The Guild of Scientific Troubadours

The Guild of Scientific Troubadours

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Month: March 2026

Scientific illustration of a spider's face as seen under a microscope, rows of eyes symmetrically arrayed over large mandibles.

Science Art: Eyes of Epeira conica x30, 1884

30 March 2026 grant 0

A spider’s face seen at 30-times magnification, from the February 1884 issue of Science Gossip.

This is illustrating a sort of study, or perhaps prose poem, about this spider species.… Read the rest “Science Art: Eyes of Epeira conica x30, 1884”

Brains keep developing at every age.

27 March 2026 grant 0

Nature reports on the first atlas of brain development — a map of where and when new cells develop in human brains — and the surprising finding that human brains never stop developing,… Read the rest “Brains keep developing at every age.”

SONG: Birds Are Digging

25 March 2026 grant 0

SONG: “Birds Are Digging”. (OGG version here.)

ARTIST: grant.

SOURCE: Based on “How A Black Fossil Digger Became a Superstar in the Very White World of Paleontology”… Read the rest “SONG: Birds Are Digging”

Cockroaches bond by eating each other’s wings.

23 March 2026 grant 0

NPR shares romance among the insects with research that shows at least one species of cockroach, Salganea taiwanensis, forms long-term pair-bonds. And, poetically, these cockroach … Read the rest “Cockroaches bond by eating each other’s wings.”

A dark spacecraft firing four small, glowing engines nears a round, rocky planet or planetoid. Perhaps it is Earth. The sun is small in the distance.

Science Art: OSIRIS-REx after SRC release, 2023

23 March 2026 grant 0

This is a still from an animation showing what a larger spaceship does after firing a small capsule toward Earth. The capsule is filled with samples from an asteroid.

The description, from… Read the rest “Science Art: OSIRIS-REx after SRC release, 2023”

Palm-sized glass can store 2 million books’ worth of data

19 March 2026 grant 0

PhysOrg looks through a Microsoft Research Labs breakthrough called Silica that can use pulses of laser light to inscribe ordinary glass blocks so that they’ll work as a data-storage… Read the rest “Palm-sized glass can store 2 million books’ worth of data”

Life that can survive a full-on asteroid impact.

17 March 2026 grant 0

Mashable discusses the discovery at Johns Hopkins of microbes that are hardy enough to have traveled across the vacuum of space and then survived the planet-breaking force of an asteroid… Read the rest “Life that can survive a full-on asteroid impact.”

Scientific illustration of a stand-pipe, looking like a church steeple against a cloudy sky, a tower rising up to help regulate water flow in a black and white engraving.

Science Art: Stand-Pipe, Boston, 1882

16 March 2026 grant 0

A hydrological edifice. As explained in A practical treatise on hydraulic and water-supply engineering: relating to the hydrology, hydrodynamics, and practical construction of water… Read the rest “Science Art: Stand-Pipe, Boston, 1882”

Our brains run on 20 watts of power.

16 March 2026 grant 0

Are we bright, or really kinda dim? IFL Science reports that the human brain uses about as much electricity as the average computer monitor:

Considered as an organ, the brain is admittedly

… Read the rest “Our brains run on 20 watts of power.”

Fire-nadoes to clean the ocean

13 March 2026 grant 0

BBC’s Science Focus imagines a brighter future … brighter from the blazing fire-tornadoes used to clean plastics and oil from our over-polluted oceans:

Taking inspiration

… Read the rest “Fire-nadoes to clean the ocean”
Scientific illustration of a heart with several kinds of aneurysms in the vessels surrounding the muscle.

Science Art: Aneurismal dilatation (arteriovenous aneurism)…, 1915.

9 March 2026 grant 0

The full caption of this figure reads “Aneurismal dilatation (arteriovenous aneurism) of branches of coronary arteries in a case of anomalous origin of the left coronary from the… Read the rest “Science Art: Aneurismal dilatation (arteriovenous aneurism)…, 1915.”

A new explanation for the missing billion years in Earth’s geologic record.

6 March 2026 grant 0

IFL Science has a new explanation of “The Great Unconformity,” a worldwide phenomenon in which about a billion years of rock deposits are just missing, everywhere around … Read the rest “A new explanation for the missing billion years in Earth’s geologic record.”

School bus-sized spinosaur discovered

6 March 2026 grant 0

Last month, BBC’s Science Focus reported on an “astonishingly” large dinosaur discovered in the Sahara Desert of Niger — a bus-sized behemoth with a crescent-shaped… Read the rest “School bus-sized spinosaur discovered”

Scientific illustration of a commercially available electric switch from 1905, a lever that creates a connection which turns an arc light on or off, indicating if the circuit is live. It's designed for the mains of a house, I think, or at least for wiring entering a building.

Science Art: Modern Electrical Construction, Fig. 58, 1905

2 March 2026 grant 0

This is a switch for “constant current” electricity to go into a building, a “A modern commercial form of this switch,” is what the book calls it.

The book in question… Read the rest “Science Art: Modern Electrical Construction, Fig. 58, 1905”

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GRANT: something to believe in

You could write a review of this album here on iTunes.

That would be generous.

Fellow Travelers

  • 314.Action
  • Bioephemera
  • Breakfast in the Ruins
  • Carabus
  • Discover
  • Fluxblog
  • Giant-Killer
  • grant (archive)
  • grant (bandcamp)
  • Hello, Poindexter!
  • ideonexus
  • junior kitchen
  • Keep Your Pebbles
  • LiveScience
  • Mindless Ones
  • Nature
  • New Scientist
  • NIMBioS: Science Songwriters-in-Residence
  • Peculiar Velocity
  • PhysOrg
  • Science Daily
  • Science Magazine
  • Science News
  • Science Writers Daily
  • Scientific American
  • Singing Science Records
  • Songfight!
  • Space.com
  • Stereo Sanctity
  • The Great Beyond
  • The Other Adam Ford
  • The Periodic Table of Poetry
  • Voyages Extraordinaires

Tags

acoustics aeronautics agronomy anatomy anthropology archaeology astronomy biochemistry biology botany chemistry climatology computer science ecology economics electrical engineering electronics engineering entomology epidemiology evolution genetics geology linguistics marine biology mathematics medicine meteorology microbiology microscopy nanotechnology neurology oceanography optics paleontology pharmacology physics psychology quantum physics research robotics sociology space exploration theremin zoology
RSS Help Wanted: ScienceCareers
  • Van Andel Institute.: Joint Appointments Neurodegenerative Disease
  • Universität Stuttgart: Tenure Track Professorship (W1) „Theoretical Physics“
  • ETH Zurich: Professor of Synthetic Organic Chemistry and Professor of (Bio) Analytical Chemistry
  • Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH: PhD position – Learning Tailored Iterative Algorithms for Accelerating AC Power Flow Computations
  • Baylor College of Medicine: Postdoctoral Associate
  • Scripps Research.: Postdoctoral Associate in Post-Transcriptional Regulation of Brain Development and Function
Honorary Troubadours
  • Jonathan Coulton, Contributing Troubadour for Popular Science.
  • Laura Veirs, who knows her way around a polysyllable.
  • Thomas Dolby, godfather of scientific pop.
  • Squeaky, fact-based rock about fusion containment & rocket science.
  • Cosmos II, a.k.a. Boston University astronomer Alan Marscher.
  • Dr. Fiorella Terenzi, astrophysicist who makes music from cosmic radio sources.
  • Dr. Jim Webb, astronomy professor and acoustic guitarist.
  • Artichoke, the band behind 26 Scientists, Vols. I and II.
  • They Might Be Giants, unrelenting proponents of scientific popular song.
  • Symphonies of Science, the people who make Carl Sagan and others sing.
  • Giant Squid, doom metal about the sublime horrors of marine biology.
  • Gethan Dick,6 scientists, 6 musicians, 1 great album
Related Projects
  • Squid Pro Crow
  • Grant Bandcamp
  • Grant Soundcloud
  • Penitential Originals Playlist
https://guildofscientifictroubadours.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/01-gravity-song.mp3

 
"Is it a fact—or have I dreamt it—that, by means of electricity, the world of matter has become a great nerve, vibrating thousands of miles in a breathless point of time?"
— Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables, 1851

grant balfour made this website.

Member institution: Duct Tape Aesthetic Laboratories
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