So Much To Talk About!!!

So little time to write. Ok, since a few of you have asked I’ll take this moment to share a couple of my more exciting experiences of late.

A couple of months ago I was contacted by Brian Dunning of The Skeptoid Podcast about taking part in a pilot TV show hosted by a bunch of skeptics. Wow! What an interesting idea. I am totally interested in getting more science and critical thinking into the public eye, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. So, I agreed to throw my hat into the ring. After a flurry of emails and a couple of phone calls with Brian and Ryan Johnson at New Rule Productions, they offered me a part in their show, The Skeptologists. Yay!!!

I headed down to Pasadena in LA about a week and a half ago to meet everyone, and have one of the busiest weeks of my life. I’ll tell you now that shooting an hour long tv show in 4 days is no easy task. The days were filled with activity from early morning until quittin’ time. That said there was also a lot of down time. I’ve come to learn that tv production is all about “hurry up and wait”.

The first evening the cast and crew went out to dinner to acquaint ourselves with the people we would be spending nearly every waking moment with for the rest of the week. I was a bit nervous because I had never met any of them before, but I found myself getting along within minutes (Yay, other science geeks to talk to!). I can’t believe that I got the chance to meet such a group of really cool people.

Day 1 of shooting consisted of “the interviews” and “glamour shots” (I have to europify the word glamor because the whole idea of being portrayed as glamorous is a bit foreign to me). We drove over to the Skeptic magazine office after our morning meeting and proceeded to be made-up for the cameras… after investigating all the cool things that Michael Shermer has on his shelves, of course. I want a library like his someday. It really was a lot of waiting time for a 20 minute interview. I hope that I came across ok. I never seem to say things the way I had planned to say them when the moment arrives. Eh, oh well.

Day 2 involved a trip into the mountains to the famed Mt. Wilson Observatory. We spent the entire day hanging out around the 100 inch scope on a beautiful sunny (and FREEZING) day. The day was dreary in the lowlands, so I was quite happy to get the sun time. I’ve got some pictures that Yau-man Chan took (my camera ran out of batteries right on cue).

Getting there with Yau-Man…

Telescope!

Awestruck by the thing…

Old meets new…

In front of the machine…

How can Michael sleep at a time like this???

Look how small the Producer is!

Don’t touch THAT button, Mark!

A piece of sky…

A piece of the telescope…

Yau-Man at the controls…

At the end of Day 2 I had to race back down the mountain to get to a test screening for another tv program. This one I cannot tell you about, but I will say that I was testing for the sciencey role. It was my second test with them, so I figured I was really close to getting the part. The pressure was on! I dumped off m’stuff at the hotel, and grabbed a few more things (the director wanted wardrobe options). Then I ran downstairs and was picked up by one of the producers, Ed, and driven from Pasadena to Culver City.

When we arrived at the location I thought it must be a mistake because we were going to someone’s house instead of a studio. It turned out the the Executive Producer, Eddie, had given up his house for the test. His wife and kids were great sports considering the fact that their living room was completely dismantled and reassembled into a film studio.

The test has to have been one of the more emotionally draining experiences in my life. Immediately upon arriving and for the next three hours I discussed the deepest human issues of religion, science, spirituality, philosophy, and belief with people I had never really met before in my life. Definitely NOT cocktail party conversation. I tried my best to present myself and take the helpful direction of the director and producers. However, by the end of the evening I was so thoroughly drained from the experience I could hardly talk at all. Needless to say that when I got back to the hotel near midnight I fell into bed and the deepest sleep I have had in ages.

The third day brought a new field shoot. Our first stop was a health food store to investigate the benefits of wheatgrass juice. I got to try some, and didn’t like it much. I thought I would have a better reaction being vegetarian and all, but my stomach had other ideas. You can probably find a really flattering picture of me trying to force it down on the Skeptologists’ Facebook page. The guy who owned the shop was really great, very accommodating, and full of information. He was so convincing in presenting his information that it was hard to remind myself that there really isn’t a lot of research to back up any of his claims. But, anyway, that done we were off to the Queen Mary.

The Queen Mary is a terrific old cruise liner docked in Long Beach with all sorts of tales of haunting. They even have a ghost tour you can take if so inclined. We shot a scene with ghost investigator types in the old boiler room area. It was perfect; rusty, dilapidated, the perfect place for a ghost to show up. Phil even had a run-in with a persnickity ghost who threw quarters. His investigations of the quarter tossing surely made the afternoon down-time more entertaining.

I had a conference to attend the next day, so at the end of the day I sadly said my goodbyes and headed back to the hotel with my driver and executive producer, Brian Dunning. Thanks for taking care of me, Brian!!!

I left the hotel and headed to San Diego for the Experimental Biology meeting with a whole bunch of great experiences and new friends. I hope that The Skeptologists makes it past the pilot stage. It would be amazing to spend more time with all of the people involved, and to put science, reason, and critical thinking in front of millions of tv viewers. Fingers crossed that this is not the end of the story.

That said, I still needed to finish my presentation for the meeting. Yikes!

My INXS Moment

Lip Dub – Need You Tonight by INXS from sarahlane on Vimeo.

Thank you, Rock Giant.

I love this song. Sorry, folks. It’s funny.

The Lesson

I’ve been trying to fit both movie trailers into one post, but to no avail. So, here is the ID version of Flock of Dodos, Ben Stein’s Expelled. You can find a rebuttal to Expelled at expelledexposed.com. I also found this rebuttal to Flock of Dodos interesting.

It all just goes to show that good editing can tell just about any story.

Home Is Where the Heart Is

And, mine is certainly now in San Francisco. The past month has brought some incredible changes to my life, and I am now looking (only somewhat fearfully) at the upcoming year with excitement. I am commuting once a week to Davis, CA for TWIS. We’ll see how long I’ll be up to the commute, but I promise that TWIS will persist regardless. Food Science is on hold for the time being. Hopefully, we’ll be bringing new episodes to you sooner rather than later. And, I’m working on a new project with Revision3, which will launch in late February. Stay tuned for lots of science fun!

In the meantime, this past week included two important days: Valentine’s Day and Darwin’s birthday. While I saw people running around with flowers, cards, and candy for the former, the latter heralded hardly a peep outside the science community. It’s quite a shame I think that a vaguely known Saint is so celebrated, but Darwin remains in the sidelines aside for the occasional attacks by religious fundamentalists.

Many scientific hypotheses come and go, but Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection has weathered the tests of time. It remains a solid, well-tested mechanism comprising one of the fundamental processes of the Theory of Evolution. Darwin’s influence on the entire field of evolutionary thought cannot be discounted, and is possibly as important as that of Einstein on the field of physics. Yet, where is the love? Here’s a song produced by a friend of mine, which I think does a great job of covering the issue. Expect to hear it on the 2008 TWIS compilation cd!

Steve Jobs Almost Picked Me!

Haha! The MacWorld Keynote almost featured li’l ol’ me. Steve Jobs gave an example of the HD videos available through Apple TV. When he went to the screen in iTunes, Food Science was right there at the top of the list next to a show about snowboarding. Steve’s mouse was right next to me! But, the snowboarder won out, which I understand completely. I can’t really compete for entertainment value with people jumping off of mountains.

Wouldn’t You Know It?

The monkeys invented prostitution way back… or, at least, men have had to work for sex throughout history.

There’s been a sense in the animal behavior world for quite some time (since around 1994 when biological markets were first proposed) that sex should be thought of as a commodity. It is THE big resource for life. Without it, there would be no procreation, and females hold the key. So, this research goes some way toward providing evidence for the idea.

My big question, however, is why is this such a big story? It is everywhere in the news, and I have been sent the story by at least four separate people. Is it that the combination of monkeys and sex in one story is just too good to pass up?

Isn’t It Interesting That…

“In an age when people have benefited so greatly from science and reason, it is ironic that some still reject the tools that have afforded them the privilege to reject them, says Gerald Weissmann, MD, Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal.” (Link)

This is a fact that I have yet to comprehend.

Do You Think I’m Sexy?

At least a couple of people think I’m a sexy geek. That’s pretty cool. Although, I hope it’s my mind (and fanatical drive to  popularize science) they find sexy.
I have been nominated for the Wired Magazine 2007 Sexiest Geek Contest. It really is an honor to be up there with all those other geeks. Especially when there are so many more geeks out there not even being recognized. (I think I need to nominate Lisa Randall.) Thanks to those who have voted for me. I forgive you if you voted me down. And, if you haven’t voted me up yet, what are you waiting for? Click the link and scroll through the list until you find me.

Happy New Year!

What a year it is shaping up to be already. One day back from vacation and there is already so much going on.

I need to find a place to live in San Francisco before the end of the month, and move. Time to hit the road outta Davis, and try out life in the big little city. I need to finish six more episodes of Food Science in the next two months. TWIS needs a face-lift. I’m hoping to launch at least three more sciencey video series this month, and a new audio podcast. Plus, MacWorld is mid-month, and I will be covering the tech from a science angle for MacBreak (along with playing up my PC to Mac conversion – yes, I now own a Macbook). I think I am insane for wanting to do as much as I want to do, but it will all be so much fun I can’t help myself.

Here’s a smattering of pictures from the end of the year I thought would be fun to share.

Here, I was visited on the set of Food Science by the Girls Gone Geek:

Then, in December, I was invited to the Zivity holiday party by my friend, and model, Damanda:

Finally, I traveled to Vancouver where I played with food for Leo Laporte on The Lab. Here’s me in my hotel room:

And, here’s Alex Lindsey in the cab ride over to The Lab:

There is definitely more fun to be had this year. I’ve been told that 2008 is really Two thousand and great.