Other speakers include Eugenie Scott, Seth Shostak, Kirsten Sanford, Brian Dunning, and more.  See the list of speakers.

• Date: Saturday, April 24, 2010. 9AM to 6PM.
• Location: Brower Center, Berkeley, California.
• Sponsors: Bay Area Skeptics and Sacramento-Area Skeptics
• Tickets: Tickets are $40 for the regular registration and $55 for registration and a t-shirt. See the fantastic t-shirt design by Ranch7 Creative. This event is expected to sell out, so please reserve your ticket as soon as possible!

Link: They Might Be Giants of Science

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

Ooh, she also has Space Invaders!

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

Uri Alon of the Department of Molecular Cell Biology & Department of Physics of Complex Systems at the Weizmann Institute in Israel, gave a particularly fun presentation entitled, “Peace Love Science Happiness.”

He performed his song “I’ve Been Scooped Again” – with audience participation from across the globe.  Here’s a snippet:

Music & Lyrics ©2009 Uri Alon

“Let’s Have An Awesome Time Doing Science” was a 3-day science conference (and part unconference) held at UCSF’s Mission Bay Campus, Oct. 8-10, 2009. Scientists from various fields and at all stages of career development met to discuss ways to help make science as fun, supportive and nurturing as possible.

Visit the website

He began by telling us that he has friends in more lucrative jobs that are anxious to retire.  They’re always talking about how they hope to be able to retire five or ten years early – not because they have something in particular they long to do – they just don’t enjoy their careers and want them to end so they can do something else.

Ron said that someday he will retire from his position as a university professor – but he doesn’t look forward to it.  Like his family, his job is integral to his life and who he is.

His presentation was entitled, “Why I Love My Job,” and was structured around a Letterman-style Top 10 List (though in no particular order).  He spoke for several minutes on each point, and the list itself doesn’t really do the presentation justice, but he successfully conveyed how much he loves his job.

Ten Things I Love About My Academic Job
by Ron Vale

1.  Freedom to choose your own directions (like Ira Mellman said earlier, “I am serially interested”)
2.  Reinventing oneself throughout one’s career – flexibility
3.  Participating in a great era of discovery
4.  Being part of an international community joined by common interests
5.  Pleasant travels
6.  A social and “youthful” job
7.  Many measures of “success”
8.  Flexible daily schedule (“I don’t have to report to the office when the stock market opens”  “I own one suit and a bunch of t-shirts”)
9.  Doing some good
10.  Scholarship

Shaha is a physics teacher at an inner city school in the UK, and also a TV producer who specializes in science programs.  The film was made to be broadcast on Teachers TV (a UK cable channel) but it’s also available online in excellent HD quality – and can even be shared and embedded, as seen below (you can view a larger size if you click over to his site).

The website also contains “a collection of thoughts from leading scientists, public figures …and you.”  Add your thoughts on why science is important and they’ll appear alongside the thoughts of Bad Astronomer Phil Plait, SETI’s Seth Shostak, LabLit’s Jennifer Rohn, and many others.

Visit Alom’s YouTube Channel – sciencefilms – to see more answers to the question “Why is Science Important?” as well as some of his other films.

Links:
Why is Science Important?
Bad Astronomy blog
SETI
Seth Shostak
LabLit

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.