Science & Entertainment Exchange
Encyclopedia
the United States National Academy of Sciences
United States National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine." As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and...
(NAS) developed to increase public awareness, knowledge, and understanding of science through its representation in television, film, and other media. The Exchange provides entertainment industry professionals with access to appropriate scientists and engineers who help to encourage effective representations of science and scientists in storylines, special effects, contextual background, and other elements in popular media. The Exchange also helps the science community understand the needs and requirements of the entertainment industry.
Officially launched in November 2008, the Exchange arranges direct consultations between scientists and entertainment professionals who develop science-themed content; it also provides a variety of other services, including scheduling briefings, brainstorming sessions, screenings, and salons. The Exchange is based in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, California.
Watchmen
In one of its first acts of business, The Science & Entertainment Exchange connected Alex McDowellAlex McDowell
Alex McDowell, RDI is British production designer and film producer.McDowell was born in Borneo to parents of English origin. He wanted to become a painter and studied at the Central School of Art in London. He founded Rocking Russian Design in 1978 and started his career designing album covers...
, the production designer for the 2009 film adaptation of the graphic novel Watchmen
Watchmen
Watchmen is a twelve-issue comic book limited series created by writer Alan Moore, artist Dave Gibbons, and colourist John Higgins. The series was published by DC Comics during 1986 and 1987, and has been subsequently reprinted in collected form...
, with University of Minnesota physics professor James Kakalios
James Kakalios
James Kakalios is a physics professor at the University of Minnesota. Known within the scientific community for his work with amorphous semiconductors, granular materials, and 1/f noise, he is known to the general public as the author of the book The Physics of Superheroes, which considers comic...
.
Kakalios is the author of the book The Physics of Superheroes
The Physics of Superheroes
'The Physics of Superheroes' is a popular science book by physics professor and long-time comic-book fan James Kakalios. First published in 2005, it explores the basic laws of physics. Kakalios does not set out to show where the world of superheroes contradicts modern science, granting the heroes...
, and was selected as a science consultant in part because of his extensive experience incorporating comic book superheroes into his writings and lectures as a way to motivate the public to take an interest in science.
In the run up to the theatrical release of Watchmen, Kakalios and the University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
produced a short video (with more than 1,500,000 views as of April 29, 2009) explaining the science behind Dr. Manhattan's super powers to increase public awareness of the science behind the film.
Fringe
The series FringeFringe (TV series)
Fringe is an American science fiction television series created by J. J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci. The series follows a Federal Bureau of Investigation "Fringe Division" team based in Boston, Massachusetts under the supervision of Homeland Security...
is using the Exchange to identify scientists able to address technical questions regarding scripts in development. A rapid-response team of specialists in neuroscience, epidemiology, and genetics—themes frequently featured in the series—has been gathered to assist the scriptwriters.
Science as Social Context
Since long before C. P. SnowC. P. Snow
Charles Percy Snow, Baron Snow of the City of Leicester CBE was an English physicist and novelist who also served in several important positions with the UK government...
's "Two Cultures" essay, science has struggled to overcome negative stereotypes; communicating science's tremendous importance and appeal to a general audience is an enormous challenge. Entertainment media that portray scientists and their work in a positive light can have direct educational and socializing influences on audiences. For example, survey analyses show that some science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
portrayals appear to boost public evaluations of science. After controlling for education and other background variables, studies find that heavier viewers of science fiction television hold greater belief in the promise of science, and are more supportive of controversial topics such as therapeutic cloning.
In a study of the audience effects for the 2004 blockbuster The Day After Tomorrow
The Day After Tomorrow
The Day After Tomorrow is a 2004 American science-fiction disaster film that depicts the catastrophic effects of global warming in a series of extreme weather events that usher in global cooling which leads to a new ice age. The film did well at the box office, grossing $542,771,772 internationally...
, viewers of the film, after controlling for education, gender, age, and political views, were significantly more concerned about global climate change, more likely to take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and more trusting of government agencies such as NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
and NOAA.
As news agenda-setters, film and television can also have an important indirect influence. These films provide dramatic "news pegs" for journalists seeking to either sustain or generate new coverage of an issue. For example, studies comparing the news attention sparked by the 2001 release of the Third IPCC report on climate change
Climate change
Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...
with the amount of coverage generated by the 2004 release of The Day After Tomorrow and the 2006 release of Al Gore
Al Gore
Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. served as the 45th Vice President of the United States , under President Bill Clinton. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for President in the 2000 U.S. presidential election....
's An Inconvenient Truth
An Inconvenient Truth
An Inconvenient Truth is a 2006 documentary film directed by Davis Guggenheim about former United States Vice President Al Gore's campaign to educate citizens about global warming via a comprehensive slide show that, by his own estimate, he has given more than a thousand times.Premiering at the...
, find that both films far surpassed the IPCC report in media publicity.
In another example, the 1998 releases of the blockbusters Deep Impact
Deep Impact (film)
Deep Impact is a 1998 science-fiction disaster-drama film released by Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks in the United States on May 8, 1998. The film was directed by Mimi Leder and stars Robert Duvall, Elijah Wood, Téa Leoni, and Morgan Freeman...
and Armageddon galvanized news attention to the potential problem of Near Earth Objects, a science policy issue that otherwise rarely, if ever, receives news attention.
Scientific verisimilitude in movies and television has been positively correlated with commercial success, providing "realism" and "legitimacy" to which audiences respond.
Advisory board
- Ralph J. CiceroneRalph CiceroneRalph J. Cicerone is an American atmospheric scientist, a former chancellor of UC Irvine, and currently president of the National Academy of Sciences....
, Chair, President, National Academy of Sciences - Janet Zucker, Vice-Chair, Producer
- Jerry ZuckerJerry Zucker (film director)Jerry Zucker is an American movie director known for his role in directing comedy spoof films, and the hit film Ghost....
, Vice-Chair, Director - Patrick Soon-ShiongPatrick Soon-ShiongPatrick Soon-Shiong is a South African-American surgeon who was founder, chairman, and CEO of Abraxis BioScience, a biotechnology company developing cancer treatment. He is co-developer of the metastatic breast cancer treatment drug Abraxane....
, Vice-Chair, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Abraxis Bioscience, Inc. and The Chan Soon-Shiong Family Foundation - Len Amato, President, HBO Films
- Paula Apsell, Senior Executive Producer, NOVA; Director, WGBH Science Unit
- Dave BartisDave BartisDavid "Dave" Bartis is an American producer.-Early life:He is a graduate of McLean High School, located in Mclean, Virginia. Bartis earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and American Literature from Brown University...
, Producer - Gregory BenfordGregory BenfordGregory Benford is an American science fiction author and astrophysicist who is on the faculty of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Irvine...
, Professor of Physics, University of California, Irvine - May BerenbaumMay BerenbaumMay Roberta Berenbaum is an American entomologist whose research focuses on the chemical interactions between herbivorous insects and their host-plants, and the implications of these interactions on the organization of natural communities and the evolution of species.Berenbaum graduated summa cum...
, Professor of Entomology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign - Adam BlyAdam BlyAdam Bly is the founder and editor-in-chief of Seed and CEO of Seed Media Group. He is the creator of the data visualization platform Visualizing.org and editor of Science is Culture: Conversations at the New Intersection of Science + Society .Bly was formerly the youngest guest researcher at the...
, Founder and Publisher, SEED - Clark BuntingClark BuntingW. Clark Bunting is the President of Discovery Studios based in Silver Spring, Maryland, United States.-Current occupation:A veteran of more than 20 years at Discovery Communications, Bunting was named President, Discovery Studios in February 2007...
, President and General Manager, Emerging Networks, Discovery Communications - Rick CarterRick CarterRick Carter is an American production designer and art director. He is known for his work in the film Forrest Gump, which earned him an Oscar nomination, as well as numerous nominations of other awards for his work in Amistad and A.I. Artificial Intelligence...
, Production Designer - Steven ChuSteven ChuSteven Chu is an American physicist and the 12th United States Secretary of Energy. Chu is known for his research at Bell Labs in cooling and trapping of atoms with laser light, which won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1997, along with his scientific colleagues Claude Cohen-Tannoudji and...
, United States Secretary of Energy, 2009-, Director, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Professor of Physics and Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley; 1997 Nobel Prize winner in Physics - Frank DarabontFrank DarabontFrank Darabont is a Hungarian-American film director, screenwriter and producer who has been nominated for three Academy Awards and a Golden Globe. He has directed the films The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, and The Mist, all based on stories by Stephen King...
, Writer / Producer / Director - Keith DevlinKeith DevlinKeith J. Devlin is a British mathematician and popular science writer. He has lived in the USA since 1987 and has dual American-British citizenship.- Biography :...
, Executive Director, Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University; Consulting Professor, Mathematics, Stanford University - Jon Farhat, Director, VFX
- Anthony FauciAnthony FauciAnthony S. Fauci is an immunologist who has made substantial contributions to research in the areas of AIDS and other immunodeficiencies, both as a scientist and as the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases .-Education and career:Anthony Stephen Fauci was born on...
, Director, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health - Sid GanisSid GanisSidney Ganis is a Greek-American motion picture executive and producer who has produced such films as Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo, Big Daddy, Mr. Deeds, The Master of Disguise and Akeelah and the Bee. On August 23, 2005 he was elected President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
, Producer - Julie GerberdingJulie GerberdingJulie Louise Gerberding, M.D., M.P.H. , is an American infectious disease expert and the former director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and administrator of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry .Gerberding led CDC's efforts to prepare for and counter terrorism...
, former Director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - Neil GershenfeldNeil GershenfeldNeil Gershenfeld is a professor at MIT and the head of MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms, a sister lab spun out of the popular MIT Media Lab. His research interests are mainly in interdisciplinary studies involving physics and computer science, in such fields as quantum computing, nanotechnology,...
, Director, Center for Bits and Atoms, Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Ronald GrahamRonald GrahamRonald Lewis Graham is a mathematician credited by the American Mathematical Society as being "one of the principal architects of the rapid development worldwide of discrete mathematics in recent years"...
, Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, University of California, San Diego; Chief Scientist, California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology - Brian GreeneBrian GreeneBrian Greene is an American theoretical physicist and string theorist. He has been a professor at Columbia University since 1996. Greene has worked on mirror symmetry, relating two different Calabi-Yau manifolds...
, Professor of Mathematics and Physics, Columbia University - Davis GuggenheimDavis GuggenheimPhilip Davis Guggenheim is an Academy Award-winning American film director and producer. His credits as a producer and director include Training Day, The Shield, Alias, 24, NYPD Blue, ER, Deadwood, and Party of Five and the documentaries An Inconvenient Truth and Waiting for 'Superman...
, Director / Producer - Robert M. Hazen, Research Scientist, Carnegie Institution for Science's Geophysical Laboratory; Clarence Robinson Professor of Earth Science at George Mason University
- Dudley Herschbach, Frank B. Baird, Jr. Professor of Science, Harvard University; 1986 Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry
- Marshall HerskovitzMarshall HerskovitzMarshall Schreiber Herskovitz is an American film director, writer and producer, and currently the President Emeritus of the Producers Guild of America. Among his productions are Traffic, The Last Samurai, Blood Diamond, and I Am Sam. Herskovitz has directed two feature films, Jack the Bear and...
, Producer / Writer / Director - Dustin HoffmanDustin HoffmanDustin Lee Hoffman is an American actor with a career in film, television, and theatre since 1960. He has been known for his versatile portrayals of antiheroes and vulnerable characters....
, Actor / Producer - Marty KaplanMarty KaplanMarty Kaplan is the Norman Lear Professor of Entertainment, Media and Society at the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism and the founding director of the Norman Lear Center for the study of the impact of entertainment on society...
, Norman Lear Chair in Entertainment, Media and Society, University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication; Director, The Norman Lear Center - Lawrence KasdanLawrence KasdanLawrence Edward "Larry" Kasdan is an American film producer, director and screenwriter.-Life and career:Kasdan was born in Miami, Florida, the son of Sylvia Sarah , an employment counselor, and Clarence Norman Kasdan, who managed retail electronics stores.His Brother is the writer/producer Mark...
, Director / Writer / Producer - Jeffrey Koplan, Vice President for Academic Health Affairs, Woodruff Health Sciences Center, Emory University
- Lawrence Krauss, Professor, School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University
- Sherry LansingSherry LansingSherry Lansing is a former actress and American film studio executive. She is former CEO of Paramount Pictures, and when president of production at 20th Century Fox was the first woman to head a Hollywood studio In 1996, she became the first woman named Pioneer of the Year by the Foundation of...
, Founder, Sherry Lansing Foundation; former CEO, Paramount Pictures - Leon Lederman, Director Emeritus of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory; Pritzker Professor of Science at Illinois Institute of Technology; 1988 Nobel Prize winner in Physics
- Doug LimanDoug LimanDouglas Eric "Doug" Liman is an American film director and producer best known for Swingers , The Bourne Identity , Mr. & Mrs. Smith , Jumper , and Fair Game .-Early life:...
, Producer / Director - Seth MacFarlaneSeth MacFarlaneSeth Woodbury MacFarlane is an American animator, writer, comedian, producer, actor, singer, voice actor, and director best known for creating the animated sitcoms Family Guy, American Dad! and The Cleveland Show, for which he also voices many of the shows' various characters.A native of Kent,...
, Writer / Actor / Producer - Alex McDowellAlex McDowellAlex McDowell, RDI is British production designer and film producer.McDowell was born in Borneo to parents of English origin. He wanted to become a painter and studied at the Central School of Art in London. He founded Rocking Russian Design in 1978 and started his career designing album covers...
, Production Designer - Marvin MinskyMarvin MinskyMarvin Lee Minsky is an American cognitive scientist in the field of artificial intelligence , co-founder of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's AI laboratory, and author of several texts on AI and philosophy.-Biography:...
, Professor of Computer Science and Media Arts and Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Sidney Perkowitz, Charles Howard Candler Professor of Physics, Emory University
- Steven PinkerSteven PinkerSteven Arthur Pinker is a Canadian-American experimental psychologist, cognitive scientist, linguist and popular science author...
, Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology, Harvard University - Stanley Prusiner, Professor of Neurology and Director of the Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases, University of California, San Francisco; 1997 Nobel Prize winner in Medicine or Physiology
- Rob ReinerRob ReinerRobert "Rob" Reiner is an American actor, director, producer, writer, and political activist.As an actor, Reiner first came to national prominence as Archie and Edith Bunker's son-in-law, Michael "Meathead" Stivic, on All in the Family. That role earned him two Emmy Awards during the 1970s...
, Actor / Producer / Writer / Director - John RennieJohn Rennie (editor)John Rennie was the seventh editor in chief of Scientific American magazine. He holds a bachelors of science degree in biology from Yale University...
, Editor-in-Chief, Scientific American - Jay RoachJay RoachMatthew Jay Roach is an American film director and producer, best known for directing the Austin Powers films and Meet the Parents.-Life and career:...
, Director / Writer / Producer - Bruce Joel RubinBruce Joel RubinBruce Joel Rubin is a screenwriter best known for the supernatural romance, Ghost for which he won the 1991 Oscar for Best Original Screenplay...
, Writer - Oliver SacksOliver SacksOliver Wolf Sacks, CBE , is a British neurologist and psychologist residing in New York City. He is a professor of neurology and psychiatry at Columbia University, where he also holds the position of Columbia Artist...
, Professor of Neurology and Psychiatry, Columbia University Medical Center - Barbara SchaalBarbara A. SchaalBarbara Anna Schaal American scientist, evolutionary biologist, is a professor at Washington University in St. Louis and vice president of the National Academy of Sciences. She is the first woman to be elected vice president of the Academy...
, Spencer T. Olin Professor of Biology, Washington University; Director of the Schaal Lab, Washington University; Vice President, National Academy of Sciences - Tom Schulman, Writer
- Jeffrey Silver, Producer
- Anne E. SimonAnne SimonDr. Anne Simon, Ph.D. was the science advisor of the American TV series The X-Files. She has written a book about this subject, The Real Science Behind the X-Files: Microbes, Meteorites and Mutants ....
, Professor, Department of Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics, University of Maryland at College Park - Alex Singer, Director
- Robert SproullRobert SproullRobert Lamb Sproull is a retired American educator, physicist, and US Department of Defense official.Sproull was born in Lacon, Illinois. A graduate of Deep Springs College, Sproull studied English literature at Cornell University before taking a Ph.D. at the same university in physics...
, Vice President and Sun Fellow, Sun Microsystems, Inc. - John Underkoffler, Co-Founder, Oblong Industries
- J. Craig VenterCraig VenterJohn Craig Venter is an American biologist and entrepreneur, most famous for his role in being one of the first to sequence the human genome and for his role in creating the first cell with a synthetic genome in 2010. Venter founded Celera Genomics, The Institute for Genomic Research and the J...
, President, J. Craig Venter Institute - Doron Weber, Director for Public Understanding of Science and Technology and the History of Science and Technology, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation