The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab is producing a video series, Cambridge Nights. From the Oct. 31, 2011 news item on physorg.com,

While it’s not uncommon to see scientists on TV, most of the time it’s just for a few minutes on the news to comment on a recent event or major discovery. A new late night show called “Cambridge Nights” coming out of MIT’s Media Lab is changing that by providing an outlet for researchers to talk about their work in a slower paced, conversational setting. The first episodes of the show are being posted at http://cambridgenights.media.mit.edu.

The programme host is Cesar Hidalgo, ABC Career Development Professor at MIT and there are now three episodes on the website. From the news item,

So far, eight episodes have been filmed, each about 30-45 minutes long. The episodes are being released every Wednesday, with the fourth episode appearing this week [Nov.2.11]. The three episodes that have been released so far feature interviews with Marc Vidal, Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School; Geoffrey West, former President of the Santa Fe Institute; and Albert-László Barabási, director of Northeastern University’s Center for Complex Networks Research.

Due to the laid-back setting, the guests are able to tell stories that span their careers, peppered with interesting bits of trivia. For instance, as West discusses his research on how metabolism scales with an organism’s body mass, he notes that life is often marveled at for its diversity, but no less intriguing is how the characteristics of all known life forms follow some simple physical and mathematical laws. Even the arrangement of trees in a forest follows a formula, despite looking random, he explains.

They see this programming as an antidote to the ‘news byte’ mentality that has taken over the interview shows. From the news item,

As the shows are not pressed for time or commercial breaks, the guests are allowed to take their time while talking without being cut short by frequent interruptions or confrontational questions.

Thanks to MIT you can now spend the night with a Cambridge scientist or two.