Feynman’s Flower

… where I introduce some Bay Area people spreading the Good Word about science.

On June 18, I attended a retreat for Bay Area science communicators. Attending were wonderful people from science museums and laboratories and schools, but the presence of some people who are also finding creative ways to educate adults about science surprised and delighted me. Here are a few of them.

Brian Malow, Science Comedian

making you *want* to understand the science to get the joke

Brian Malow is the science comedian. He is very funny. But you have to get the science to get the jokes. He says he gets very different reactions from different audiences. As you can imagine, the same joke that makes he American Chemical Society ROTFL can hear silence at a local bar.

I think: Finally! After years of not ‘getting’ popular culture jokes that send my peers into spasms of hilarity, I am of the ‘in’ group. (A nerd in the know!) But I think the promise of Brian’s craft goes way beyond this turning of tables. He’s making steps towards curing a problem that has long troubled me. I’ve often noticed that educated adults are expected to know certain things. We are expected to know who painted The Scream and how Portia relates to Shylock and what caused World War II. However, from quiz shows to dinner conversation, science topics are generally only referred to by their most well-known catch-terms or in the singular vein of the history of science. That’s not right. Science should be everywhere. It is everywhere. Adults should be expected to understand principles of science. And, if our society did expected that, I think they would.

Back to Brian: his science comedy expects and encourages people to know basic science, like mercury is hotter than Earth or that our universe has rules that govern things like matter and light. Scientists and skeptics and rational people aren’t stuffy. We can laugh. And having Brian Malow creating humorous material encourages everyone to come laugh with us.

You can find Brian here: http://www.sciencecomedian.com/ You can watch Brian in action here: http://www.youtube.com/sciencecomedian

Dr. Kiki, This Week in Science radio show host

current science chat radio

Kristin Sanford, AKA Dr. Kiki, co-hosts a weekly radio show called This Week in Science. Each week she and her co-host Justin Jackson cover stories from the week’s science news that happen to catch their attention. They chat about the findings like grad students in the lunch room. Sometimes they are intrigued and sometimes a little dubious, but they always add a personal element of why the science in interesting. It’s almost as if they are adding back what the impersonal, starched format of scientific publications takes away.

You can listen to the show live from 8:30 to 9:30 am Pacific Time or subscribe to the podcast. http://www.twis.org/

Kishore Hari, Bay Area Science and Science Cafes

bringing science to the people (in bars)

There was a time when science lectures were considered prime entertainment. Kishore Hari is bringing that era back. Kishore organizes the Down to a Science science cafes, which allow people to enjoy the wonders of science with a drink in their hands. (The best way, I think!) Kishore invites scientists from the local laboratories and universities to give a short, general talk and participate in an extended Q&A about their research. The talks are geared toward the general public and promise to not be stuffy. The events are free and convene at various neighborhood bars.

Kishore’s science cafes are here: http://www.sciencecafesf.com/ You can find a very useful listing of science events in the Bay Area here: http://www.bayareascience.org/ Also, if you live in the Bay Area, you must follow him on Twitter: http://twitter.com/bayareascience/

Every child is naturally curious about the world. Children explore, chase insects, and question the whys of Nature. Upon growing up, this innate wonder can dull. Be it through weighty responsibilities, boredom, or changes in priorities, adults can forget the joy possible from observing Nature and grappling with its puzzles.

I propose an annual holiday that encourages us to remember and nurture our curiosity about the world and to appreciate what a mystifyingly wonderful thing it is to be alive on an Earth full of beautiful, strange, and diverse life in a Universe of laws and incomprehension.

Summer solstice is the perfect date for such a holiday because it has physical meaning to Nature. It isn’t an arbitrary date; it is the day of the most northern sunrise, the longest day of the year. Not only does this remind us that we live on a planet, but it gives us plenty of daylight to enjoy and explore.

Some Science Solstice celebration suggestions:

• take a nature walk, bring plant and animal identification guides
• have a sciency song sing-along, like Monte Python’s “Galaxy” and They Might Be Giant’s sun song
• spend a least an hour staring at the clouds
• bake bread, thank the yeast
• mixology experiment: layer drinks of different densities
• pull out the binoculars, pull out the telescope
• watch ants
• be thankful we live on a planet with a tilt and this seasons
• contemplate the molten magma beneath your feet
• eat foods that are grown locally and in season
• swap fun science factinis with friends

I believe a holiday encouragng the observance and contemplation of nature encourages spiritual growth as much as (well, OK - I think prbably more than) the traditional religious holidays. What an amazingly magical Universe we live in!

For a few years I’ve intermittently campaigned for the renaming of Valentines Day to Dopamine Day. After all, that’s what it’s really about. The thrill of romantic love is largely the handiwork of the neurotransmitter dopamine.

We would celebrate Dopamine Day by engaging in activities that increase dopamine, like savoring chocolates, giving and receiving gifts, enjoying a nice meal, catching a show, and being close to your lover. Sound familiar? That’s probably because Valentines Day already is Dopamine Day but under a less specific, or at least less alliterative, name.

Dopamine Day encompasses so much more, though. It doesn’t leave single people out in the cold, like Valentines Day does. Don’t have a lover? That’s not a problem for Dopamine Day! Your potential for enjoying dopamine isn’t dependent on your relationship status. The trick for releasing dopamine is to try something novel and thrilling, like exploring a new city or skydiving or rafting. Not very adventurous? Then engaging in fantasy, like a movie or a book may be more your style. The addition of chocolate never hurts.

It seems appropriate to interject here with a pertinent factini. The brains of people who are in the crazy-in-love stage of love look like the brains of people who are high on cocaine. Now, I’m not suggesting you celebrate Dopamine Day by snorting coke; that’s too easy - and therefore dangerous. (In fact one could argue whether or not celebrating Dopamine Day with someone you are madly in love with “too easy.” I’ll let that debate slide for now.)

To really give dopamine its awe-inspiring due, it’s important to note that cocaine and other drugs are addictive because they hijack the dopamine pleasure/reward system. Dopamine feels *that good* and its pull is *that irresistible*.

So, let’s celebrate the goodness and irresistibly of dopamine, without which we would lose our zest for much of life. In fact, without dopamine to pull us in the direction of maintaining our necessary life functions, I doubt we could exist. We would certainly not be human.

I plan to celebrate Dopamine Day with a wander in the redwoods, an indulgence in a novel, and plenty of chocolate & zinfandel. Maybe I’ll surprise people with little Dopamine Day cards, too. That will help spread the love!

Hooray for dopamine!

Helen Fisher rocks. And not just because she is willing to put love, a societal sacred cow, under her anthropologist’s cutting knife, but because she got science into Oprah’s O Magazine.

It’s old news to avid O readers, but new news to me that Fisher wrote an article in 2007 called What’s Your Love Type? for O. While a lot of this article reads like your typical magazine personality test, it strays from the herd by relating each of four personality types to a neurotransmitter. Roughly, it is:

Dopamine - someone with a powerful dopamine system will seek out novelty = adventurer

Estrogen - estrogen allows empathy and emotional intelligence (I wonder if there’s some oxytocin in there, too.) = negotiator

Serotonin - a lot of serotonin makes people even-keeled, loyal, and structured = builder

Testosterone - drive and rationality = director

Admittedly such categorizations are simplistic have limited use for the well-rounded. But, since I like to think about the actions of neurotransmitters on my mood and emotions, I like this chart. I especially like that Fisher found her categories largely matched with those made by psychologists, like the Jungian Myers-Briggs test. Of course, there’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem, or more of a looking at the quark problem. Are these archetypes  ubiquitous because they permeate the mythology of our culture or are they part of our cultural mythologies because they have a biological origin?

But, back to my point: science in O Magazine! Neurotransmitters were mentioned, and I think that counts. Right on, Helen Fisher!

Listen to this interview for a great quote:

Leonard Lopate:

“A scientific approach does take some of the romance out of the question, doesn’t it?”

Helen Fisher:

“Well, not for me. You can know every single chemical in a piece of chocolate cake and still sit down and eat the cake and be thrilled. Ad you can know every single part of an enginine of a Farari and get into the machine and drive it and enjoy the road. So for me it’s added a tramendous depth and breadth and highth to it.”

(Sound like Richard Feynman’s flower quote?)

Helen Fisher’s website

Jeff Hoke, Museum of Lost Wonder

That’s really what science art is about, to me: Re-introducing people to the wonder and awe they felt from exploring nature as children. Besides the Particle Zookeeper, another person I was pleased to meet last weekend was Jeff Hoke.

If you are not familiar with Jeff’s book The Museum of Lost Wonder, go familiarize yourself with it now. A synthesis of science, alchemy, and philosophy, it is also a one person’s journey pondering big questions. It will have you pondering these, too.

Jeff’s drawings are amazing, reminiscent of Edward Gorey and Chris Ware. His lines contain so much emotion and mystery. More amazing are his models, which can be cut out and assembled into 3D, often moving, dioramas. He has truly created his own world, a dusty library of a world with magic and secrets and symbols and endless possibility contained within.

Jeff has an interesting day job, too. He is an exhibit designer at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. He designed a exhibit with “lots of velvet” for jellyfish. Really, so cool.

I admit that I first checked out his book at the local library. But before I had finished reading, I had ordered 6 books to be scattered among my friends and family. Come to think of it, I may need a few more for Winter Solstice gifts.

Visit The Museum of Lost Wonder

Last weekend I showed my stuff at Wonderfest, the Bay Area science festival held one day at Stanford and one day at UC Berkeley. Despite the pouring rain and thunder outside, the turn-out was great. My favorite part of Wonderfest was meeting other people who combine art and science in fun & amazing ways. One of these people is Julie Peasley who creates cuddly subatomic particles.

Julie, from LA but previously from the bay area, hand sews her particle softies. She has the complete standard model collection, including the - still elusive in real life - Higgs Boson. Many of her creations contain fun hints at the particle’s identity. The strange quark has three eyes.

In a most insipred bit of geekiness, Julie weights the plushies to reflect the relative weights of the particles. And, of course, they all come with a little story card about the particle. *swoon* I love those covert science lessons!

See the awesomeness of the Particle Zoo