First off, it’s Shark Week on the Discovery Channel in the United States (presumably worldwide, but I don’t know this for a fact). Given the frequency of summer late night reruns, it’s a fair substitute. Do note that several specials advertised as new this year will actually be older specials with added footage and/or viewer Tweets along the bottom. So while today there were three shark-related shows involving the MythBusters, they have all aired before. This year a new addition is a late night shark show – Shark After Dark. Science-friendly late night host Craig Ferguson is one of the executive producers (the host of Shark After Dark visited with Craig this past Friday).
August looks to be light on new late night programs. The promotional campaign for the science-fiction film Elysium, which premieres in the United States on Friday. Matt Damon will visit with Jay Leno on Wednesday’s program. There is also a film coming out on Steve Jobs, the late visionary behind much of Apple’s best-known work. It stars Ashton Kutcher, who will sit down with Stephen Colbert on Wednesday.
(The morning and daytime programs are no better, as The Talk‘s technology expert Chi-Lan Lieu is on twice this week – Tuesday and Thursday.)
I will make a note of recent late night programs that had science and technology content I missed from the promotional material. There are two from late July involving Stephen Colbert. On the July 16th program, there was a segment covering a recent study on multitasking (and its coverage on NPR), and on the 22nd of July Colbert discussed recent remarks by Neil deGrasse Tyson on whether or not aliens have been to Earth.
To finish by going from late night laughs to Sunday funnies, the July 28 edition of Frazz covered the ideal conditions for spotting rainbows.
Pasco Phronesis 