and Rel­e­vant for Kids and Stu­dents,” but I wanted to hear Aubrey de Grey, Chris Patil, and Attila Csor­das talk about Aging and Life Extension.

After a fas­ci­nat­ing chat Sat­ur­day morn­ing with Eric Wasser­mann on the 15-minute shut­tle ride from the hotel to the Google­plex (about the expe­ri­ence of spir­i­tu­al­ity and the illu­sion of con­scious­ness), I would’ve loved to have sat in on his ses­sion a few hours later about the ethics and impli­ca­tions of brain enhance­ment. But I also wanted to con­tribute to “Seduc­ing the Pub­lic with Sci­ence” (ini­ti­ated – on the wiki – by John Gilbey and Jenny Rohn – and includ­ing Tim O’Reilly, Ann Druyan, Marc Hodosh, Ben Goldacre, Euge­nie Scott and oth­ers). And, at the exact same time, I was miss­ing NASA Ames Direc­tor Pete Wor­den’s ses­sion on Set­tling Mars, and “LHC: The Uni­verse and All That” with Brian Cox, Max Tegmark, Mar­tin Rees, and Betsy’s hus­band, Nobel Lau­re­ate Frank Wilczek!

Impos­si­ble choices that have to be made!

I missed Paul Stamets’ ses­sion on How Fungi Can Save the World, as well as Paul Davies’ ses­sion on Mul­ti­ple Ori­gins of Life and a “Shadow Bios­phere” on Earth, and ses­sions on the World­Wide Tele­scope and brain read­ing neural pros­thet­ics, the future of quan­tum com­put­ing, 23andMe, build­ing bet­ter cli­mate mod­els, and sev­eral more – all in the Sat­ur­day 4pm time slot – because I wanted to sit in on a ses­sion with Lee Smolin, Max Tegmark, and Gar­rett Lisi called “Incu­bat­ing Adven­tur­ous Sci­ence and the FQXi.”

It wasn’t until Sun­day morn­ing, when I got into a great con­ver­sa­tion with the won­der­ful Dan Janzen about cater­pil­lars and moths, that I real­ized I shouldn’t have missed his pre­sen­ta­tion the day before on DNA bar­cod­ing the world’s species – all 10,000,000 of them.

But what could I do?  I was up to my ears in dark mat­ter – pick­ing the brain of Patri­cia Bur­chat, head of the Physics depart­ment at Stan­ford, who helped me finally under­stand how we could know – from our nar­row van­tage point – that the expan­sion rate of the Uni­verse has increased.

I could go on. And on. Expand­ing like the Uni­verse. And that’s what the week­end was really about.

Look­ing over the list of campers, I fig­ure I had sub­stan­tial, inter­est­ing con­ver­sa­tions with at least 50 dif­fer­ent peo­ple, on prob­a­bly 50 dif­fer­ent top­ics – plus, I attended about a dozen ses­sions, ask­ing ques­tions or con­tribut­ing com­ments dur­ing quite a few.

And I enter­tained per­haps the smartest crowd I’ve ever played with 45 min­utes of sci­ence humor at my own sur­pris­ingly well-attended ses­sion, Sat­ur­day night after din­ner (while, just down the hall, Mar­tin Rees and Nick Bostrom led a somber dis­cus­sion called “Exis­ten­tial Risks & Global Cat­a­strophic Risks.”)

There was some­thing for everyone.

In the end, there were some peo­ple – like Jim Hardy and Chris Patil and Brian Cox and his wife Gia Mili­novich and John Gilbey and Nick Bostrom and David Bauer and Lars Jeppe­sen and Simon Quellen Field – with whom I had mul­ti­ple chances to chat. And, yet, there are scores of peo­ple I never met. I had no idea (until I was back home in San Fran­cisco) that there were four Nobel Lau­re­ates among us; I met only one. On the final day there were some faces that didn’t even look famil­iar to me… had they really been here all weekend?

[more to come]

Science Comedy Video

August 5th, 2008

A mon­tage of some of my sci­ence com­edy rou­tines, taken mostly from two events at the Mar­ian Koshland Sci­ence Museum of the National Acad­emy of Sci­ences (in 2006 and 2007).

A cou­ple clips from my 2008 per­for­mance appear ear­lier in this blog (on cell phones and Karma) and more are com­ing soon.