Tagged: science

Award-winning actor and director Alan Alda has a passion for science, and more specifically, how to help scientists better communicate with students and the public of all ages. He founded the Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University for this reason, and created a yearly contest where scientists are asked to explain a concept so that an 11 year old can understand it. The Flame Challenge is judged by thousands of 11 year olds, and this year’s topic is What is Time? Alan Alda spent a few minutes on the phone with Dean Regas talking about how his love of science began, and his goals for this contest, in this month’s Looking Up.

Dean Regas from the Cincinnati Observatory joins Cincinnati Edition as a monthly contributor, and his Looking Up segment makes a big bang this month as he talks with Bill Prady, co-creator of the monster CBS hit The Big Bang Theory. They discuss the science used in the show, the growth of the characters over the years, and the story behind Raj’s inability to speak to women.

Mark Perzel and Senior Editor Jesse Cohen discuss the process and collaboration with Guest Editor Michio Kaku on creating this year’s volume of The Best American Science Writing. Jesse dives into the history and inspiration for creating the series and elaborates on some of the choices made for the 2012 edition.