Tag Archives: Faith Salie

World Science Festival May 29 – June 3, 2018 in New York City

I haven’t featured the festival since 2014 having forgotten all about it but I received (via email) an April 30, 2018 news release announcing the latest iteration,

ANNOUNCING WORLD SCIENCE FESTIVAL NEW YORK CITY

MAY 29 THROUGH JUNE 3, 2018

OVER 70 INSPIRING SCIENCE-THEMED EVENTS EXPLORE THE VERY EDGE OF
KNOWLEDGE

Over six extraordinary days in New York City, from May 29 through June
3, 2018; the world’s leading scientists will explore the very edge of
knowledge and share their insights with the public.  Festival goers of
all ages can experience vibrant discussions and debates, evocative
performances and films, world-changing research updates,
thought-provoking town hall gatherings and fireside chats, hands-on
experiments and interactive outdoor explorations.  It’s an action
adventure for your mind!

See the full list of programs here:
https://www.worldsciencefestival.com/festival/world-science-festival-2018/

This year will highlight some of the incredible achievements of Women in
Science, celebrating and exploring their impact on the history and
future of scientific discovery. Perennial favorites will also return in
full force, including WSF main stage Big Ideas programs, the Flame
Challenge, Cool Jobs, and FREE outdoor events.

The World Science Festival makes the esoteric understandable and the
familiar fascinating. It has drawn more than 2.5 million participants
since its launch in 2008, with millions more experiencing the programs
online.

THE 2018 WORLD SCIENCE FESTIVAL IS NOT TO BE MISSED, SO MARK YOUR
CALENDAR AND SAVE THE DATES!

Here are a few items from the 2018 Festival’s program page,

Thursday, May 31, 2018

6:00 pm – 9:00 pm

American Museum of Natural History

Host: Faith Salie

How deep is the ocean? Why do whales sing? How far is 20,000 leagues—and what is a league anyway? Raise a glass and take a deep dive into the foamy waters of oceanic arcana under the blue whale in the Museum’s Hall of Ocean Life. Comedian and journalist Faith Salie will regale you with a pub-style night of trivia questions, physical challenges, and hilarity to celebrate the Museum’s newest temporary exhibition, Unseen Oceans. Don’t worry. When the going gets tough, we won’t let you drown. Teams of top scientists—and even a surprise guest or two—will be standing by to assist you. Program includes one free drink and private access to the special exhibition Unseen Oceans. Special exhibition access is available to ticket holders beginning one hour before the program, from 6–7pm.

Learn More

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Thursday, May 31, 2018

8:00 pm – 9:30 pm

Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College

Participants: Alvaro Pascual-Leone, Nim Tottenham, Carla Shatz, And Others

What if your brain at 77 were as plastic as it was at 7? What if you could learn Mandarin with the ease of a toddler or play Rachmaninoff without breaking a sweat? A growing understanding of neuroplasticity suggests these fantasies could one day become reality. Neuroplasticity may also be the key to solving diseases like Alzheimer’s, depression, and autism. This program will guide you through the intricate neural pathways inside our skulls, as leading neuroscientists discuss their most recent findings and both the tantalizing possibilities and pitfalls for our future cognitive selves.

The Big Ideas Series is supported in part by the John Templeton Foundation. 

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Friday, June 1, 2018

8:00 pm – 9:30 pm

NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts

Participants: Yann LeCun, Susan Schneider, Max Tegmark, And Others

“Success in creating effective A.I.,” said the late Stephen Hawking, “could be the biggest event in the history of our civilization. Or the worst. We just don’t know.” Elon Musk called A.I. “a fundamental risk to the existence of civilization.” Are we creating the instruments of our own destruction or exciting tools for our future survival? Once we teach a machine to learn on its own—as the programmers behind AlphaGo have done, to wondrous results—where do we draw moral and computational lines? Leading specialists in A.I, neuroscience, and philosophy will tackle the very questions that may define the future of humanity.

The Big Ideas Series is supported in part by the John Templeton Foundation. 

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Friday, June 1, 2018

8:00 pm – 9:30 pm

Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College

Participants Marcela Carena, Janet Conrad, Michael Doser, Hitoshi Murayama, Neil Turok

“If I had a world of my own,” said the Mad Hatter, “nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn’t. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn’t be.” Nonsensical as this may sound, it comes close to describing an interesting paradox: You exist. You shouldn’t. Stars and galaxies and planets exist. They shouldn’t. The nascent universe contained equal parts matter and antimatter that should have instantly obliterated each other, turning the Big Bang into the Big Fizzle. And yet, here we are: flesh, blood, stars, moons, sky. Why? Come join us as we dive deep down the rabbit hole of solving the mystery of the missing antimatter.

The Big Ideas Series is supported in part by the John Templeton Foundation.

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Saturday, June 2, 2018

10:00 am – 11:00 am

Museum of the City of New York

ParticipantsKubi Ackerman

What makes a city a city? How do you build buildings, plan streets, and design parks with humans and their needs in mind? Join architect and Future Lab Project Director, Kubi Ackerman, on an exploration in which you’ll venture outside to examine New York City anew, seeing it through the eyes of a visionary museum architect, and then head to the Future City Lab’s awesome interactive space where you will design your own park. This is a student-only program for kids currently enrolled in the 4th grade – 8th grade. Parents/Guardians should drop off their children for this event.

Supported by the Bezos Family Foundation.

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Saturday, June 2, 2018

11:00 am – 12:30 pm

NYU Global Center, Grand Hall

Kerouac called it “the only truth.” Shakespeare called it “the food of love.” Maya Angelou called it “my refuge.” And now scientists are finally discovering what these thinkers, musicians, or even any of us with a Spotify account and a set of headphones could have told you on instinct: music lights up multiple corners of the brain, strengthening our neural networks, firing up memory and emotion, and showing us what it means to be human. In fact, music is as essential to being human as language and may even predate it. Can music also repair broken networks, restore memory, and strengthen the brain? Join us as we speak with neuroscientists and other experts in the fields of music and the brain as we pluck the notes of these fascinating phenomenon.

The Big Ideas Series is supported in part by the John Templeton Foundation.

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Saturday, June 2, 2018

3:00 pm – 4:00 pm

NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts

Moderator“Science Bob” Pflugfelder

Participants William Clark, Matt Lanier, Michael Meacham, Casie Parish Fisher, Mike Ressler

Most people think of scientists as people who work in funny-smelling labs filled with strange equipment. But there are lots of scientists whose jobs often take them out of the lab, into the world, and beyond. Come join some of the coolest of them in Cool Jobs. You’ll get to meet a forensic scientist, a venomous snake-loving herpetologist, a NASA engineer who lands spacecrafts on Mars, and inventors who are changing the future of sports.

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Saturday, June 2, 2018

4:00 pm – 5:30 pm

NYU Global Center, Grand Hall

“We can rebuild him. We have the technology,” began the opening sequence of the hugely popular 70’s TV show, “The Six Million Dollar Man.” Forty-five years later, how close are we, in reality, to that sci-fi fantasy? More thornily, now that artificial intelligence may soon pass human intelligence, and the merging of human with machine is potentially on the table, what will it then mean to “be human”? Join us for an important discussion with scientists, technologists and ethicists about the path toward superhumanism and the quest for immortality.

The Big Ideas Series is supported in part by the John Templeton Foundation.

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Saturday, June 2, 2018

4:00 pm – 5:30 pm

Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College

Participants Brett Frischmann, Tim Hwang, Aviv Ovadya, Meredith Whittaker

“Move fast and break things,” went the Silicon Valley rallying cry, and for a long time we cheered along. Born in dorm rooms and garages, implemented by iconoclasts in hoodies, Big Tech, in its infancy, spouted noble goals of bringing us closer. But now, in its adolescence, it threatens to tear us apart. Some worry about an “Infocalypse”: a dystopian disruption so deep and dire we will no longer trust anything we see, hear, or read. Is this pessimistic vision of the future real or hyperbole? Is it time for tech to slow down, grow up, and stop breaking things? Big names in Big Tech will offer big thoughts on this massive societal shift, its terrifying pitfalls, and practical solutions both for ourselves and for future generations.

The Big Ideas Series is supported in part by the John Templeton Foundation.

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Buy Tickets

This looks like an exciting lineup and there’s a lot more for you to see on the 2018 Festival’s program page. You may also want to take a look at the list of participants which features some expected specialty speakers, an architect, a mathematician, a neuroscientist and some unexpected names such Kareem Abdul-Jabbar who I know as a basketball player and currently, a contestant on Dancing with the Stars. Bringing to mind that Walt Whitman quote, “I am large, I contain multitudes.” (from Whitman’s Song of Myself Wikipedia entry).

If you’re going, there are free events and note a few of the event are already sold out.

Sciences Goes to the Movies closes out season one with zombies and opens season two with nanotechnolgy

Thanks to David Bruggeman’s March 9, 2016 posting on his Pasco Phronesis blog for the latest about ‘Science Goes to the Movies’,

The 13th episode of Science Goes to the Movies is now available online, and showing some restraint, the show waited until the end of its first season to deal with zombies.

In other show news, the second season will premiere on CUNY [City University of New York] TV March 18th [2016].  It will focus on nanotechnology.

You can find the 13th episode (running time is almost 30 mins.) embedded in David’s post or you can go to the Science Goes to the Movies webpage on the City University of New York (CUNY) website for the latest video and more information about the episode,

In episode #113 of Science Goes to the Movies, series co-hosts Dr. Heather Berlin and Faith Salie talk with Mark Siddall – a curator at the American Museum of Natural History and President of the American Society of Parasitologists – about zombies!

… Siddall describes different types of parasites that manipulate behavior in a host in order to complete a life cycle or other essential task – including a type of “Dementor” wasp, named after the monster in Harry Potter books, that changes behavior in a cockroach by stinging it. Whether or not zombifying parasites have a taste for brains is also considered, with reference to a species that takes over the bodies of ants, replaces their brains, and uses the ant to complete its life cycle, and The Guinea Worm, a parasite that targets humans for their own reproduction. Siddall then distinguishes between parasites and viruses and explains their similarities.

The Haitian voodoo practice of ingesting neurotoxins to create the effect of “waking from the dead” provides the basis for the next part of the discussion. Dr. Berlin defines neurotoxins and how they work in the brain to block neurons from firing. Tetrodotoxin, in particular, is explained as having a zombifying effect on humans in that its overall paralysis doesn’t affect the brain or the heart, leaving a person fully conscious throughout.

The Wade Davis [emphasis mine] book, The Serpent and The Rainbow, is brought into the discussion, as well as a story about a man kept in a zombie state for two years by ingesting a combination of neurotoxins and hallucinogens. Dr. Berlin breaks down the plausibility of the story and introduces the idea of the “philosopher zombie,” whose zombie status is more conceptual in nature.

28 Days Later and World War Z are discussed as examples of zombie movies in which the cause of the apocalypse is a zombie infection, and Siddall shares news about a cancer with contagious qualities. A recent Centers for Disease Control ad campaign, warning people to prepare for the zombie apocalypse, is mentioned and the real-life potential for human zombies, given the creativity of evolution, makes for the final topic of the show. Before finishing, though, Dr. Berlin and Siddall each share an idea for an original zombie movie.

Written and Produced by Lisa Beth Kovetz.

Wade Davis is a Canadian anthropologist who now teaches at the University of British Columbia.

Should you care to search, you will find a number of posts concerning zombies on this blog.

“Off The Top” is a science/comedy hour Sept. 9, 2015 at Vancouver’s (Canada) China Cloud

Baba Brinkman, a Canadian-born rapper who’s made a bit of a career in science circles and has been featured here many times for the ‘Rap Guide to Evolution’ and other pieces, will be performing in Vancouver on Sept. 9, 2015 at The China Cloud (524 Main Street) Doors 7:30pm, showtime 8pm, $15 cover.

It’s actually a two-part performance according to the Sept. 9, 2015 event page on Baba Brinkman’s website,

First: “Off The Top” is a science/comedy hour co-hosted by Baba and Heather [Berlin], exploring the neuroscience of improvisation and humour, and the odd-couple mash-up of science and rap in their marriage. …

Second: After an intermission, Baba will perform his new rap/science/comedy show ”Rap Guide to Climate Chaos”, which explores the science and politics of global warming.

Here’s more from the Off The Top page on Baba Brinkman’s website,

Science rapper Baba Brinkman (Rap Guide to Evolution) teams up with neuroscientist Dr. Heather Berlin to explore the brain basis of improvisation. What’s going on “under the hood” when a comedian or musician improvises? Why are the spontaneous moments of life always the most memorable? Does anything actually rhyme with Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex?

As for the Rap Guide to Climate Chaos, from the its webpage on Baba Brinkman’s website,

Fringe First Award Winner Baba Brinkman (Rap Guide to Evolution) is the world’s first and only “peer reviewed rapper,” bringing science to the masses with his unique brand of hip-hop comedy theatrics. In “Rap Guide to Climate Chaos,” Baba breaks down the politics, economics, and science of global warming, following its surprising twists from the carbon cycle to the energy economy. If civilization is a party in full swing, are the climate cops about to pull the plug? And what happens if we just let it rage? With scientists, activists, contrarians, and the Pope adding their voices to the soundtrack, get ready for a funny and refreshing take on the world’s hottest topic.

I didn’t find much about The China Cloud but there was this January 20, 2010 article by Bob Kronbauer for vancouverisawesome.com,

Floating above Vancouver’s Chinatown rests the new studio/gallery space, The China Cloud. It is currently the home base to a handful of local bands – Analog Bell Service, No Gold, Macchu Picchu; four visual artists and comedy troupes Man Hussy and Bronx Cheer. This past Friday The China Cloud had its grand opening with an art show, some booze, and musical performances by Sun Wizard, My!Gay!Husband!, Analog Bell Service and Blue Violets. It was wall to wall people, with line-ups all night and a bit more hectic than what the artists behind the event expect it to be for future events – but what a way to step on the scene!

For anyone unfamiliar with Vancouver, The China Cloud is in an area that’s gentrifying but still retains its edgy character.

The article was well illustrated by Marcus Jolly’s photographs.

Finally, Dr. Heather Berlin was mentioned here in a March 6, 2015 post (scroll down about 75% of the way) highlighting International Women’s Day and various science communication projects including hers and Faith Salie’s, Science Goes to the Movies.

ETA Sept. 7, 2015: David Bruggeman gives a brief update on Baba Brinkman’s upcoming album release in his Sept. 5, 2015 posting on Pasco Phronesis.

Please, don’t kill my hive! (a Science Rap Academy production)

In celebration of an upcoming event in Vancouver (Canada), “Honey, Hives, and Poetry,” I’m including this April 17, 2015 news from David Bruggeman (on his Pasco Phronesis blog),

Tom McFadden has debuted the first video of this year’s Science Rap Academy.  Seventh and eighth grade students at the Nueva School prepare a music video based on a science concept, usually reworking a rap or hip-hop song.

Here’s the first installment in this year’s Science Rap Academy series, Please Don’t Kill My Hive,

There are many posts on this blog about Tom McFadden and his various science rap projects (many of them courtesy of David Bruggeman/Pasco Phronesis). Here’s one of the more recent ones, a May 30, 2014 posting.

Getting back to David’s April 17, 2015 news, he also mentions the latest installment of  “Science goes to the movies” which features three movies (Kingsman: The Secret Service, The Lazarus Effect, and Them!) and has Neil deGrasse Tyson as a guest. David has embedded the episode on his blog. One brief comment, it’s hard to tell how familiar Tyson or the hosts, Faith Salie and Dr. Heather Berlin are with the history of the novel or science. But the first few minutes of the conversation suggest that Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is the first novel to demonize scientists. (I had the advantage of not getting caught up in their moment and access to search engines.) Well, novels were still pretty new in Europe and I don’t believe that there were any other novels featuring scientists prior to Mary Shelley’s work.

A brief history of novels: Japan can lay claim to the first novel, The Tale of Genji, in the 11th century CE, (The plot concerned itself with aristocratic life and romance.) Europe and its experience with the novel is a little more confusing. From the City University of New York, Brooklyn site, The Novel webpage,

The term for the novel in most European languages is roman, which suggests its closeness to the medieval romance. The English name is derived from the Italian novella, meaning “a little new thing.” Romances and novelle, short tales in prose, were predecessors of the novel, as were picaresque narratives. Picaro is Spanish for “rogue,” and the typical picaresque story is of the escapades of a rascal who lives by his wits. The development of the realistic novel owes much to such works, which were written to deflate romantic or idealized fictional forms. Cervantes’ Don Quixote (1605-15), the story of an engaging madman who tries to live by the ideals of chivalric romance, explores the role of illusion and reality in life and was the single most important progenitor of the modern novel.

The novel broke from those narrative predecessors that used timeless stories to mirror unchanging moral truths. It was a product of an intellectual milieu shaped by the great seventeenth-century philosophers, Descartes and Locke, who insisted upon the importance of individual experience. They believed that reality could be discovered by the individual through the senses. Thus, the novel emphasized specific, observed details. It individualized its characters by locating them precisely in time and space. And its subjects reflected the popular eighteenth-century concern with the social structures of everyday life.

The novel is often said to have emerged with the appearance of Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719) and Moll Flanders (1722). Both are picaresque stories, in that each is a sequence of episodes held together largely because they happen to one person. But the central character in both novels is so convincing and set in so solid and specific a world that Defoe is often credited with being the first writer of “realistic” fiction. The first “novel of character” or psychological novel is Samuel Richardson’s Pamela (1740-41), an epistolary novel (or novel in which the narrative is conveyed entirely by an exchange of letters). It is a work characterized by the careful plotting of emotional states. Even more significant in this vein is Richardson’s masterpiece Clarissa (1747-48). Defoe and Richardson were the first great writers in our literature who did not take their plots from mythology, history, legend, or previous literature. They established the novel’s claim as an authentic account of the actual experience of individuals.

As far as I’m aware none of these novels are concerned with science or scientists for that matter. After all, science was still emerging from a period where alchemy reined supreme. One of the great European scientists, Isaac Newton (1642-1726/7), practiced alchemy along with his science. And that practice did not die with Newton.

With those provisos in mind, or not, do enjoy the movie reviews embedded in David’s April 17, 2015 news.  One final note,David in his weekly roundup of science on late night tv noted that Neil deGrasse Tyson’s late night tv talk show, Star Talks, debuted April 20, 2015, the episode can be seen again later this week while deGrasse Tyson continues to make the rounds of other talk shows to publicize his own.

International Women’s Day March 8, 2015: Pioneering Women of Physics, Science goes to the Movies, and Transistor

In honour of International Women’s Day 2015, here are four items about women and science. The first features Canada’s Perimeter Institute (PI) and a tribute to pioneering women in physics, from a Feb. 26, 2015 PI news release,

They discovered pulsars, found the first evidence of dark matter, pioneered mathematics, radioactivity, nuclear fission, elasticity, and computer programming, and have even stopped light.

Jocelyn Bell Burnell

Rosalind Franklin

Hedy Lamarr

Wu Chien ShiungIt’s a fascinating group of women and these four provide a taste only.

The second item about women in science is also from the Perimeter Institute, which is hosting an ‘Inspiring Future Women in Science’ conference on Friday, May 6, 2015. From the PI program page,

Are you interested in turning your love of science into a career?  Perimeter Institute is inviting female high school students to participate in an inspirational half day conference on Friday March 6, 2015.  The goal is to bring together like minded young women with a strong interest in science and expose them to the rewards, challenges and possibilities of a career in science.

kEYNOTE ADDRESSES

Rima Brek – Rima is a Ubisoft veteran of 16 years and a founding team member of the Toronto studio. There, she was responsible for kick-starting the technology team and helping ship the critically-acclaimed Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Blacklist. She is a sought-after advisor whose guidance and leadership have directly helped Ubisoft Toronto grow to over 300 game developers in just five years.

Dianna Cowern – Dianna is a science communicator and educator. She received her degree in physics from MIT and completed a post-baccalaureate fellowship in astrophysics at Harvard. She then worked on mobile applications as a software engineer at General Electric before beginning a position at the University of California, San Diego as a physics outreach coordinator. She is the primary content creator for her educational YouTube channel, Physics Girl.

Roslyn Bern – As president of the Leacross Foundation, Roslyn Bern has been creating opportunities for women and girls throughout Canada. She has worked on initiatives for over 20 years, as an educator, a business woman, and as a philanthropist. She has focused on developing scholarships and bursaries for girls in under-represented career fields. She has been instrumental on sending teenage girls to the Arctic and Antarctic with Students on Ice, and created a partnership with colleges and corporations to certify STEM women in Electrical engineering. …

By the time this piece is posted it will be too late to attend this year’s event but interested parties could plan for next year in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

The third item concerns an initiative from the Public Radio Exchange, PRX. Called Transistor; a STEM [science, technology, engineering, and mathematics] audio project. From the series page,

Transistor is a transformative STEM podcast, taking the electricity of a story and channeling it to listeners. Three scientist hosts — a biologist, an astrophysicist, and a neuroscientist — report on conundrums, curiosities, and current events in and beyond their fields. Sprinkled among their episodes are the winners of the STEM Story Project, a competition we held for unique science radio.

Much as the transistor radio was a new technical leap, this Transistor features new women voices and sounds from new science producers.

PRX presents Transistor, applying our storytelling and podcast experience to science. The Sloan Foundation powers Transistor with funding and support. And listeners complete the circuit.

The Feb. 18, 2015 PRX news release offers more details about the hosts and their first podcasts,

PRX is thrilled to announce the launch of a new weekly podcast series Transistor (official press release). Three scientist hosts — a biologist, an astrophysicist, and a neuroscientist — report on conundrums, curiosities, and current events in and beyond their fields. Sprinkled among their episodes are the winners of the PRX STEM Story Project, a competition we held for unique science radio.

Just as the transistor radio was a new technical leap, this Transistor features new women voices and their science perspectives. We’ve launched with four episodes from our three scientist hosts:

  • Dr. Michelle Thaller, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, who studies binary stars and the life cycles of the stars.
    • We Are Stardust: We’re closer than ever before to discovering if we’re not alone in the universe. Astrophysicist Michelle Thaller visits the NASA lab that discovered that comets contain some of the very same chemical elements that we contain. Then, Michelle talks to a Vatican planetary scientist about how science and religion can meet on the topic of life beyond Earth.
  • Dr. Christina Agapakis, a biologist and writer based in Los Angeles. Her research focuses on the intersection of microbiology and design, exploring the symbiosis among microbes and biology, technology, and culture.
    • Food, Meet Fungus: The microbiome — the trillions of bacteria, fungi, and viruses that live in and on our body — is hot right now. We explore what we do know in the face of so much hope and hype, starting with food.
  • Dr. Wendy Suzuki, a Professor of Neural Science and Psychology in the Center for Neural Science at New York University, whose research focuses on understanding how our brains form and retain new long-term memories and the effects of aerobic exercise on memory. Her book Healthy Brain, Happy Life will be published by Harper Collins in the Spring of 2015.
    • Totally Cerebral: Untangling the Mystery of Memory: Neuroscientist Wendy Suzuki introduces us to scientists who have uncovered some of the deepest secrets about our brains. She begins by talking with experimental psychologist Brenda Milner [interviewed in her office at McGill University, Montréal, Quebéc], who in the 1950s, completely changed our understanding of the parts of the brain important for forming new long-term memories.
    • Totally Cerebral: The Man Without a Memory: Imagine never being able to form a new long term memory after the age of 27. Welcome to the life of the famous amnesic patient “HM”. Neuroscientist Suzanne Corkin studied HM for almost half a century, and gives us a glimpse of what daily life was like for him, and his tremendous contribution to our understanding of how our memories work.

Each scientist is working with a talented independent producer: Lauren Ober, Julie Burstein, and Kerry Donahue.

Subscribe to the show through iTunes or RSS, or you can stream it on PRX.org.

I listened to all four of the introductory programs which ranged in running time from about 16 mins. to 37 mins. All three hosts are obviously excited about sharing their science stories and I look forward to hearing more from them.

The last item comes from David Bruggeman’s Feb. 20, 2015 post on his Pasco Phronesis blog (Note: A link has been removed),

Science Goes to the Movies is a new program produced by the City University of New York and sponsored by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. … The hosts are Faith Salie, a journalist and host you might have heard before as a panelist on Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me, and Dr. Heather Berlin, a neuroscientist whose research focuses on brain-body relationships and psychological disorders.  (In what makes for a small world, Berlin is married to Canadian rap troubadour Baba Brinkman.) …

Science Goes to the Movies can be found here where you’ll also find a video of the first episode,

Hallucinations and black holes vie for the 2015 Oscar. Co-hosts Faith Salie and Dr. Heather Berlin are joined by AMNH astrophysicist Dr. Emily Rice for a look at the science in three of the top films of the year, Birdman, The Theory of Everything, and Interstellar.

Episode 102 featuring Into the Woods and the Imitation Game will première on March 20, 2015,

Science Goes to the Movies looks at The Imitation Game and Into the Woods. With special guest cryptologist Rosario Gennaro, we discuss pattern recognition in the work of both Alan Turing and Stephen Sondheim.

Science Goes to the Movies is made possible by generous support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Kudos to the Alfred P. Sloan foundation for funding two exciting ventures: Transistors and Science Goes to the Movies.

Getting back to where I started: Happy International Women’s Day 2015!