Writing Excuses 9.34: Science Fiction as Science Education
Writing Excuses
Mary Robinette Kowal, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler
4.6 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 17 August 2014
⏱️ 19 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We met Brad Voytek, who is a doctor of neuroscience and a professor of computational neuroscience at UC San Diego, for the first time right there at the show, and immediately knew that we wanted our listeners to have the chance to hear from him. One of his passions is treating science fiction as a gateway to (and in some cases an actual example of) science education.
He starts by talking about Do Zombies Dream of Undead Sheep, which teaches the reader about the brain by telling the story of what would happen if a zombie walked in to the emergency room. Mary talks about Launch Pad, the NASA workshop for writers. And then Brandon tells us about blending vegetables into junk food...
We grill Brad mercilessly, and have great fun with the whole show as we talk about some of our favorite science fiction, and a few of our favorite starting points for learning actual science.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This year my family will be having our 67th annual Christmas Eve dinner. |
| 0:04.8 | It's a menu passed down from my grandmother through my mom to me. |
| 0:08.8 | The entire family shows up. |
| 0:11.8 | I'm talking fourth cousins once removed and this is not an |
| 0:15.1 | exaggeration which means that during the lead up I don't have time to menu plan or |
| 0:20.0 | cook anything else. That's when I turn to prepared meals like Factor, America's |
| 0:26.0 | number one ready-to-eat meal delivery service. Factor can help you eat well for breakfast, lunch, and dinner with chef-prepared, dietition approved, ready-to-eat meals delivered straight to your door. |
| 0:37.0 | It allows me to save time and not eat garbage while tackling all my holiday to-do's. |
| 0:42.0 | So if you want to cross meal prepping... while tackling all my holiday to-do's. |
| 0:42.6 | So if you want to cross meal prepping off your list |
| 0:45.8 | this holiday season, consider factor. |
| 0:48.4 | You can skip the meal planning, grocery shopping, |
| 0:50.9 | shopping, shopping, prepping, and cleaning up, and get factors fresh never frozen meals delivered |
| 0:55.8 | to your door. |
| 0:56.8 | They're ready in just two minutes, which my dad says is the appropriate amount of time to cook |
| 1:01.4 | a meal. |
| 1:02.4 | He has no idea. The point is, all you have to do is heat and enjoy. |
| 1:07.0 | And if you're trying to squeeze writing into the holiday press, it might be useful to know that Factor isn't just for dinner. |
| 1:15.1 | Count on extra convenience any time of the day with an assortment of 55-plus add-ons to suit various |
| 1:20.8 | preferences and tastes. |
| 1:22.8 | So you can carve out some writing time in the morning by choosing quick breakfast items, |
| 1:27.2 | lunch to go, grab and go snacks, or ready to eat cold-pressed juices, shakes, and smoothies. |
... |
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