Science Comedian

Science Cookies

December 13th, 2009

Awe­some sci­ence cook­ies in a series of posts to a food blog by a bio­log­i­cal anthropologist.

Aren’t all anthro­pol­o­gists bio­log­i­cal?  I’m a bio­log­i­cal comedian.

Ooh, she also has Space Invaders!

Science Comedy Show in Sunnyvale

October 13th, 2009

Sci­ence Come­dian Brian Malow

presents

Ratio­nal Com­edy for an Irra­tional Planet

An evening of sci­ence humor

8pm, Wednes­day, Octo­ber 28, 2009

Rooster T. Feather’s Com­edy Club
157 W. El Camino Real
Sun­ny­vale, CA 94087
(408) 736-0921

San Francisco Chronicle Features Science Comedian

January 9th, 2009

The San Fran­cisco Chron­i­cle ran a fea­ture story on me today (the print ver­sion actu­ally appears in the Date­book sec­tion, Sun­day, Jan­u­ary 11, 2009):

Mak­ing Sci­ence Funny:  Brian Malow

It’s writ­ten by Nick Thomas, who we love!  Last year, Nick did a Q&A with me for Nature:

Helium Walks Into a Bar

In addi­tion to being a pro­lific free­lance writer, Nick is Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor of Chem­istry at Auburn Uni­ver­sity in Mont­gomery, Alabama.

The arti­cle comes out in time to pro­mote my upcom­ing Bay Area shows – Tues­day at the San Fran­cisco Punch Line, and Wednes­day in Sun­ny­vale at Rooster T. Feath­ers.  Also, a week later at the Sacra­mento Punch Line on Jan­u­ary 22.

P.S.  The book I’m hold­ing is Cosm by Gre­gory Ben­ford, one of my favorite reads of 2008.

SF Chronicle Best of 2008 Portraits

January 9th, 2009

This week­end, the San Fran­cisco Chron­i­cle should be run­ning a story about me in con­junc­tion with next week’s shows at the SF Punch Line Com­edy Club (Tues, Jan.13) and Rooster T. Feath­ers (Wed, Jan.14), in Sun­ny­vale.  See Upcom­ing Shows for details.

A Chron­i­cle pho­tog­ra­pher, Paul Chinn, met me over at the new Cal­i­for­nia Acad­emy of Sci­ences sev­eral weeks ago for a photo shoot.

Appar­ently, even though the story hasn’t run yet, they’ve included a pic­ture of me in their “Best of 2008 Portraits.”

They spelled my name “Brain” (I’m used to it) and called the show “Irra­tional Com­edy for an Irra­tional Planet” (which is close – the planet is, indeed, irra­tional but the com­edy is ratio­nal)…  but it’s still pretty cool.

[In the com­ments, Jim Hardy brought it to my atten­tion that they also mis­spelled "science-themd."  Three mis­takes in two sentences!]

The fea­ture is dated 12/29/08.  Nobody even told me it was online.  I had to do a van­ity search on the Chron­i­cle site.  Inter­est­ingly, it only works if you search on “Malow” or “Brain Malow.”  A search on “Brian Malow” returns no rel­e­vant results.

Any­way, nice pic…

Transporter Pie

December 23rd, 2008

Thanks­giv­ing in Atlanta.  My sis­ter served up a picture-perfect slice of apple pie for Tara.

Mine looked like a trans­porter accident:

It was still deli­cious, of course.  The repli­ca­tor just needs a lit­tle tweak­ing, is all.

Stand up straight!

August 7th, 2008

My mother used to tell me to “stand up straight.”

It was one of her favorite things to say: “Stand up straight!”

Many other peo­ple, I have dis­cov­ered, also grew up hear­ing that phrase. It’s nearly uni­ver­sal. As if moth­ers were pro­grammed to say it. In fact, I believe moth­ers have been telling their chil­dren to “stand up straight” longer than we real­ize. Per­haps even to pre-human days.

What if that were the dri­ving force behind the evo­lu­tion­ary trend to walk erect?

Moth­ers nag­ging their chil­dren up the evo­lu­tion­ary ladder:

“Stand up straight!
“Don’t drag your knuck­les when you walk!
“What’re ya born in a tree?
“You want the other fam­i­lies to think we’re not evolving?”

“No, mom…”

Then: “How many times do I have to tell you?”

And, therein lies the ori­gin of mathematics:

“How many times?…well, if I put the three here and carry the one….”

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.

Why is the sky blue?

August 2nd, 2008

Once, when I was maybe ten years old, I asked my dad, “Why is the sky blue?”

A pretty rea­son­able ques­tion for a lit­tle ten-year-old sci­en­tist. But he wasn’t in the mood.

He said, “Go ask your mother.”

And I thought: Great, she knows.

I turned from my dad, and headed toward the kitchen, know­ing I was one step closer to hav­ing my answer.

And as I rounded the cor­ner, I was expe­ri­enc­ing the thrill of the Sci­en­tific Method. I was fol­low­ing in the foot­steps of Galileo and Isaac Newton.

And, to a cer­tain degree, I was cor­rect. I was, indeed, one step closer to my answer. Not the answer, but an answer.

There she stood. I took a deep breath, and asked her, “Mom, why is the sky blue?”

And I’ll never for­get her response:

“Because I said so.”

At first, I was in awe of my mother. Later, I learned not to trust her in mat­ters of science.

(The real rea­son the sky is blue has to do with light scat­ter­ing by oxy­gen and nitro­gen mol­e­cules. The Usenet Physics FAQ of UC River­side has a good expla­na­tion – includ­ing the role Albert Ein­stein played in prov­ing it was the air mol­e­cules them­selves that were respon­si­ble and not par­ti­cles of dust or droplets of water vapor sus­pended in the air)

The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Yarmulke

August 2nd, 2008

I’m a Jew from Texas – a rel­a­tively rare breed, we can’t even prop­a­gate in the wild.

So, before my migra­tion to North­ern Cal­i­for­nia – which is counter to the east­ward migra­tory pat­tern char­ac­ter­is­tic of my kind – a migra­tion which, over time, deposits us in the Sun­shine State like cal­cium car­bon­ate on a sta­lag­mite – I had the oppor­tu­nity to make soci­o­log­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal obser­va­tions of an uncom­mon species.

I hope to some­day pub­lish my find­ings and share with the world these curi­ous and fan­tas­tic tales.

The work­ing title of my book is The Man Who Mis­took His Wife For a Yarmulke.

Brian Malow on Edison, Cell Phones, Vista…

August 2nd, 2008

An excerpt from “The Final Fron­tier?” pre­sen­ta­tion I gave at the Mar­ian Koshland Sci­ence Museum, in Wash­ing­ton, D.C., April 10, 2008.

Mostly about cell phones, but a bit about Thomas Edi­son and the light bulb, Las Vegas, Win­dows Vista, and cost-benefits analysis.

More to come…