Science Is Comedy: Brian Malow

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WHEN HE’S NOT FOOLING AROUND, Brian Malow shoots bugs. Really — his photos have appeared in Natural History and the Canadian Journal of Arthropod Identification. When he is fooling around, Malow drops science, bringing stage-honed stand-up chops to the elucidation of the natural world. The Koshland Science Museum has already hosted an evening of "Rational Comedy for an Irrational Planet" and another on the lighter side of infectious disease. On Thursday, Malow returns with "The Final Frontier?," exploring everything from time travel to creatures so hardy they're dubbed "extremophiles."

» EXPRESS: How does one become a science comedian?
» MALOW: I went to a magnet school for bipolar students.

» EXPRESS: Seriously, any real credentials?
» MALOW: I made a minor discovery ... a picture I took here in San Francisco of a certain species of fly [Myatropha florea]. ... Well, it seems it's the first proof of its existence in the Nearctic. Of course, I took the picture in Golden Gate Park, so maybe the fly was a tourist.

» EXPRESS: You got your start in nightclubs, right?
» MALOW: I would say that I haven't always been a comic. In fact, I used to be an astronomer, but I got stuck on the day shift — which sucks. You don't make any of the big discoveries.

» EXPRESS: Do you tailor your act for general and specialist audiences?
» MALOW: When I perform for a science crowd, I like to throw in the fact that I once met a solar astronomer, and that joke is kind of offensive to him.

» EXPRESS: Is your audience exclusively human?
» MALOW: They say apes are our closest cousins, but we never have them over.

» EXPRESS: What does a science comedian do for fun?
» MALOW: I saw a movie with my friend Chuck. I don't like seeing movies with him 'cause he always has to sit in the front row, because he thinks he gets to see the movie before anybody else.

» EXPRESS: Ow. [neck spasm]
» MALOW: You can't argue with him, because he always has the same last word: The speed of light is finite. And that's true, but it's very fast: 186,000 miles per second. So if you had a theater 186,000 miles long, you'd only see the movie one second before the guy in the last row. And he said, "Yeah, but you'd hear it a week and a half before him."

» EXPRESS: Does your audience ever correct you?
» MALOW: [One grad student] said it was 183,000 miles per second.

» EXPRESS: He is so wrong.
» MALOW: But the thing is, he was certain, and I said, "Can anyone get on the phone and get on the Internet and get the answer?" ... Then I rubbed it in his face. I said Stanford should take back his degree.

» Koshland Science Museum, 6th& E streets NW; Thu., 6 p.m., $5-$8, 202-334-1201. (Gallery Place-Chinatown)

Photo courtesy NSA