The Guild of Scientific Troubadours

The Guild of Scientific Troubadours

ex scientia, sono

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astronomy

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”

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”

Giant black-hole binaries spinning in star graveyard

5 September 2025 grant 0

Space brings us new analyses of stellar graveyards, which astronomers study to discover how stars develop and, eventually, die – turning into dense neutron stars or denser black… Read the rest “Giant black-hole binaries spinning in star graveyard”

Where the dark matter hides.

31 July 2025 grant 0

Caltech says that, thanks to an NSF grant, they’ve found where all the dark matter has been hiding. That’s up to 50 percent of matter in the universe, the stuff that doesn’t… Read the rest “Where the dark matter hides.”

Scientific illustration of Venus transiting in front of the Sun, as captured by the Solar Dynamics Observetory satellite, a flaming metallic orb girdled by a series of perfectly circular silhouettes making a diagonal line from the upper left to the middle right of the image.

Science Art: Transit of Venus in 2012.

9 June 2025 grant 0

This is Venus, moving in front of the Sun. Technically, I suppose it’s a lot of Venuses, or a chain of a lot of pictures of Venus.

It was made by NASA/SDO, AIA, or NASA’s Solar Dynamics… Read the rest “Science Art: Transit of Venus in 2012.”

Scientific illustration of a giant telescope from the 1800s, showing a few well-dressed science fans walking on to the tower that is the telescope.

Science Art: The Great Paris Reflector, 1898.

3 March 2025 grant 0

This is an image from The New Astronomy, a textbook of space sciences I found on archive.org.

It’s one of what was at the time the largest telescopes ever built, a reflector that used… Read the rest “Science Art: The Great Paris Reflector, 1898.”

Scientific illustration of the shadows cast by the Earth on the moon.

Science Art: Earth’s Shadow and Penumbra in Sections, 1898.

13 January 2025 grant 0

This delightful diagram appears on a page of A New Astronomy For Beginners that also has an almanac of “Important Future Eclipses” from 1898 (January 22, East African and India)… Read the rest “Science Art: Earth’s Shadow and Penumbra in Sections, 1898.”

Scientific illustration of the "Great Nebula of Andromeda," which we now know as the Andromeda galaxy (with two more galaxies in the frame too).

Science Art: Andromeda Galaxy, by Isaac Roberts, 1888.

30 December 2024 grant 0

It was this photograph’s anniversary today, or so said Robert McNees, posting on Bluesky’s science-communication feed.

On the 29th of December, 1888, a Welsh businessman,… Read the rest “Science Art: Andromeda Galaxy, by Isaac Roberts, 1888.”

SONG: “Einstein’s Idea” (a penitential Johnny Flynn cover)

13 December 2024 grant 0

SONG: “Einstein’s Idea (a penitential Johnny Flynn cover)” . (OGG version here.)

ARTIST: grant.

SOURCE: This is a penitential cover of a song by actor/singer/songwriter… Read the rest “SONG: “Einstein’s Idea” (a penitential Johnny Flynn cover)”

Scientific illustration of curved, glowing, colorful formations against the black backdrop of space - the curve of a galaxy like a horse's neck, a row of glowing spheres or discs like spinning Christmas lights, as photographed by the Webb Space Telescope.

Science Art: Interacting Galaxies Arp 142 (MIRI Image), by NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI.

10 November 2024 grant 0

This is a photograph of a strangely-shaped galaxy, as taken by the Webb Space Telescope. Or rather, a set of “interacting” galaxies, known collectively as Arp 142. From the… Read the rest “Science Art: Interacting Galaxies Arp 142 (MIRI Image), by NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI.”

Daddy-daughter alien decoding.

27 October 2024 grant 0

The European Space Agency reports on the team who successfully decoded an “alien” transmission actually sent by a probe orbiting Mars as part of a multidisciplinary project… Read the rest “Daddy-daughter alien decoding.”

James Webb will be looking for other Earths in unusual places.

25 September 2024 grant 0

Mashable has the details, but the general gist is the space telescope will not focus on Sun-like stars to find Earth-like planets (that is, rocky worlds with gaseous atmospheres). Instead,… Read the rest “James Webb will be looking for other Earths in unusual places.”

The Wow! signal probably wasn’t aliens (but is still wow).

21 August 2024 grant 0

Scientific American has a new explanation for the famous “Wow!” signal – the orderly burst of focused radio energy recorded in 1977 that seemed like it could possibly… Read the rest “The Wow! signal probably wasn’t aliens (but is still wow).”

There are oceans on Mars – but they’re too deep to get to.

21 August 2024 grant 0

PhysOrg says there’s liquid water on Mars (great!) but (aw!) it’s too far underground to tap:

The data from NASA’s Insight lander allowed the scientists to estimate

… Read the rest “There are oceans on Mars – but they’re too deep to get to.”

There’s a cave on the moon we could live in.

15 July 2024 grant 0

BBC reports on the discovery of a cave on the moon that has awakened a primordial proto-human urge in the space scientists observing it. They spot a cave on the moon and think, hey, we could … Read the rest “There’s a cave on the moon we could live in.”

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GRANT: something to believe in

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Fellow Travelers

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  • Bioephemera
  • Breakfast in the Ruins
  • Carabus
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  • Fluxblog
  • Giant-Killer
  • grant (archive)
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  • Hello, Poindexter!
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  • junior kitchen
  • Keep Your Pebbles
  • LiveScience
  • Mindless Ones
  • Nature
  • New Scientist
  • NIMBioS: Science Songwriters-in-Residence
  • Peculiar Velocity
  • PhysOrg
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  • 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
  • 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
  • Mohammed VI Polytechnic University: SUSMAT-RC - Postdoctoral in Computer-Aided Design and Descovery of Sustainable Polymer Materials
  • Iowa State University: Assistant/Associate/Full Professor in Computer Science
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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