Have science, will travel
Home to the finest science shows this side of the Big Bang performed by the two best science guys in this (or any other) universe. Have science, will travel.
Music and science, yo. That’s my jam. Sure I have other hobbies like breathing and occasionally eating food, but the lion’s share of each and every day is spent engaged with science, music, or some combination of the two. I particularly love it when they are combined and today I want to talk about a couple of my favorite intersections of music and scientific technology.
Read MorePsst. Hey you. It's Thursday. Which means it's almost Friday. Which means it's almost the weekend. We both know you've done more than enough work and no one is going to know or care if you spend the rest of the day surfing the internet. Come with me down this dark alleyway of the internet. I got something I think you'll want to see........
When the stupid burns brightly and the wonder of science seems ever-dimming in the eyes of the world, there's not much else to do but laugh. To that end I'd like to highlight a couple of my favorite web comics that share my passion for science, philosophy, and the occasional blatantly disgusting and inappropriate humor. If you haven't already guessed, some of the following is NSFW.
Read MoreToday, Aaron gets physical!…And Chemical!…With Chemistry!
And for a limited time only a special play-along-at-home experiment for no extra charge! Satisfaction guaranteed or double your money back! Click now. Operators are standing by.
Read More"BY YOUR POWERS COMBINED, I AM.....sincerely concerned about legislative efforts to significantly change the composition of the EPA's Science Advisory Board." Okay, maybe that's not the most exciting plot synopsis of a Captain Planet fan-fiction episode. However, recent legislation is threatening to do exactly that and it is just one in a series of challenges towards government funded science being faced in America and abroad. Join Aaron as he looks at one of these pieces of legislation and the possible repercussions for the EPA.
Read More311,000,000 miles from home the Philae lander is gently slumbering. After an…interesting landing scientists have gleaned as much data from the craft as possible before it’s primary battery ran down. So what happened and what does this mean for Philae’s eventual fate? Join Aaron as he celebrates getting his hands on a webcam made in the current millennium by bringing you up to date on the Rosetta mission.
Read MoreWhile enjoying Daring Don’s video on statistics (watch it here) I was reminded how many people, myself included, feel deficient in their understanding of math or science. This week I wanted to share one of my favorite science-themed authors in what will be the first of many book reviews highlighting those science communicators who can break down the knowledge for those of us who are still striving to learn the nuts and bolts of the scientific endeavor.
Read MoreAmid the detritus of the sparsely attended mid-term election, many folks in Oregon are still all riled up. Measure 92, which proposed labeling for GMO foodstuffs was defeated although the PR war promises to continue through the next election cycle and into perpetuity. Not surprisingly I see more and more articles popping up in social media on both sides of the issue and, even though I’m not quite ready to open up that particular can of worms (unless we get requests……..), I’d like to use the debate to highlight some issues with how we parse the huge amounts of information provided to us through the many interconnecting tubes of the internet.
Read MoreSo I didn't have a lot of time this week to put together a new vlog covering some sweet new content. Instead I have pulled another bit from our full-length show "Don't Try This at Home," which you can watch in its entirety on our Performances page. In this clip, Aaron faces my wrath as I wield my mighty sledgehammer. After trapping him between two beds of nails. With a cinderblock on top. This is a classic demonstration of the sometimes counterintuitive nature of physics and energy transfer, but like everything we do we do it up. We bring a flair and style to this demo that you'll rarely, if ever, find elsewhere. And so far I haven't killed Aaron.
So far.
Read MoreMonday’s post by the delightful Don Riefler has me thinking a lot about the various current space missions being conducted by NASA and other space agencies. In particular I was thinking about the New Horizons mission to Pluto and, with a shock, I realized I had no idea what was going to happen to that brave little craft after it had reached our most distant former planet.
Read MoreWe’ve received some questions about the structure and content of our shows and, rather than insist the questioner watch our video in a vain attempt to pad our YouTube viewership, I figured I would take this opportunity to discuss the thought that goes into deciding what blows up and when and, most importantly, why.
Read MoreWe are all familiar with static electricity. A good deal of us could probably adequately answer a 7 year old’s questions about what it is. However, did you know that not only can it stick your socks together in the dryer or give you a nasty shock, but it can also levitate objects? Just a few minutes with several household items and you can make your very own flying device.
Read MoreWe know that our full length show video might be slightly daunting at nearly 90 minutes long, but there’s so much great stuff in there. To make all that great stuff a bit easier to parse, Aaron and I have decided to cut it down into bite-sized snippets of some of our demos and post them independently. It’ll give you just a small taste of the awesomeness that is an Explosions, Inc. Science Show.
Today’s feature, which you can find by clicking through to the full post, is our signature move, the one that inspired our logo: the Flaming Bubbles. As we like to say, though, before things like this, under no circumstances should you try this at home! Ever! We are trained professionals who have done this hundreds of times apiece and know the techniques necessary to making it as safe as it can be.
Read More
A couple of years ago, when we were both working in the education department at Mobius Science Center in Spokane, Washington, Aaron was invited to give a talk at the local TEDx conference. He chose to speak about why science education is important to the world and why it's his passion personally. If you want to skip to the video, click through and scroll down, but I wanted to add something to it first. Both of us feel the same passion for science and science education. People often act surprised and delighted when they find out that informal science is my full-time job and has been for years. Some of the comments they make have led me to believe that there may be this general idea going around that only dedicated scientists can really, truly love and understand science.
Well, we are proof that people who aren't full-time scientists can love and understand science. We do what we do because we want everyone else to feel the same way we do. There's a lot of talk about jobs in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) fields and those are important. But the world needs accountants, sewer inspectors, pig farmers, musicians, hairstylists, crab fisherman, police officers, and, well, I think you get my point. All of those people have the same potential to fall in love with the universe, to see the grandeur of the cosmos in the sweep of Saturn's rings or the metabolism of a plant cell, as a PhD-holding scientist. Science isn't a job to do; it's a massive, crazy, and yet somehow majestic body of knowledge and, more importantly, it's a way of looking at the world so that we arrive at the most accurate knowledge possible. It's a process of becoming continually, incrementally, less wrong in how we view the universe through the controlled collection of high-quality evidence. And that body of knowledge, that process, is utterly invaluable, universally applicable, and available to everybody. It's just that not everybody realizes it.
We do what we do to help people make that leap. To become scientists without becoming scientists, so to speak. Everyone who has ever looked at something in the world and wondered about it has already taken the first step; we exist to extend a helping hand forward.
But I digress. Aaron says it better than I can in his presentation, titled "How to Be Absolutely Fascinating with Nothing But a Bucket of Dirt."