The latest, greatest scientific insights from Occam’s Razor:
I recently clicked on a misleading tweet advertising an article on the science of waiting in line. It purported to tell me how to choose the best line when forced with such a decision, say, at the grocery store, but the article did no such thing. (I won’t name the respected publishing entity but will gladly link to it here!) Not all was lost, however; from this article I learned with fascination that there is actually a journal called “Queueing Systems: Theory and Applications,” which I can imagine few people are lining up to buy, pun most definitely intended. Though I hear the journal is a great place to work…trips into the cafeteria take only seconds!  They set the world record for fire-alarm building evacuation speed!  The company picnic is the best-organized—  okay, I’ll stop.

There is science behind the research, but the rather pedestrian findings are that people don’t like waiting in line and that line creators need to make their queues enjoyable.  Occam and wife are expecting a child and I’ve already been considering what a challenge it’s going to be to have a toddler at a queue-heavy place like, say, Disney World, though if you’ve ever stood in line there you know that Mickey does a pretty good job of keeping guests entertained while in line. There is Peter Pan’s Flight, where guests pass the time by coloring in images of the eternally youthful small boys and girls in Malaysia who make the Disney clothing line. And of course in “educational” Epcot, while in line for preachy Spaceship Earth, you can play a game of “trade-and-cap”: trade a bit of your conscience as you maneuver puffy, dark clouds – representing the Disney empire’s daily worldwide carbon output to which you are at that moment contributing – to places where they will least likely be immediately noticed, like the polar ice caps!  And lastly, while waiting at Pirates of the Caribbean you can play “Pirates of Hollywood,” where you are encouraged to enter the names and addresses of friends and neighbors you know to watch Disney-owned content on Youtube into a “fun” database!  The excitement never ends. A 100 percent true story is that the most entertained Occam ever was while in line at Disney World was while watching a handful of old, dapper Japanese guys waiting to enter Epcot with stunningly beautiful, very tall, very overdressed (and by that I mean “under” dressed) girls in like, six inch heels who at a family-friendly place like Disney you want to assume were their daughters but were clearly prostitutes.

While on the subject of shoes – and more from the science of “duh” – scientists recently studied the impact of such high heels on the feet of dancers and determined that…heels make your feet hurt!  Wha??  To put it in the very complex terms of Science Daily, “They found that bare-foot dancing spreads the force evenly between heel and toe, but the higher the shoe heels, the more the force is thrown forward on to the toes.” Wow!  And, “The shift of the high-pressure region from heel to forefoot when dancing in high-heels can lead to discomfort of the foot.”  No!  The best part about this study is that it was done at a Chinese university and our only hope in not being overtaken by the Chinese in the world economy is if they keep spending lavishly on Olympics’ opening ceremonies and keep throwing money at studies like this.  Psst, China:  the NSF is about to fund a major study on what kind of paper produces the worst paper cuts.  You better not try to fund a billion yen study and beat us to it!

As an aside, your host on this site, the Science Cheerleader, has been wearing impractical high heels every time Occam has been around her—but in her defense they do accentuate her incredible calves.

Lastly, and for some good old Texas-sized, meaty research you can really sink your teeth into, the University of Texas at Austin has reported the apparently confounding results of a sexual behavior study. Women who normally exhibited low sex drives reported increased sexual interest and satisfaction during the study…while receiving a placebo. A real head scratcher, until UT Austin revealed that the placebo was…diamond earrings!  No, what they’ve determined is that simply expecting to have an improved sex life and participating in such a study makes couples feel closer and more intimate.

As mentioned above, Occam’s wife is nearly nine months pregnant and with the associated discomfort the sorts of activities that put her in such a state have lately been understandably far from her mind.  I wonder how long it would take me to fake some UT Austin Office of Research letterhead….

The Old Spice Man’s got nothin’ compared to an engineer.

Dr. John here… Look at your man. Now, back to the screen. Now, back at your man. Now, back to the screen. Sadly, your man probably isn’t an engineer, but if he watches this video produced by our very own Occam’s Razor–as part of SciCheer’s effort to shake up science and engineering stereotypes–he could learn about several themes that are important in an engineer’s life, including romantic getaways to Paris, impressing women, building stuff, and impressing women.

Check out the video, and please share wildly. I can’t promise that watching the video will make your man understand Fourier transforms and signal processing, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t. I’m on a blog.

Special thanks to Occam’s Razor (writer, director, producer, key grip), Anthony James (actor), Taylor Kahl and Michael McCutchen (stage crew).

This is a guest post from Occam’s Razor, whose wife is expecting a baby. Mini Occam is due this fall…

A bit from the social sciences….  Did you know that your friends have more friends than you?   It’s true.  But wait, you say, I’m very gregarious. I’m the president of the civic association.  I host Lost parties!  Too bad, according to the “friendship paradox.”  The paradox says that for any person chosen at random from a population, her friends will have more friends and connections than she does (and vice versa, which is the part that makes my head hurt).  This is why when girlfriends have broken up with me over the years, in my exit interview I’ve asked for referrals, figuring they know more attractive women than I do, partly evidenced by the fact that said girlfriend’s attractiveness was iffy, at best. Practically, the paradox is being used by researchers at Harvard. Applying it, they found that randomly selected professors were three times less likely to be incredibly pompous than their fellow …er, actually, it was used to study the spread of the flu by following associates of randomly chosen students – and not the randomly chosen students themselves – making it somewhat easy for them to track the disease’s spread.  It’s a fascinating look at the world of social networks.

These considerations of social networks are important to me now because my wife and I are about to have a baby and I want the best for the child. I need to know to whom to introduce him as he grows, so that he has the best connections and networking opportunities possible. Some of my responsibility for guidance and protection starts in utero, of course, as shown by this fascinating story about crickets.  These cricket parents let their eggs know when they may be endangered by a predator upon being born, perhaps by sending a sensory signal to them.  I must try to learn similar communicative skills to send warning signals to my baby so the child knows upon entering the world when trouble may be looming. For instance:

The sound of a $50 cigar being lit by a burning $100 bill indicates an oil executive may be about to oversee mind-boggling natural devastation.
The sound of a mistyped keyboard key means baby’s college savings will be wiped out by a Wall Street plunge.
The scent of pommade and feta means the Greeks are about to go on strike over the fear of losing their 14-hour work weeks.
The flapping of a Terrible Towel may indicate that Ben Roethlisberger is drunkenly lurking in a club.
The appearance of weeds overtaking a garden means another state has passed an Arizona-like immigration bill.w

My older child hasn’t fared too bad, I guess, although I suspect that’s in spite of me. At 16, we’re at dating age with her, which raises a whole new level of concern and I’ve tried to tell her that when dealing with men she consider the now PROVEN FACT that men are in part Neanderthals – it’s no longer just a figure of speech now that we know that Neanderthals and humans were mating.   This, of course, raises the question of just who was putting the moves on who way back when?  Was it the segments of human population who just couldn’t meet anyone else…they’d tried speed dating and stone-Harmony but nothing worked so they crossed the river and hooked up with the Neanderthals?  Or was it the other way around?  I can envision the scene now:  A Neanderthal male strolling all casual like over to some human ladies, showing off his large occipital bun, supraorbital torus, and “club.”

Either way, my everyday behavior just got a lot easier to explain away.

Another gem from our own Occam’s Razor. Take it away, Occam!

I am, like the rest of the country, caught up in soccer fever, where the fever in my case manifests itself in a soothing warmth that puts me directly to sleep.  No, this will not be another commentary about how inferior a sport soccer is – for one thing, that puts me on the wrong side of the intelligentsia (not that that’s always a bad thing), and for another, three billion people probably can’t be wrong.  And certainly any sport that inspires fans to stomp and thrash each other (investigated by scientists here) must be thrilling, though has anyone ever suffered a heart attack over a missed header?

I was in the gym a couple of weeks ago and just happened to glance up from my reading to see a game on the TV winding down and locked in a scintillating 0-0 tie.  This score seemed to cause a lot of excitement among soccer fans in the room, one of whom even remarked, enthralled, that the game featured two of the World Cups best scorers. This would be like getting excited about Peyton Manning and Tom Brady play to a scoreless game and I just don’t get it. After all, Americans are generally fans of the double-o football, where our highlight packages are sliced together into videos that contain cuts approximately every .8 seconds. (Seriously…I counted and in this 180-second highlight package there were over 200 seperate shots.)  Can a Twitter society be expected to sit there and watch 0-0 ties without being bored??

Science is split on the issue of boredom, depending on who you talk to. Being bored is certainly not bad for you, as it’s during these moments, scientists say, that we have introspection and bursts of creativity.  As you sit there bored in some dark bar watching a soccer game, drinking Belgian beer with your sophisticated soccer friends – babbling endlessly about ball handling and offensive strategies (score one goal and win!) – you might actually be creating new stuff in your head.   Einstein reportedly came with E=mc2 while staring off into space during a Switzerland-Germany match.  Over the long term, however, as Occam noted in a previous post, a recent study showed that you can literally be bored to death.

So I do have some ideas for spicing this game up.  As a recognized consultant on improving sports (among other ideas of mine adopted was ending the pracitce of euthanizing minor league baseball players with broken legs) my expertise is respected.  First of all, a new acronym is needed – “FIFA” just ain’t pretty, and it’s all about the acronyms.  I therefore propose a governing body called: Soccer Excitement for a Neverendingly Obsessed World (SEX NOW). Secondly, reduce the field to about a fifth its current size – all those players seem to always just be running somewhere and the ball is never near where it should be, namely the goal.  Lastly, cheerleaders wouldn’t hurt, and I have a few ideas from the Science Cheerleader’s gallery right here.

Although guys, science now tells that even if you find soccer a bit uninteresting, it might not be a bad idea to have your ladies watch.  New research shows that in certain bird species when a female bird watches a “sexy” male strut his stuff for awhile, the female gets more fertile and lays better eggs. There is no arguing that these World Cup guys are remarkable physical specimens, so just have your female partner tune in for a little bit and then go about having healthy, Ronaldo-inspired children…another form of soccer fever, as it were.  But considering his performance in the Cup – one goal – here’s hoping your scoring is better than his.

Occam’s Razor is currently typing from snowed-under Washington, DC, a region that has gotten smacked in the face with a giant Mother Nature snowball so vicious, that pretty much everything has come to a halt (insert your own joke about whether congress is more or less harmful when not in session).  The world has taken on that surreal post-apocalyptic feeling where norms as we previously knew them don’t apply and society breaks down (I thought a few days ago I was going to observe my neighbor and a plow-truck driver get into a fight…but it was disappointingly nothing more than that pseudo-bravado posturing and foot stomping we guys do).  Today I emerged to shovel my driveway – again! -  only to look onto a blindingly white, shapeless landscape that resembled the Hoth ice world from Star Wars.

I’ve essentially barely left my house for five days now, and quite honestly I’m bored!  I’ve watched old movies, dusted, waxed my back (Occam is excessively hairy) and by now I’m just about dying of boredom.  Which, by the way, is no longer just a figure of speech!  Scientists at University College London released the findings of a study of 7500 civil servants that shows that people reporting high levels of boredom (which surprisingly, given that they were civil servants, was not the entire cohort) had a shorter life expectancy than those not reporting being bored.  The reason being, say the researchers, is that those who are bored engage in unhealthy behaviors to help give life some edge, such as drinking and smoking.  Occam has drained a six-pack of Guinness and had three Bloody Mary’s (today) but hasn’t touched a cigarette!  I think I’m in the clear.  Next on my agenda is spending some time with SciCheer’s Sexy Scientists and Engineers Gallery, which will raise my blood pressure, but only for a bit.

Adding to my cabin fever is that I’m in my home with two women, one of whom has mono and the other, my wife, who is pretty.  What is wrong with that, you might ask?  Nothing, except for the fact that the latest from science tells us that attractive women are “more prone to anger, prevail more in conflicts of interest, and consider themselves entitled to better treatment.”  (Find the study here in the Proceedings of the NAS).  That explains a lot of the power dynamics in my marriage!  Five days in a house where I know I’m the lesser partner is stressful.  Maybe I’ll think twice about looking at that sexy scientist and engineers gallery…

Part of an occasional, ridiculous series from Occam’s Razor: Now that Darlene’s finally headed off to the ScienceOnline2010 conference (thought she’d never leave), let me fill you in on some REAL science you can use. Science yesterday announced something that half the population of the world has suspected for a long time – men are evolving faster than women.  I won’t bore you with the mumbo-jumbo, nor that scientists are distancing themselves from controversy by saying, “this does not mean that men are evolving faster than women.”  The proof is in the research…and the research is so irrefutable, even a woman is reporting it!  The study was headed up by one Jennifer Hughes, who, according to the internet (invented by a jolly green giant of a MAN – Al Gore), is most definitely a woman, and a bit of a babe, at that.  Lucky for her, she is an outlier among her sex and was able to figure out the challenging laboratory environment.

But has evolution started to bite back at we perfectly-formed males?  A few months ago new research came out to challenge some understandings about natural selection. It has long been simple, common knowledge that the hunkier the guy, the more muscular and “ripped,” the more athletic and strong, then the more attractive he is to females.  It’s something the nerds of the world just had to accept.  But…the nerds have struck back.  The research in question suggests that weak, pasty, scrawny scientists, having holed themselves up in some dingy, drab, musty, Chanel-free lab at the University of Pittsburgh for years and years, have finally gotten the angle needed to extract at least some small piece of revenge.   Muscular men get more sex, but also die at a younger age.   The testosterone that makes them hunky also apparently compromises their immune systems!   Women take the genes from these men in their prime, and then as widows settle down to comfortable-if-boring lives with tenured professors.

Lacking an Adonis-like physique, this doesn’t concern me so much and I’m left to comfortably focus on my rapid evolution.  In fact, I have been inspired to form my New Year’s resolutions around this new discovery.  By the end of the year I plan to 1. evolve to the point that I can simultaneously and with equal facility do one-handed pushups while building a car engine and 2. bear an offspring with wings.  Or at least wing-like nubs that he can then turn into larger nubs on his offspring, etc. etc. and with our rapid evolving I have no doubt that a flying Occam Jr. will be here by 2100…just in time to give scenic rides over the mostly-submerged coastal cities of the United States.

I eagerly shared this fast-evolution story with my wife, turning away briefly from the professional wrestling match I was watching and belching loudly before announcing man’s collective superiority, mildly annoying her that I interrupted the debate she was having with a girlfriend about the works of Hypatia of Alexandria.  I then insisted that she’d been naturally selected to get me another beer, at which time she very tersely pointed out that were one to line up photos in chronological order of the women I’ve dated, one would observe that they gradually look less and less like an ape, until finally reaching her picture, refreshingly free of low, sloping forehead and prehensile tail.  I’m not sure if that said more about the evolution of me or of the fairer sex, but I’m pretty sure the verbal beat down directed toward me that followed not only somewhere made Charles Darwin cry (he’s either in heaven or hell, depending on the fish logo on your car), but also confirmed that I would not be given the opportunity to pass on my superior traits at any time over the next several days.

From that skeptical elf, Occam: Santa Claus has been romanticized by everyone from Norman Rockwell to Coca-Cola to filmmakers the world over.  We all have a general idea of what the “jolly old elf” is like, and I guess most of us assume a life of monogamy for the old fellow as part of this image.  But I would argue that if he is like most men with power and financial resources (see: Woods, Tiger), that’s probably not the case.  Consider:  so far as we know he’s always been married to Mrs. Claus, and the internet tells us that he’s anywhere from 250 to 550 years old…that’s a long time to be climbing down just one chimney, if you get my snowdrift.  Further, he’s been sneaking into the homes of women for a looong time, in that kinky, soft, alluring outfit; you can’t tell me that of all those homes there aren’t a few desperate housewives looking for some Christmas comfort, especially given that they may already fetishize him (84 percent of adult women have had Santa fantasies, according to the Holiday Organization of Romantic, Naughty, Yuletide Women).  And judging by the feats attributed to him he apparently transcends time and space, so he wouldn’t have to worry too much about getting caught by Mrs. Claus (though the image of Mrs. Claus using a giant candy cane to smash out the back window of his sleigh is pretty funny).

But, perhaps I’m not giving enough credit to the fidelity of the women of the world.  In fact, a recent report shows that evolutionarily, women may just inherently know that avoiding Santa and being faithful to their spouses helps them – specifically, this report says it helps them have healthier babies.  A condition called pre-eclampsia (a pregnancy-induced hypertension), which results in an undersized full-term baby, was found to be less common in women who had long-term sexual relations exclusively with the biological father than in those who had been with their partner only for a short time.  Women just know it’s not a good idea to hook up with a guy who is only going to show up once every 365 days…and one who demands, under threat of gift termination, post-coitus milk and cookies at that.

But, you argue, you saw mommy kissing Santa Claus underneath the mistletoe.  (If you grew up in Occam’s house, you were told that that wasn’t really Santa but “Uncle Frank,” the guy from down the street who was often called to our house to fix stuff while Occam was shuffled off to play in the park, in a home where the frequency with which things broke while my dad was at work was quite remarkable, in hindsight.)  But again, nubile women of the world have evolved to know that kissing strangers like Santa is a bad idea. British scientists recently determined that a virus that lives in saliva – and when introduced during a pregnancy can kill unborn babies or cause birth defects – can be rendered harmless….by kissing!   If a woman kisses the the same male for six months prior to pregnancy, her immune system will build up a resistance to this virus.  They know better.  So are you sure you saw your mom and Santa smooch, or was it just whispering, which is what Occam was always told about those encounters with Uncle Frank.

Do most of the women in our lives out there pursue the route of Eartha Kitt, who in the song Santa Baby seemed to offer a heart-racing quid pro quo (in quaint 1950′s code, of course) to Kris Kringle, or, do they often control themselves in his presence, knowing it’s truly for the best?  Do they really want to open his package, when the Consumer Product Safety Commission tells us that 6,000 Americans end up in the emergency room each year because of package-related injuries?

Occam’s suggestion – present the wife with egg nog heavily-laden with rum on Christmas Eve and she’ll be so fast asleep you’ll have nothing to worry about.  (Occam’s wife’s suggestion:  “Present the wife with earrings heavily-laden with diamonds on Christmas Eve and you’ll have nothing to worry about.”)

By Occam’s Razor: The list of people who have made significant contributions to geriatric access and communication is distinguished:  Dean Kamen, who invented, among other things, the iBOT, a wheelchair that can navigate stairs (and who once spilled a bit of red wine on Darlene’s BORROWED Chanel pumps…she’s still sorry about that, Amanda); Robert Jarvik, inventor of the artificial heart; and Isaac Shepher, founder of the company that sells Life Alert (of, “I’ve fallen…and I can’t get up!” fame). Add to this list of luminaries Florence Henderson.  That’s right, Carol Brady of The Brady Bunch herself.

What has this citizen scientist done to be included in this list?  She has started the FloH Club, which she calls, “roadside assistance for your computer.”

It’s essentially a service that provides seniors with phone assistance to handle technological challenges they encounter as they use a computer, particularly in accessing Facebook, email, and other communication tools.  While there are free resources available to seniors, providing them help in accessing the internet and other secrets of the mysterious IBM box that sits in their den, the FloH Club is doing laudable work, even if it is a fee-based product.  (If Occam was more cynical, he’d compare this to Old Glory, sellers of robot insurance, as a way to scare old people out of their money.)  But regardless of whether Henderson makes a buck or not, we at the Science Cheerleader applaud her at bringing technology – and the world – a bit closer to those otherwise sealed off from it.  Nigerian princes everywhere have already found this new audience quite obliging.

Of course, Henderson is best known as mom Carol Brady from The Brady Bunch, a show which we’ve come to learn with each subsequent castmember book was a bacchanalia of hedonistic Hollywood excess.  Henderson was said to have gone on a date once with TV son Greg Brady, played by Barry Williams.  That would explain one of the premium services of the FloH Club, May-December, an online dating service for those of incongruous ages. FloH Club describes it as “a social meeting place with no judgments…and no boundaries.”    The “aged love” advocacy group Geri-Action has given two wrinkly and Viagra-stained thumbs up to the site.  Celebrity endorser Woody Allen has said:  “Oy vey…this would have made things so much easier for me!” and Roman Polanski adds, “I’m sorry, this is my only phone call this week…can we talk about this later?”

You go, FloHo!   (Warning, this links to graphic images and sounds that may be disturbing to many viewers.)

Occam’s Razor on Functional Foods:

I was reading an article in the Economist recently about functional foods. (I should note here that I barely understand anything in this magazine, which uses REALLY big words and talks a lot about places that as an American I can’t be expected to know about…like “Indonesia,” which I had been pretty certain was probably an Indianapolis dim sum place. I read the Economist on DCs metro, in a very pronounced manner, shaking it and crinkling it often, in the hopes that it will fool people into thinking I’m smart. In Washington, 93 percent of success is about appearances. [The other seven is - of course - about lying].) I looked up “functional foods” on Wikipedia – my generation’s Webster’s – and learned that they are foods that can naturally, or through processing, claim to provide health benefits beyond their basic nutritional contribution to your body.
Is this something we should be happy about? Is this another advancement of science that makes our life better, like penicillin, the Snuggie, and Viagra? Or is it just another sop to our sedentary, slothful lifestyles…a way to allow us (or perhaps force us) to surreptisiously eat something healthy, while doing what we do best: namely, cram our faces with crappy food.
For awhile you’ve probably noticed that some eggs now come with cholesterol-fighting omega-3 fatty acids, and Splenda now comes with added fiber (or “fibre” if you read this in the Economist).You might also be surprised to know that Domino has added insulin to its sugar, you can buy Crisco swirled with Lipitor, and there’s even a brand of tequila with a dissolved morning-after pill in it. This is just the beginning!

If you shop in Washington-DC area Giant grocery stores, now you can get tomatoes containing something called “locally.” I know this because I saw these things called “locally tomatoes,” pictured. (Hey, Giant is owned by Ahold, a Dutch company, so I’ll forgive them their limited English proficiency…but I won’t forgive them that the tulips at Giant cost a fortune

And in another recent Economist there was a story about an up-to-now only joked-about food offering, found at your county fair…fried butter. (How far has the Economist fallen, you wonder, with all this food reporting…a story on fried butter is certainly an example of yellow journalism, if you ask me. (Har har har.) You’d never eat this, you say?  Well, don’t worry…with some luck, that stent in the fried butter will work its way into place!

Does this look like a scientist?

It’s my friend Randy Olson.

He’s an avid surfer but he’s better known as Randy-the-scientist-turned-Hollywood-producer. His films Sizzle: A Global Warming Comedy and Flock of Dodos are “must see flicks”.

Here’s Occam with a review of Olson’s new book, Don’t Be Such A Scientist!

Yes, just like jelly donuts, Super Bowl-winning touchdown drives, and this odd, recurring dream I have of Neil Degrasse Tyson in a bathrobe repeating the words “dark matter,” Randy Olson gets me going where it counts.

Why am I admitting this? you ask. How can this be so? you wonder. Who is Randy Olson, is he single, and what’s his address? you are thinking. Randy came to prominence with his documentary Flock of Dodos, on the evolution/intelligent design debate. He has the unique pedigree of being perhaps the only tenured science professor in history to resign from such a cushy post, move to LA, and enroll in film school. Randy fashions himself an expert on communicating science to the general public and has recently written Don’t Be Such a Scientist, chastising the profession for its shortcomings in communications and suggesting how scientists can be better at this task.

Yesterday, New Scientist published this review of Olson’s book calling it “Engaging and timely”.  RealClimate.org says it’s “a MUST read” and popular blogger PZ Meyers adds “there are lessons worth learning” in this book.

Randy brings the thinking of story-telling and communication he learned in Hollywood to this book and notes that the four organs of mass communication are the head, heart, gut and the “lower organs.” It’s these lower organs that Randy says need to be aroused for people to truly pay attention, and while he notes they are a universal driving force, I’m probably not alone in wondering how much the scientists who I’ve come across understand about them. Of course, since this is science, instead of speculating about this I would have to do an experiment and fortunately (again, given the scientists that I know), in the interest of proper research this would have to be a double blind experiment (whew). Although I could recruit from this pool of scientists, which is just brimming with talent, I think you’d agree. Hmm…I see an untoward spin on the Milgram experiments in my near future…

Scientists can get aroused, of course, as evidenced by 1. their passionate determination to drive cross-country in, uh, less-than-ideal circumstances (in a diaper, no less); 2. their study of sexual topics, such as these observations that the voice of a woman can make a…er, stem grow faster; and 3. this out-of-character and candid excerpt from Isaac Newton’s diary: “Upon its fall the apple dideth so rolleth on the ground as to beckon me close to it…its curves and sheen causeth the rising of a quizzical feeling inside mine body…by the throne of King Charles it was softeth to the touch! And the smell…the soft, feminine smell….Had my gout not been so enflamethed I would have taken that ripe, red fruit home with me that instant on the mere principia of it.”

What Randy wants scientists to do is to take this ability to get excited about their own work and turn it into effective communication, arousing the public about science as well. He spends a lot of the book admonishing scientists for being bad at this, with some cute Hollywood anecdotes thrown in. Curiously, he strongly attacks scientists’ proclivity to condescend and alienate (even when clearly in the right) without once giving explanation to his documentary title, Flock of Dodos, which seems to imply those in support of intelligent design are idiots. Further, while mocking a list of interview tips from the Union of Concerned Scientists to its membership for being overly negative, his own chapter titles and themes are a bit biting: Don’t be this…don’t be that… He does end with a chapter on what scientists can be, which is the voice of science in a positive, effective manner.

But “arouse and fulfill” is Randy’s theme and he does a good job of that…he aroused this reader to be concerned about the pitfalls and easy mistakes that those of us who try to communicate about science make; he fulfilled by offering examples and anecdotes on how to be better and by providing a framework for what effective communication can look like (he also fulfills with a sexually itemized photo of a certain actor-governor!). Most science communicators will take something useful away from this read. In fact, we can all put this book down and be motivated to deliver that talk, create that powerpoint, give that interview, even drive cross country to passionately reconnect with a loved one/astronaut (note to self: pack the Pampers).