The Guild of Scientific Troubadours

The Guild of Scientific Troubadours

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Science

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”

Scientific illustration in the form of a historical magazine layout about the unconquered Seminoles, with a map of Florida and a large, black-and-white photo of a proud woman with an asymmetrical headdress and a high collar looking off to one side.

Science Art: We Live With the Seminoles opener, 1942

21 September 2025 grant 0

This is the first page of an article from Natural History Magazine‘s April 1942 edition, which I found on archive.org. Today, the Seminole Tribe owns the Hard Rock Cafe brand, has … Read the rest “Science Art: We Live With the Seminoles opener, 1942”

Computers are beating humans at predicting future outcomes.

21 September 2025 grant 0

Time (not a science magazine, but…) has a story on the Metaculus forecasting cup (not a scientific experiment, but…), which offers a $5,000 prize to members who successfully… Read the rest “Computers are beating humans at predicting future outcomes.”

Scientific illustration of the seven components of a personality, according to Charles Baudouin - a diagram that looks almost like a magical seal, interlocking circles inside a triangle overlapped by a three-part circle.

Science Art: Les 7 Instances selon Charles Baudouin, by CBCB

15 September 2025 grant 0

These are the seven elements of a psyche, a person’s sense of self, as mapped out by Charles Baudouin, a French contemporary of Freud, Jung, and Adler. According to his Wikipedia article… Read the rest “Science Art: Les 7 Instances selon Charles Baudouin, by CBCB”

Loss of smell may be an earlier sign of Alzheimer’s.

11 September 2025 grant 0

ScienceAlert reports on a brain-scan study that finds the loss of smell — apparently triggered by a misfiring immune response in the brain — may give patients an earlier warning… Read the rest “Loss of smell may be an earlier sign of Alzheimer’s.”

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  • University of Illinois Chicago - College of Applied Health Sciences : Clinical Assistant Professor
  • The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids): SCIENTIST – Developmental, Stem Cell & Cancer Biology Program
  • University of Detroit Mercy: Tenure Track Faculty Biology
  • University of South Carolina School of Medicine Columbia: Assistant Professor
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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
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"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

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