Cedar Rapids company’s TV show to entertain with science

Advertising that a TV special will explain “cerebral perfusion” might be a good way to guarantee that viewers avoid it.

But showing how the U.S. Navy's Blue Angels squadron control “cerebral perfusion” by flexing their muscles and wearing trousers pumped full of air could become a big winner for a Cedar Rapids production company.

“Every thrill has science behind it” is the tag line for a new TV series by Vaughn Halyard's StoryLounge Media of Cedar Rapids. The company is completing the first two installments of the five-part series called “The Science of Thrill.”

The concept for the series emerged as Halyard served on the board of The Science Station in Cedar Rapids, which helped raise his awareness of the science learning gap in the nation's schools.

Students in America's schools clearly need more and better science education, Halyard said, but teachers are already overtaxed. After many conversations with former board member Susie Van Metre on the subject, he decided a TV series would open students' minds to science.

“Anything that you can do to support teachers, I'm all for,” Halyard said.

The series gained support from the National Science Foundation, which plans to integrate the series into its educational offerings.

The show relies heavily on experts, production talent and funding from Eastern Iowa, ranging from Dr. Keith Kopec, a Cedar Rapids cardiologist, to Thor Anderson, a high school student from Urbana who races stock cars. Even the narrator's voice may sound familiar. It's Z102.9-FM radio personality Scott Schulte.

Halyard worked his connections from previous TV production work on “American Chopper” and sought out new subjects who would best illustrate science. His biggest score may have been a shooting opportunity with the Blue Angels, which took seven-and-a-half months of wrangling.

Some of the subjects contributed funding to the production, which will air on Rocky Mountain Public Broadcasting Service next spring.

The programs are being incorporated into the curriculum of a new math and science academy being built in the Phoenix area and has been embraced by sponsors as large as Boeing Aerospace.

“We're telling really cool stories and doing it in a way that's compelling and interesting, so people are very willing to work with us,” Halyard said. “It's been a tremendous experience.”

The closest the project gets to home in terms of subject matter may be a segment of the science of candies, which features Iowa City-based Bochner Chocolates' fine candies. It explains how chocolate interacts with body chemistry to produce good feelings.

But the closest the series gets to home emotionally may be a segment on the science of curing cancer, a disease that claimed the life of Halyard's mother.

Discussing cancer was important, Halyard said, because it's something that touches almost everybody's life at some time, and because every victory over cancer is a thrill. Dr. Chirantan Ghosh, a Cedar Rapids hematologist, appears in the segment.

The entertainment value of the series is always high, Halyard added, with frequent points of humor.

The project was envisioned in 2007 but was delayed for almost a year by the floods in Cedar Rapids. Halyard is now working with the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association on an episode about the science of skiing. It will go far beyond the expected discussions of friction and gravity to include the science of snow-making and how it can affect climate.