Dr. Kiki’s Science Hour - Life, Language, and Science

One of the books that the TWIS book club read this year was Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle by Dr. Daniel Everett of Illinois State University.

In the book, Dr. Everett tells the story of his years spent in the amazon jungle studying the language of a small tribe of Indians. There are ups and downs, thrills and spills throughout, but the most important part of the story is the language and how it changed the Dr.’s life forever.

You would be amazed at everything Dr. Everett went through in the name of science. I know I was when I read the book.

Even more amazing was getting to speak with him on the Science Hour. See for yourself…

Dr. Kiki Sanford - Demo Reel

I’m a science popularizer and communicator. This reel includes examples of some of my recent work hosting, interviewing, and generally being Dr. Kiki for the likes of the Science Channel, Revision3, PixelCorps, and more.

I am currently looking for representation by way of a manager-type person. And, I am looking for new TV and/or online video host, interviewer, contributor, correspondent, writer, producer-type work. Work being the operative term. As in: paying with the money.

Let me know if you have any ideas or if you happen to be a manager looking for some scientific talent.

This Week in Science Community Brainstorm

This Week in Science has been a labor of my love for ten years. I have enjoyed every one of them, and expect to enjoy many more.

The show has enabled me to meet so many people, and created a community of science minded folks who I hope to count as friends (even though we call them minions).

However, the community could be better. The show and our website are still run based on the old media ways of pushing content out when they should be created with a mind for the community who want to pull the information in. So, we are thinking about how to change our ways, to make even better science content that can contend with what the major publishers are pushing out, and how to foster the growth of a truly awesome science-y community.

It’s actually been a dream of mine for a long time to create a community-driven science media channel based on TWIS. We started to develop the idea with our TWIS-tributions; asking minions to record TWIS-y news stories for the show. But, it didn’t get the response I was hoping for, and so fell by the wayside.

Naomi Most (nthmost on Twitter) brought me back to the idea today (seriously, I think she is data mining my brain), and specifically peaked my re-contemplation with a couple of her comments:

“Ah, but w/ TWIStributions, the show always goes on regardless whether of ppl contribute… If you set up a system of continuous expectation of involvement w/ appropriate reward, superfans emerge.” 

And, this is a crucial point. The community needs ownership and investment for the entire endeavor to thrive. And, so far that is limited.

So, this is where I am. I want to create what Naomi termed an incubator for science reporting through TWIS. I want to rebuild the TWIS website to reflect the community and its many interests, and allow the growth of parallel scientific content in the form of blogs, audio, and video programming. I want to find the science reporting superstars among the minions, and have them call TWIS their home.

Is that too much to ask?

Interested in sponsoring the endeavor?

Have any ideas?

Michio Kaku on Quantum Computing

Thanks to Saleem Khan for this question about quantum computing. Hear what Dr. Michio Kaku has to say about it to Dr. Kiki in this quick segment.

Michio on Bose-Einstein Condensates

Dr. Kiki asks Dr. Michio Kaku a question from Justin Gill about Bose-Einstein Condensates. Twitter provided a great forum for collecting questions for Dr. Kaku.

Michael Chorost on Science at CWA 2009

Dr. Kiki interviews Michael Chorost, author of “Rebuilt: How Becoming Part Computer Made Me More Human”, about communicating science at the Conference on World Affairs in 2009.

Michio Kaku on Why

In this segment, Dr. Kaku discusses with Dr. Kiki why communicating science is so vital to research, and why he spends so much of his time talking to the public.

Distributed by Tubemogul.

Michio Kaku on Politics

Excerpt from Dr. Kiki’s 2008 interview with Dr. Michio Kaku. Here he discusses selling science to politicians.

Michio Kaku on the Big Bang

Dr. Michio Kaku talks about the Big Bang and the Large Hadron Collider… and Elvis.

Michio Kaku on God

Dr. Michio Kaku dishes on spirituality, Einstein, and God in this latest installment of our interview. Distributed by Tubemogul.