The Guild of Scientific Troubadours

The Guild of Scientific Troubadours

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entomology

SONG: We Ate Each Other’s Wings

24 April 2026 grant 0

SONG: “We Ate Each Other’s Wings”. (OGG version here.)

ARTIST: grant.

SOURCE: Based on “These roaches form exclusive long-term relationships after eating… Read the rest “SONG: We Ate Each Other’s Wings”

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”

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.”

Honey bees navigate VERY precisely.

20 February 2026 grant 0

PhysOrg considers the flight paths of honeybees in three dimensions and finds that the insects are even more precise than anyone imagined:

A team from the University of Freiburg led by neurobiologist

… Read the rest “Honey bees navigate VERY precisely.”
Scientific illustration of moths, orange and brown and green and black, pictured as if flying in tight formation.

Science Art: Plate LXXXI from A natural history of British moths, 1872.

23 November 2025 grant 0

These are English moths, of the geni Rhodophaea, Oncocera, Aphomia, Galleria, Melliphora, Halias and Sarrothripa. Each species in this book has a description like:

The situations where

… Read the rest “Science Art: Plate LXXXI from A natural history of British moths, 1872.”

A cave full of 111,000 spiders in the dark.

8 November 2025 grant 0

Live Science goes into the brimstone of the underworld — a sulfuric cave literally named “Sulfur Cave” — on the border of Greece and Albania, and finds —… Read the rest “A cave full of 111,000 spiders in the dark.”

Hungry caterpillars eat plastic pollution

12 July 2025 grant 0

IFL Science introduces us to “plastivores” — a species of waxworm caterpillars (often thought of as beehive pests) that get fat gorging themselves on plastic waste… Read the rest “Hungry caterpillars eat plastic pollution”

USDA finds what caused America’s biggest bee die-off.

3 July 2025 grant 0

Science shares research that identifies a massive killer of honeybees — a virus that’s carried by pesticide-resistant mites:

U.S. beekeepers had a disastrous winter. Between

… Read the rest “USDA finds what caused America’s biggest bee die-off.”
Scientific illustration of a white plume moth, long legs, very white against a black background.

Science Art: Pterophorus pentadactyla MHNT, by Didier Descouens

2 June 2025 grant 0

This is an image of a white plume moth, a photograph taken of a specimen in the Muséum de Toulouse in August of 2011. The moths really look like this in life, too. But this one was on display in … Read the rest “Science Art: Pterophorus pentadactyla MHNT, by Didier Descouens”

Scientific illustration of a sawfly feeding on a plum, purplish-black insect glittering darkly over a white larva on a hard, green fruit.

Science Art: Hoplocampa minuta, Plommonstekel Ugglan, 1920.

19 May 2025 grant 0

“A kind of sawfly living on plum trees,” according to the Wikimedia Commons gallery of images from Nordisk familjebok. They’re considered a pest — the young … Read the rest “Science Art: Hoplocampa minuta, Plommonstekel Ugglan, 1920.”

Farewell, murder hornets. We got you.

19 December 2024 grant 0

AP News reports that a particularly dramatic “invasive exotic” species – Vespa mandarinia, the Asian giant hornet, better known as the “murder hornet”… Read the rest “Farewell, murder hornets. We got you.”

Hyper-sexual zombie cicadas… on speed.

6 April 2024 grant 0

That’s how the CBS headline starts, and I can only improve upon it by adding the drugs in the interest of accuracy. The story is about a sexually-transmitted fungal disease expected… Read the rest “Hyper-sexual zombie cicadas… on speed.”

Scientific illustration of four ambush bugs.

Science Art: Four Phymata species from “Notas Sobre Phymatidae Neotropicales II,” October 1951.

24 March 2024 grant 0

An illustration of four ambush bugs from Anales de la Sociedad Científica Argentina, found in the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Or parts of ambush bugs.

At the top left is Phymata carioca… Read the rest “Science Art: Four Phymata species from “Notas Sobre Phymatidae Neotropicales II,” October 1951.”

Bumblebees teach each other.

7 March 2024 grant 0

Nature shares a study that found that bumblebees somehow communicate the solutions to complex puzzles to each other, something that only humans were thought to do. Instead, the insects… Read the rest “Bumblebees teach each other.”

Cicadas are so loud, they cause fiberoptic-cable interference.

3 December 2023 grant 0

Wired reveals a very strange insect-monitoring device called DAS, or “distributed acoustic sensing,” normally used to track vibrations made by seismic shifts and volcanic… Read the rest “Cicadas are so loud, they cause fiberoptic-cable interference.”

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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
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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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