Posts Tagged ‘Science comedian’
Current.com Science Comedian Interview
June 12th, 2009
Someone I met via Twitter – Delia the Artist – just interviewed me for Current.com. Current has a shorter, edited version of the interview but Delia is hosting the full interview on her own site.
And, oh look! Here comes the full version now…
Where does science meet comedy?
Somewhere in Brian Malow’s universe.
From museums to comedy clubs, Earth’s Premier Science Comedian brings the funny to the hilarious 5th installment of Science is Speaking!
Science Comedian Riffs on Hydrogen and Helium at Ignite
April 28th, 2009
Our Ignite presentation is up on YouTube and the O’Reilly Media Ignite Show page.
Tara and I created the presentation – with me doing most of the writing and her doing most of the graphics. Our friend Michael Capozzola hand-drew the final slide for us (primitive technique but effective!).
We attempt to tell a 14-billion year story in five minutes: “A Tale of Two Elements” takes us from the Big Bang to the Earth and touches on a problem that many people are not aware of – the helium shortage (a local problem). Enjoy!…
What is Ignite?
Science Comedian Essay in Symmetry Magazine
March 31st, 2009
A few months ago I was asked to write an essay about being a science comedian for a really cool publication – Symmetry Magazine – and it finally came out today!
Symmetry is “a magazine about particle physics and its connections to other aspects of life and science” – and it’s put out jointly by Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, two national labs funded by the Office of Science of the US Department of Energy.
It’s available in print and online editions – and anyone can receive a free subscription to the print version simply by filling out a form. That’s a benefit of it being paid for by our tax dollars.
Symmetry is a great science magazine for the layperson, giving fascinating glimpses into the world of subatomic particles and gigantic particle accelerators and the people who attend to them.
The current issue is particularly good!
Ahem.
The picture was taken by my friend John Gilbey during a session at SciFoo 2008 entitled “Seducing the Public With Science.”
Year of Science – JetBlue and Cell Phones
March 16th, 2009
In conjunction with the COPUS Project’s Year of Science – and the March theme of Physics and Technology – I offer up a bit of humor on bad website usability on the Jet Blue website and also a couple thoughts on cell phones – loud users and shrinking sizes.
Do you think we’ll live to see implantable cell phones?… or the end of obnoxiously loud cell phone talkers? When will they realize that technology is here to relieve the strain on their voices?
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
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!
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!
Science Comedian on Public Radio
January 14th, 2009
Roman Mars of KALW, a San Francisco public radio station, produced a piece on me that aired yesterday on the show Cross Currents:
“The Bay Area is home to some of the smartest people on the planet. So, it makes sense that our brainy nature would demand the occasional brainy entertainment. That’s where Brian Malow, the science comedian, comes in. Malow stopped by KALW to tell Roman Mars why he thinks science is so funny.”
If you have five minutes, you can hear the segment on their website:
Brian Malow, the Science Comedian.
My thanks to Holly Kernan and Roman Mars of KALW!
Cross Currents airs at 5pm (Pacific), on FM 91.7, and streams live from the KALW website.
Science Comedian on Pirate Cat Radio
January 12th, 2009
I’ll be on Pirate Cat Radio at 8pm Pacific tonight for about 20 minutes. It’s a low-power FM station that broadcasts on 87.9 FM in SF, LA, and Berlin. It also streams live for the whole world.
Even if you miss me, check it out sometime. It’s a good thing. Pirate Radio!!
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UPDATE: I had a great time on the Canary Hour. Pirate Cat Radio makes all their shows available as downloadable mp3s, so here’s the show for 1/12/09:
http://www.nerdnetworks.org/pcr/Canary-20090112.mp3
I was on for the first 20 minutes. Friday 1/9/09, I was on the Morning Show with Casey and the Notorious BAG:
http://www.nerdnetworks.org/pcr/MorningShow-20090109.mp3
I come on around the midpoint of the show/file. Much fun.
Pirate Cat rocks!
