All of a sudden several bits of media I’ve been involved with are appearing at once. Two of them are as follows: * I had a lovely chat with Brianna Barbu of Symmetry Magazine about science, art, and science communication (particularly science advising for movies). She wrote a piece on … Click to continue reading this post
About 2-3 (ish) years ago, I was asked to visit the Disney/Marvel mothership in Burbank for a meeting. I was ushered into the inner workings of the MCU, past a statue of the newly acquired Spidey, and into a room. Present were Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, the writers of … Click to continue reading this post
I’m late to the party. Yes, I use the word party, because the outpouring of commentary noting the passing of Stan Lee has been, rightly, marked with a sense of celebration of his contributions to our culture. Celebration of a life full of activity. In the spirit of a few of the “what were you doing when you heard…” stories I’ve heard, involving nice coincidences and ironies, I’ve got one of my own. I’m not exactly sure when I heard the announcement on Monday, but I noticed today that it was also on Monday that I got an email giving me some news* about the piece I wrote about the Black Panther earlier this year for the publication The Conversation. The piece is about the (then) pending big splash the movie about the character (co-created by Stan Lee in the 60s) was about to make in the larger culture, the reasons for that, and why it was also a tremendous opportunity for science. For science? Yes, because, as I said there:
Vast audiences will see black heroes of both genders using their scientific ability to solve problems and make their way in the world, at an unrivaled level.
and
Improving science education for all is a core endeavor in a nation’s competitiveness and overall health, but outcomes are limited if people aren’t inspired to take an interest in science in the first place. There simply are not enough images of black scientists – male or female – in our media and entertainment to help inspire. Many people from underrepresented groups end up genuinely believing that scientific investigation is not a career path open to them.
Moreover, many people still see the dedication and study needed to excel in science as “nerdy.” A cultural injection of Black Panther heroics could help continue to erode the crumbling tropes that science is only for white men or reserved for people with a special “science gene.”
And here we are many months later, and I was delighted to see that people did get a massive dose of science inspiration from T’Challa and his sister Shuri, and the whole of the Wakanda nation, not just in Black Panther, but also in the Avengers: Infinity War movie a short while after.
But my larger point here is that so much of this goes back to Stan Lee’s work with collaborators in not just making “relatable” superheroes, as you’ve heard said so many times — showing their flawed human side so much more than the dominant superhero trope (represented by Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, etc.,) allowed for at the time — but making science and scientists be at the forefront of much of it. So many of the characters either were scientists (Banner (Hulk), Richards (Mr.Fantastic), T’Challa (BlackPanther), Pym (Ant Man), Stark (Ironman), etc) or used science actively to solve problems (e.g. Parker/Spiderman).
This was hugely influential on young minds, I have no doubt. This is not a small number of […] Click to continue reading this post
Fail Lab is coming in five days.
Reportedly it’ll be “a new kind of science series”, so we shall see!
That’s all I know so far as regards the launch.
More when I know more.
By the way, it relates to this, and indeed that is Crystal Dilworth, the presenter, in the poster.
Er, the picture/poster is blatantly borrowed/stolen from writer/director Patrick Scott’s twitter feed.)
There’s a physics angle to the Tiger Woods business of last week (that I’d not really been following since I was, thankfully, out of the country during the media blitz).
A physics angle? Really? Surely in my attempts to show the science angle in everyday things I’ve gone too far?
Well, actually there is. So there was some business with a car crashing and so forth, and there are photos of the interior of the car. There’s a book visible. It’s a physics book! It is John Gribbins’ Get a Grip on Physics, from 1999. 
It is out of print now, but apparently its Amazon (USA) sales rank shot from 396,224 to 2,268 over a short period. (For the record, before you ask about the other items in the photos (from Getty images), I’ve heard no news on whether umbrella sales also spiked. Or bottled water sales, for that matter.)
I like this story for lots of reasons, but the main one is that this shows to the […] Click to continue reading this post
The LA Times Festival of Books is coming up this weekend (see my upcoming post). In memory of the fun time I had at the first time I went to the accompanying awards ceremony in 2006, I’m reprinting a post I did over on CV that year, in which I reported on it. (Timestamp: April 30th, 2006 3:45 am.)
Well, I’m recovering from an excellent hike up Mount Wilson with the USC Neurobiologists earlier today, so while I do that, I’ll tell you about last night. Recall that the LA Times Book Festival is happening this weekend.
I came closer to seeing a realization of one of those topsy-turvy scenarios I often fantasize about, where more “academic” pursuits, or at least those more associated with the life of the mind, are celebrated in full Hollywood fashion. (I envision it in the context of science and scientists….imagine an Oscar-Like awards ceremony for the year’s best science papers, watched by millions on TV in prime time… but this will do for a start.)
Yes, I went to my first LA Awards ceremony, the Los Angeles Times Book Awards, and although I joked about Oscar analogies in a previous post, it actually was […] Click to continue reading this post
Well, I probably am not worthy of the press credentials I was carrying around with me on Wednesday, as several days later I had still not done my “report” on the event. Well, here it is.
I went to a press conference and a symposium that relates directly to the issues I was talking about in my Tuesday post and its comment stream. All the things I was talking about with regards better contact between the science community and the filmmaking community so as to make films (and shows) that better represent science and scientists more accurately through something closer to a collaborative mode were brought up in these meetings and discussions. It was great to see this issue being taken seriously, and a well-meant effort being made. The core of the idea is to set up an office that will coordinate things – acting as a sort of clearing house that will put filmmakers (of all aspects of the process whether screenwriter or director) in touch with willing scientists who can be helpful in various topics. This is the Science and Entertainment Exchange.
A key thing that I have mentioned here many times before is the issue of it being about more than just fact-checking near-completed work. If scientists are involved at […] Click to continue reading this post
I was contacted by a researcher at NPR the other day. They wanted me to take part in a live conversation on the program News & Notes (hosted by Farai Chideya). The topic was about kids, technology, and science. In particular the focus was described as follows:
We want to explore the ways kid handle technology. How is technology affecting them in terms of their learning capacity and social skills? The second part of that discussion is this—with all the gadgets that are available to kids, are more of them becoming interested in science in general? We especially want to look at the subject from perspective of urban education.
Yes, all topics that intersect with many of my own interests and passions (which might be why they found me through the blog!), but I did not feel qualified to really answer some of the specific questions pertaining to how things are going currently. There are people who study this full time. I’m not one of them. So I declined to contribute. However, I had a few names in mind, and passed them along, together with two more […] Click to continue reading this post
Wow, doesn’t time fly when you’re having a busy semester! I meant to tell you about this early March shoot a while back, but got swamped and it fell off the desk. I recalled that I’ve been neglectful because I learned that the show in which some of this will be used will air on Tuesday night (9:00pm I think – “The Universe” on the History Channel). The episode discusses the end of the universe, as far as I know. The point is to discuss the various speculations that have been made about how the universe might end, and what current knowledge (such as the famous 1998 supernova observations showing that the universe’s expansion is accelerating) seems to suggest about which of those scenarios might be more likely. Of course, for the discussions to make sense, you need someone to talk about some of the basics, such as what it means for the universe (indeed, the whole of spacetime) to expand and collapse. Who you gonna call? 
Ok. I’m one of many you can call. It was a new (to me) producer/writer, Savas Georgalis, who called this time, and we worked together on plans about how we might […] Click to continue reading this post
I’ve come to realise that there are all sorts of really interesting people on the USC campus, involved in fascinating work and interesting projects of one sort or another. This is of course true for any university. However, I am still finding pleasant surprises and connections quite regularly. The last … Click to continue reading this post
