March 8, 2020

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The New Cosmos: A Conversation with Ann Druyan

Emmy and Peabody Award–winning science writer, producer and director Ann Druyan talks about Cosmos: Possible Worlds, the next installment of the Cosmos series.

By Lee Billings & Steve Mirsky

Ann Druyan.

Amanda Edwards Getty Images

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Welcome to Scientific American’s Science Talk, posted on March 9, 2020. I’m Steve Mirsky.

On this episode:

[DRUYAN CLIP]

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That’s Ann Druyan. She’s an Emmy and Peabody Award–winning science writer, producer and director. She co-wrote the original Cosmos series with her late husband Carl Sagan. And she’s the creator, producer and writer of the new Cosmos. The second season, called Cosmos: Possible Worlds, premieres tonight on the National Geographic channel. She’s also the author of the companion book to the series.

Druyan visited Scientific American recently and spoke with our space editor Lee Billings and me. You’ll hear her mention Brannon Braga: he’s also a producer and director on the series. She mentions Contact: that’s the book she and Sagan wrote that got turned into the Jodie Foster movie. And she talks about the Voyager records: those are the two golden records on the Voyager spacecraft that launched in 1977 and include examples of Earth’s music, art and science to inform any intelligent aliens who might happen on them some day. And now mostly Lee Billings and a little bit of me, talking with Ann Druyan.

[DRUYAN SEGMENT]

That’s it for this episode. Get your science news at our Web site, www.ScientificAmerican.com, where we’re bringing you the latest news and insights about coronavirus.

And follow us on Twitter, where you’ll get a tweet whenever a new item hits the Web site. Our twitter name is @sciam. For Scientific American’s Science Talk, I’m Steve Mirsky. Thanks for clicking on us.

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Lee Billings is a science journalist specializing in astronomy, physics, planetary science, and spaceflight and is senior desk editor for physical science at Scientific American. He is author of a critically acclaimed book, Five Billion Years of Solitude: The Search for Life Among the Stars, which in 2014 won a Science Communication Award from the American Institute of Physics. In addition to his work for Scientific American, Billings’s writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Boston Globe, Wired, New Scientist, Popular Science and many other publications. Billings joined Scientific American in 2014 and previously worked as a staff editor at SEED magazine. He holds a B.A. in journalism from the University of Minnesota.

More by Lee Billings

Steve Mirsky was the winner of a Twist contest in 1962, for which he received three crayons and three pieces of construction paper. It remains his most prestigious award.

More by Steve Mirsky

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The New Cosmos: A Conversation with Ann Druyan