If you’ll be in or near Heidelberg (for example, somewhere in the Milky Way galaxy) at 8pm on Jan. 23, don’t miss my first Heidelberg performance of the Science cabaret – “The revenge of the mammoths.” An hour of stand-up comedy on the topic of the collision between science and society.
Details in German here.
Here’s the announcement in English:
Science is zooming by in the fast lane at 250 km/h, leaving most of us stuck behind a truck. Are we headed for a massive traffic jam? Or will the “zipper system” finally work? Russ Hodge, native Kansan (his parents’ fault), long-time resident of Germany (his wife’s fault), and science writer (his own fault) takes us to the edge of today’s research (and occasionally way over the edge) in a talk loaded with fascinating information. For example, the human genome is 4% Neanderthal, 14% Genghis Khan, and 48% Jim, a sheep farmer from Ohio. Random and useless facts are woven together with practical information about the Republican plan for surviving the Zombie Apocalypse, building your own anti-tornado device, and how to launch a successful Biotech start-up using only the contents of your belly-button. We’ll explore the evolution of horror films, how to distinguish true Conspiracy Theories from crazy stuff on blogs, and the search for Amelia Earhart’s DNA in the species that most likely ate her.
The talk will be held in Kansas English, refined and distilled for European consumption.
Good Science Writing 
What good is sitting
alone in your room,
Come, hear the music play!
No use permittin’
some prophet of doom
To wipe every smiles away
Put down that knittin’,
that book and the broom,
It’s time for a holiday!
Life is a cabaret, ole chum,
Come to the cabaret …
It’s becoming fundamentally clear to me that you must now go on to write *the* “Science Communication & Writing” textbook -or at least “sourcebook.” You’ve been cultivating this field both practically and theoretically for quite a time, so it seems to me that it is about time to head this way. Obviously, you must have thought of this a million times but I’d like to think that I could provide some momentum with my comments.
Yes indeed, my friend… I actually started this project in the fall. But it’s a long-term deal; I’m determined to provide a very strong theoretical basis for it (part 1) and then get incredibly practical (part 2). I made a brief sketch of the theoretical part, which is full of gaps and holes, etc., and shared it with Jim Hartman of KU, who provided great comments. I’ll revise and you’ll get the next peek at it…