The Guild of Scientific Troubadours

The Guild of Scientific Troubadours

ex scientia, sono

  • Home
  • Join the Guild
  • The Scientific Troubadour Pledge
  • The SONGS

Articles by grant

Eye implant reverses blindness

30 October 2025 grant 0

Nature reports on an electronic retinal implant that has successfully allowed people with age-related macular degeneration to see again:

The implant, which measures 2 millimetres by

… Read the rest “Eye implant reverses blindness”

Satellites are the weak link in keeping secrets.

30 October 2025 grant 0

Wired has an unsettling bit of tech reporting on how easy it is to see nearly all of our secrets with about $800 worth of equipment. Phone calls, internet searches, Signal chats, troop positions,… Read the rest “Satellites are the weak link in keeping secrets.”

Scientific illustration of RNA and mRNA doing stuff inside a cell.

Science Art:Vergleich der Aufnahme von RNA und modR in der Zelle, 2018

27 October 2025 grant 0

A diagram of two kinds of RNA doing their thing inside a cell (which is converting instructions from DNA into some kind of protein that a cell uses to do something.

Since this illustration … Read the rest “Science Art:Vergleich der Aufnahme von RNA und modR in der Zelle, 2018”

SONG: What To Do (On mRNA Immune Checkpoint Blockade)

25 October 2025 grant 0

SONG: “What To Do (On mRNA Immune Checkpoint Blockade)”. (OGG version here.)

ARTIST: grant.

SOURCE: Based on “People with some cancers live longer after a COVID vaccine”… Read the rest “SONG: What To Do (On mRNA Immune Checkpoint Blockade)”

Covid vaccine boosts life-saving cancer treatment.

23 October 2025 grant 0

Nature just released a “huh, go figure!” bit of preliminary research showing better outcomes for patients with melanoma or lung cancer who had a COVID-19 vaccination within… Read the rest “Covid vaccine boosts life-saving cancer treatment.”

Making embryos from human skin

22 October 2025 grant 0

BBC recently reported on scientists taking DNA from human skin cells and fertilizing it with sperm to create a non-egg embryo – or at least an embryo with someone else’s DNA… Read the rest “Making embryos from human skin”

AI detects melanoma with 99% accuracy.

21 October 2025 grant 0

Northeastern Global News reports on a positive use for artificial intelligence, with a system that outperforms other techniques by helping doctors spot potentially deadly skin cancers… Read the rest “AI detects melanoma with 99% accuracy.”

Scientific illustration of the coiled spirals and twisting arrows of a molecular diagram, hand drawn and colored.

Science Art: Ribbon schematic of the 3D structure of the protein triose phosphate isomerase

20 October 2025 grant 0

Jane Richardson drew this by hand and then colored it in back in 1981. It’s a protein molecule, or a diagram of how things move inside a protein molecule.

Here’s the description… Read the rest “Science Art: Ribbon schematic of the 3D structure of the protein triose phosphate isomerase”

Making batteries out of concrete.

19 October 2025 grant 0

As in the building material. MIT News reports on researchers who have gotten 10 times the power out of a reformulated battery that’s made from concrete – that could one day be… Read the rest “Making batteries out of concrete.”

Scientific illustration of a spiral galaxy snapped by a space telescope, a yellow and blue spiral whirling against the blackness of space, with a bonus image of an asteroid moving much closer to Earth off to the right side, visible as four thin, colored lines: snapped when the telescope took four different colored exposures.

Science Art: Yellow and blue, old and new, 2025

13 October 2025 grant 0

This is a photo from 10 days ago of stars millions of light-years away (so the picture is of things long, long before October 3).

The official credit is: ESA/Hubble & NASA, A. Filippenko,… Read the rest “Science Art: Yellow and blue, old and new, 2025”

Skeleton sculpting of Stone-Age China

13 October 2025 grant 0

PhysOrg reports on archaeologists studying “bone modification,” a custom that seems to have been practiced among the first city-dwellers in southern China, who set up a … Read the rest “Skeleton sculpting of Stone-Age China”

Scientific illustration of a mapmaking tool and astronomical tool from the 1600s, a series of circles with numbers and arrows with gaps for determining distances and angles.

Science Art: Instrumento de Geographia y Cosmographia, 1606

6 October 2025 grant 0

This is a tool from Theatro del Mvndo y de el Tiempo, a book of star maps by Giovanni Paolo Gallucci, Miguel Perez, and Sebastian Muñoz. I found it in the David Rumsey Map Collection, the “Celestial”… Read the rest “Science Art: Instrumento de Geographia y Cosmographia, 1606”

Prehistoric Patagonian predator ate giant crocodiles

3 October 2025 grant 0

Reuters reports on a discover discovered in southern Argentina that apparently outdid T. rex and carnosaurus in its ferocity. A fossil of the colossal Cretaceous hunter was found with … Read the rest “Prehistoric Patagonian predator ate giant crocodiles”

Musicians don’t feel pain like other people.

3 October 2025 grant 0

Is it worse? No, according to Science Alert. They’re sharing research that shows musical training actually increases tolerance for pain:

Research has also found that persistent

… Read the rest “Musicians don’t feel pain like other people.”
Scientific illustration of ospreys, a family of black-and-white birds of prey, two parents feeding their young above the trees of a waterway.

Science Art: One Osprey Mouth at a Time II, by Phil’s 1stPix

29 September 2025 grant 0

Here’s a photo from the Encyclopedia of Life collection on Flickr, showing a family of the old bone-breakers, the fish-hawks, ospreys. They are a noble predator, moreso than some… Read the rest “Science Art: One Osprey Mouth at a Time II, by Phil’s 1stPix”

Posts pagination

1 2 … 208 »

Follow on Bandcamp

Something to Believe In

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
  • Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP): Junior Group Leader Positions at the IMP (Vienna, Austria)
  • Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, University of Chicago: Assistant Professor – Quantum Science & Engineering (Theoretical)
  • Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, University of Chicago: Assistant Professor – Quantum Science & Engineering (Experimental)
  • Mohammed VI Polytechnic University: GCZSC - Professor in Greenhouse Gases
  • Mohammed VI Polytechnic University: GCZSC - Professor in Isotope Geochemistry
  • Yale University - : Director of Operations Yale Center for Genome Analysis
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
Tools
  • Subscribe via Email
     
  • View as PDF (via FiveFingers)
     
  • Is Facebook Electric?
     
  •   Yes, yes, we RSS!

     
Fields of Inquiry
  • Cold Storage
  • Featured
  • Guild Affairs
  • Music
    • Songs
      • Penitential Covers
  • Science
    • Science Art

Copyright © 2025 | WordPress Theme by MH Themes