The Guild of Scientific Troubadours

SONG: First Man in Space (penitential cover version)

SONG: “First Man in Space” (cover) _{(To download: right-click & “Save As”)}

ARTIST: grant. Originally by Jarvis Cocker (of Pulp) and Phil Oakey (of the Human League).

SOURCE: Well, it’s a penitential cover version. I was late with a song last month, and this is my penance. It doesn’t have a scientific source per se, although this fellow does make a guest performance on percussion at the 3:06 mark.

ABSTRACT: There are no guitars – no plucked or strummed strings, in fact – on this song. Nor are there any keyboards. You hear Brennan Delaney playing cello, you hear me singing and playing the sheng (hooray for Christmas! hooray for eBay!), you hear the above mentioned percussionist, and you hear a few drum loops from the mid-90s release of Acid. It is a song about space. I first heard it, as far as I know, on a very good mix CD I got earlier this year. Now the year is almost over, but I’m still looking back. If you’d like to hear the version of this song I heard while watching the band All Seeing I (with Phil Oakey) pretending to play it while wearing space suits in the 1980s, well, you’re in luck. The original is far less creepy and atonal.

Entered on 31 December 2007 at 6:49 in the Songs file | Care to make an observation? |  Print

Sorry, our comet is missing.

Astronomers at the University of Hawaii recently had to make a strange correction to the Deep Impact mission. The ship, which thrilled scientists in 2005 by successfully firing a metal probe into the nucleus of a comet, was slated to do it all again with a new target in 2008 – but, well, um, the target has vanished:

The decision was made after an international consortium of astronomers led by the University of Hawaii’s Dr. Karen Meech, a co-investigator on the mission, announced that the first-choice target, called comet 85P/Boethin, has apparently disappeared.

“We were confident we could find the comet, and we were astonished when it wasn’t there,” said Meech.

Comet Boethin had been selected as a target because its orbit takes it to a region of the solar system that the Deep Impact spacecraft could have been directed to in 2008. Boethin has an 11.8-year orbit, but can be seen from Earth only during the six months when it is closest to the sun.

They’ve chosen another target, Comet Hartley 2, to whack with their big metal stick.

More on the lost comet at the Honolulu Star Bulletin.

Entered on 30 December 2007 at 6:49 in the Science file | Care to make an observation? |  Print

Science Art: Ptolemaic System, from Andreas Cellarius’ Harmonia Macrocosmica

This chart shows the universe as understood in 1660 – a solar system with a giant Earth at its center.

Entered on 30 December 2007 at 6:16 in the Science Art file | Care to make an observation? |  Print

Cell phone gourmand.

New Scientist unveils yet another thing Nokia is designing cell phones to do – read the menu for you:

Snap a picture of, say, a dessert menu and the phone will recognise the characters and translate the words within a few seconds (www.tinyurl.com/3xryg6). The prototype shown to New Scientist can translate 9000 Chinese and 600 Japanese food-related words into English, with more language versions to follow.

So no more ordering fried noodles and getting cold buffalo penis, then.

Entered on 29 December 2007 at 6:46 in the Science file | Care to make an observation? |  Print

Burning coal creates nuclear waste.

Scientific American reports on a series of studies that mess with our sense of common sense. Nuclear power plants should be creating nuclear waste, and coal plants should be creating smog, right? Wrong. Nuclear plants do create nuclear waste, but not nearly as much as coal-burning plants do:

Among the surprising conclusions: the waste produced by coal plants is actually more radioactive than that generated by their nuclear counterparts. In fact, fly ash—a by-product from burning coal for power—contains up to 100 times more radiation than nuclear waste.

At issue is coal’s content of uranium and thorium, both radioactive elements. They occur in such trace amounts in natural, or “whole,” coal that they aren’t a problem. But when coal is burned into fly ash, uranium and thorium are concentrated at up to 10 times their original levels.

Entered on 28 December 2007 at 6:51 in the Science file | Care to make an observation? |  Print

Songs for Giant Isopods

I swear I didn’t know about this project while writing my goofy song about Jaekelopterus. But yes, another marine arthropod – a “deep-sea woodlouse larger than many dogs” – has inspired a new album:

An as-yet-unspecified charity will benefit from the sale of the ‘Songs About Giant Isopod’ album. Giant isopods themselves probably don’t need much help – they’re believed to be widely distributed across ocean floors.

The album is actually called Bathonymous Go: A Tribute to the Giant Isopod, and has been mentioned on a few different science blogs.

Some of the songs are on the MySpace Page for “The Giant Isopods”, and you can track the album’s progress at Drowned in Sound.

Entered on 27 December 2007 at 6:15 in the Music, Science file | Care to make an observation? |  Print

Burning Man’s Gift: Solar Cities.

The Burning Man festival is a bit of a hassle for folks in rural Nevada, who once a year get overrun by thousands of freaks, punks, hippies and ravers, clogging up the streets and doing who knows what at all hours of the night out in what’s usually the pristine, solitary wastes of the Black Rock desert. But now, as CNET News reports, the Burners are giving something back – free electricity.

The idea behind Black Rock Solar is to find worthy recipients for whom to donate fully installed solar arrays that can then provide a source of free power for years to come. Black Rock Solar is partnering with MMA Renewable Ventures and Nevada utility company Sierra Pacific Power to provide the labor, expertise, and equipment necessary to get the solar arrays on line.

…

Already, Black Rock has installed a 30-kilowatt array at a hospital in Lovelock, Nev. Now a Gerlach school–a side-by-side elementary and middle/high school at which the ribbon-cutting ceremony is taking place–will be getting a 90-kilowatt array that should provide as much as $20,000 a year in free power. The rebates for those two projects total about $600,000.

…

“A lot of the older people of our community…are real reticent about accepting (the Burning Man community),” said Carol Kaufmann, principal of the school–the Earnest M. Johnson Elementary School and Gerlach Middle and High School, which is getting the new solar array. “But as a whole, the community looks at it like, ‘Wow, this is a big change. You really are putting your money where you mouth is. You really do want to help the community.’”

Entered on 26 December 2007 at 6:00 in the Science file | Care to make an observation? |  Print

Henry Gray, Human ovum examined fresh in the liquor folliculi.

A drawing of a human egg cell, from Gray’s Anatomy (the book, not the TV show). From its description quoted on Wikipedia:

Human ovum examined fresh in the liquor folliculi. (Waldeyer.) The zona pellucida is seen as a thick clear girdle surrounded by the cells of the corona radiata. The egg itself shows a central granular deutoplasmic area and a peripheral clear layer, and encloses the germinal vesicle, in which is seen the germinal spot.

Happy nativity.

Entered on 25 December 2007 at 6:22 in the Science Art file | Care to make an observation? |  Print

Bad Astronomer’s Top 10

The so-called Bad Astronomer picked the top 10 astronomy pictures of 2007.

Go and see them.

They’re beautiful.

Entered on 24 December 2007 at 6:58 in the Science Art file | Care to make an observation? |  Print

SONG: Jaekelopterus!

SONG: “Jaekelopterus!” _{(To download: right-click & “Save As”)}

ARTIST: grant. Dui, shi wo. (Oui, c’est moi.)

SOURCE: ““Giant Claw Points to Monster Sea Scorpion”, New Scientist, 21 Nov 07, as mentioned in the post “BIG Bug,” 28 Nov 2007.

ABSTRACT: I suppose that if you were to tell people, “Hey, I’m putting together a website! It’s going to be all songs about SCIENCE!” then this is exactly the kind of thing they would expect to hear. It’s a skiffle-ish song with a ukulele and improvised percussion about the largest arthropod ever introducing itself to you and your friends and going out for Chinese food. There it is. I read about that huge freakin’ creature and thought, “Dude! Children’s song!” or something like that. And now, I find myself humming the chorus in the shower. Now to see if I can get this second, penitentiary song up before the month’s end….

Entered on 23 December 2007 at 6:57 in the Songs file | Care to make an observation? |  Print