Science and Technology Guests on Late Night, Week of May 29

Today (Monday) is Memorial Day in the United States, and the repeats continue.  Pretty much every program is either pre-empted today for the holiday or airing a repeat.  Many shows will be in repeats all week.

Repeats of note include tonight’s (Monday’s) edition of The Late Show.  Mayim Bialik, who is a scientist and plays one on The Big Bang Theory, was on recently and you can catch it again tonight.  On Thursday Late Night is re-airing its recent episode with Silicon Valley star Zach Woods.

A couple of recent segments to pass along.  Last week (May 24), singer Paul Simon performed on The Late Show and was interviewed by Stephen Colbert.  During the interview the two discussed scientist E.O. Wilson’s Biodiversity Institute, which is receiving all of the proceeds of Simon’s current tour.

On the May 16th edition of The Daily Show, correspondent Ronny Chieng had another edition of his Today’s Future Now segment.  This time the focus was flying cars.  Chieng has concerns about who is behind the recent advances in flying cars and the specific vehicles in question.  This allows me the opportunity to air this classic commercial from the year 2000.

FWIW, I don’t agree with the idea that flying cars and a better Internet are somehow a mutually exclusive tradeoff.

Speaking of The Daily Show, Dr. Elizabeth Ford is the guest on Tuesday.  She’s the Chief of Psychiatry for Correctional Health Services at Bellevue Hospital in New York City.  She’s promoting a memoir of her time at the hospital.

Science and Technology Guests on Late Night, Week of May 22

Memorial Day is creeping up in the United States (it’s next Monday), meaning the late night and other talk programs are starting a repeat cycle.  Of this week’s repeats, none are worth noting.  However, The Late Show has yet to announce its guests/repeats for Thursday and Friday.

Tonight (Monday), Mo Rocca will be on The Tonight Show.  On Saturday mornings you can see him on CBS as host of The Henry Ford’s Innovation Nation, a series co-produced by The Henry Ford, a museum in Detroit focused on innovation.  Rocca is a comedian and has hosted other programs in the past, so it’s not clear how much innovation he’ll talk about with Jimmy Fallon.

There are a couple of Silicon Valley actors making appearances this week.  T.J. Miller will visit Conan on Wednesday, and Zach Woods talks with James Corden on Thursday.

Alan Alda will be on Live with Kelly and Ryan on Friday morning.  Besides his extensive acting and writing, he is also the founder and namesake of the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

That’s it for the week.  If there is additional late night news for this week, do check this space.

Science and Technology Guests on Late Night, Week of May 15

First, a few notes on segments from earlier in the month:

Both The Late Show (May 5) and @midnight (May 9) noted the resurrection of the National Space Council (to be headed by the Vice President) earlier this month.  The Daily Show has also made available an extended version of its May 4 interview with behaviorist Robert Sapolsky.

The guests of note start on Tuesday.  Zach Woods, who plays one of the tech workers on Silicon Valley, will be on Harry.  Mayim Bialik, the neuroscientist who plays one on The Big Bang Theory, is on The Talk.  And wrapping up the week early this week is Live with Kelly and Ryan.  Thursday they will have the 2017 Mathcounts competition winner Luke Robitaille on the show.

Science and Technology Guests on Late Night, Week of May 8

This week is perhaps Stephen Colbert’s strongest science and technology showing on his current show.  On tonight’s (Monday’s) Late Show we have Rami Malek from Mr. Robot and Bill Nye.  On Thursday neuroscientist Mayim Bialik, who plays one on The Big Bang Theory, stops by.  And if we want to get old-school technological, actor and woodworker Nick Offerman is on Wednesday’s edition of the program.

Dr. Bialik is also on The View this Wednesday, and her co-star Jim Parsons is on tonight’s (Monday’s) edition of Watch What Happens Live.

This week the technically-oriented comedy swamping the talk shows is Silicon Valley.  Thomas Middleditch will be on with Conan Tuesday night, and with Carson Daly late Thursday night.  His co-star Zach Woods is on Late Night on Wednesday.

Neil deGrasse Tyson has a new book out, and will be on Wednesday’s Conan.

The comedy Angie Tribeca is featuring some heavy science and technology in its recent episodes.  Last week’s action revolved around androids, and tonight’s mystery has an outer space angle.  Be warned, it is an intentionally dumb police comedy.

Finally, a note that the latest edition of Last Week Tonight focused once again on net neutrality.  The show covered the topic in 2014 before the FCC decided (to the surprise of many) to establish guidelines for net neutrality.  These rules will soon be reviewed and likely rescinded by the Commission, prompting Oliver to revisit the subject.  Both times the FCC website struggled to keep up with the demand, though this time the Commission has stated the website was subject to denial of service attacks intended to prevent legitimate commenters.

Science and Technology Guests on Late Night, Week of May 1

I’ll mix it up this week by noting two clips from The Daily Show last week.  The President had a conversation with the International Space Station, and Trevor Noah discussed it on the April 24th program.  On the April 27th program, Roy Wood, Jr. spent time in the Alabama woods with an environmental activist.

Peak science and technology related late night content is likely tonight (Monday), with Neil deGrasse Tyson returning to The Late Show.  And because it’s been a couple of weeks, another actor playing a scientist on The Big Bang Theory is on a talk show.  This time Jim Parsons chats with Stephen Colbert on Wednesday.

What is possibly the most interesting booking of the week is Robert Sapolsky, who is scheduled for Thursday’s edition of The Daily Show.  The Stanford neuroscientist will talk with Trevor about his latest book, which focuses on human behavior.