Science Song of the Week #23: "Stanley the Skeleton"

Here's an anatomy song sung by a skeleton -- perfect for Halloween!

What's a festival without music?

Kudos to the organizers of the 2010 USA Science & Engineering Festival for making music such a central part of the festivities. Back in May, we mentioned that the lead-up to the festival included a jingle contest. The festival itself included a science-themed oratorio featuring local K-12 students as well as performances by science songsters Monty Harper, Jeff Moran ("Dr. Chordate"), Larry Morris ("Prof. Boggs"), and Francis Collins. I'd love to hear more from anyone who was there.

Science Song of the Week #22: "El Corazon"

I'm not quite sure what to make of Chris Hardwick and Mike Phirman, known together as Hard 'N Phirm. Their songs and videos include several with science/math themes, yet they don't seem to have an educational agenda per se. I guess maybe they see the communication of science simply as an area ripe with humorous satirical possibilities.

The song illustrated below, "El Corazón" (The Heart), seems sort of representative of their work. A passionate recitation of facts about the cardiovascular system, in Spanish, gives way to a quick tribute to the rock band Heart and then a depressing ending. You may want to watch it twice.

Benoit Mandelbrot: a song to remember him by

Thanks to Curtis Silver of Technorati for writing this up before I had the chance:
In Memory: "The Mandelbrot Set" by Jonathan Coulton

Those with highly sensitive ears should be warned that the song contains the phrase "bad-ass f***ing fractal." Is it vulgar, or is it math?

Doctoral dance update

We previously mentioned the "Dance Your Ph.D." contest, the first round of which has since concluded. Suzanne Winter of BioTechniques.com gives us an update in her article "Shake your groove thing," which focuses on the winner in the chemistry category, Maureen McKeague of Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada.

Since this is above all a science music blog, we should note the central role of music in the winning dance:

McKeague's thesis dance begins with a lonely homocystine target, dancing by herself to Celine Dion's "Alone" before being incubated with DNA strands that are possible aptamers. The dancers demonstrate binding affinity by keeping apace of the aerobic homocystine as she dances to Vanilla Fudge's "You Keep Me Hangin' On" and surviving a urea wash as "Night on Bald Mountain" plays menacingly in the background. In the true gem of the video, the strands then undergo PCR, led by a jiving Taq DNA polymerase molecule to the tune of Men Without Hats' "Safety Dance." Finally, natural selection takes its toll as mismatched aptamers peel off the dance group to Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust" and the remaining aptamers celebrate their binding affinity with Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance."

The charming article is marred by a number of factual errors. McKeague's small-molecule target is homocysteine, not homocystine. In addition, most of the songs mentioned above appear to be attributed to the wrong artists. The version of "Alone" used in the dance sounds to my ears like the original one recorded by Heart, not Celine Dion's cover. Conversely, "The Safety Dance" was originally recorded by Men Without Hats, but the dance includes a different version. And the "You Keep Me Hangin' On" heard here is not from Vanilla Fudge -- maybe Kim Wilde?

Science Song of the Week #21: "Graphene"

Over at PhysicsSongs.org, Haverford professor Walter Smith posted the video below in honor of this year's Nobel Prize in Physics. The press release reads, in part:

A thin flake of ordinary carbon, just one atom thick, lies behind this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics. Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov have shown that carbon in such a flat form has exceptional properties that originate from the remarkable world of quantum physics.

Graphene is a form of carbon. As a material it is completely new – not only the thinnest ever but also the strongest. As a conductor of electricity it performs as well as copper. As a conductor of heat it outperforms all other known materials. It is almost completely transparent, yet so dense that not even helium, the smallest gas atom, can pass through it. Carbon, the basis of all known life on earth, has surprised us once again.

Geim and Novoselov extracted the graphene from a piece of graphite such as is found in ordinary pencils. Using regular adhesive tape they managed to obtain a flake of carbon with a thickness of just one atom. This at a time when many believed it was impossible for such thin crystalline materials to be stable.

However, with graphene, physicists can now study a new class of two-dimensional materials with unique properties. Graphene makes experiments possible that give new twists to the phenomena in quantum physics. Also a vast variety of practical applications now appear possible including the creation of new materials and the manufacture of innovative electronics. Graphene transistors are predicted to be substantially faster than today’s silicon transistors and result in more efficient computers.

Since it is practically transparent and a good conductor, graphene is suitable for producing transparent touch screens, light panels, and maybe even solar cells.

When mixed into plastics, graphene can turn them into conductors of electricity while making them more heat resistant and mechanically robust. This resilience can be utilised in new super strong materials, which are also thin, elastic and lightweight. In the future, satellites, airplanes, and cars could be manufactured out of the new composite materials.

And now a celebratory song based upon J.J. Cale's "Cocaine," courtesy of Georgia Tech....

Blog? Facebook? Listserv? Message board? (All of the above?!)

The Sing About Science approach to social networking might seem a bit scattered at this point. In addition to this blog, we have a Facebook page and a just-created forum (electronic message board), plus some of us use a Yahoo groups email listserv. There is some method to this madness, though. We figure that, as we grow our network of people interested in science songs, we should try all of these approaches and see which one(s) people like best. So, any thoughts? Feel free to leave a comment here, or respond to the corresponding message board thread (after creating a user login).

Answers to the trivia questions!

And now, as promised, the answers to yesterday's science song trivia questions....

1. The song "Drops of Jupiter" by the group Train was a #1 hit in 2001. Which of the following incorrect "facts" is implied by the lyrics of the song?
A. Earth is not part of the Milky Way.
B. We now have proof that life once existed on Mars.
C. Jupiter was named for the Greek god of metallurgy.
D. Saturn is the only planet with rings.
E. Pluto was discovered by Galileo.

The answer is (A). In the song, the vocalist asks his galaxy-hopping girlfriend, "Did you make it to the Milky Way?" -- implying that the Milky Way is some distant astronomical entity, when in fact we are already in it.

2. Though most SSA members toil in anonymity, every so often a science song makes it into the repertoire of a famous person or group. Which of the following recording artists has NOT recorded a science song?
A. Biz Markie ("Energy blues")
B. Flanders and Swann ("First and second law")
C. Kate and Anna McGarrigle ("NaCl")
D. Sam Hinton ("It's a long way from Amphioxus")
E. Sheryl Crow ("Fathom the atom")
F. They Might Be Giants ("Mammal")
G. Tom Lehrer ("The Elements")

The correct answer is (E), Sheryl Crow. (How about covering me on your next album, Sheryl?)

3. The overall winner in the 2001 SSA Student Science Songwriting Contest was a song that included these lyrics:
I got isotopes
Of an element.
They have different masses --
It just don't make sense.
I'll guess you'll say,
"How come they don't weigh the same?"
Neutrons, neutrons, neutrons
Talkin' 'bout neutrons, neutrons.
To which oldie hit are these words meant to be sung?
A. "Born To Be Wild" by Steppenwolf
B. "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" by The Shirelles
C. "I Want You Back" by The Jackson 5
D. "Your Song" by Elton John
E. "My Girl" by The Temptations

The answer is (E), "My Girl," as originally performed by The Tempations (and later covered by Hall & Oates and many others).

4. Only one of the following purveyors of science songs is/was based in the United States. Which one is it?
A. Les Horribles Cernettes
B. The Metabolites
C. Chris Rawlings
D. Billy B. Brennen
E. Flanders & Swann

The answer is (D). Billy B. Brennen, a children's biology/environmental singer/songwriter, currently resides in New York. Les Horribles Cernettes include
members from various European countries and are based in Switzerland; The Metabolites (the children of songwriters Harold Baum and Peter Shade) and Flanders & Swann are British; and Chris Rawlings is Canadian.

5. A brilliant and famous 19th-century physicist wrote many poems, including the following lines, which he may have sung while accompanying himself on guitar:
If a body meet a body
Flyin' through the air.
If a body hit a body,
Will it fly? And where?
Every impact has its measure,
Ne'er a one have I,
Yet all the lads they measure me,
Or, at least, they try.
Who is the author?
A. Henri Becquerel
B. Ludwig Boltzmann
C. Carl F. Gauss
D. Jean Foucault
E. James Clerk Maxwell

The answer is (E), James Clerk Maxwell. Walter Smith of Haverford College and PhysicsSongs.org offers additional info at: http://www.haverford.edu/physics-astro/songs/rigid.htm

6. In 2000, the York Theatre Company premiered a musical play titled "Fermat's Last Tango." In a nutshell, what is the plot of this play?
A. A Princeton professor struggles to prove a 350-year-old theorem.
B. A dance instructor derives equations that explain the aesthetic beauty of his discipline.
C. An elderly Pierre de Fermat reflects upon a life in mathematics.
D. Parisian disco revelers welcome the arrival of the 1980s at a New Year's Eve party.
E. A famed French composer's most celebrated works are secretly ghostwritten by a mathematician.

The answer is (A). This play is based on the real-life toils of Princeton math professor Andrew Wiles, who did in fact prove Fermat's Last Theorem after many years of work. Professor Wiles was not himself involved in the making of the play, but after seeing it, he remarked, "I think that it did especially capture the feeling that one sometimes has when doing mathematics that obstacles have been put there deliberately to taunt you, but also the feeling of wonder at the beauty and simplicity of it all when one finally sees the light."

7. Of the following, which is the longest science/math song that is currently available in its entirety on the web?
A. "The Krebs Cycle" by Science Groove
B. "Digital Love" by Eric Siegel
C. "Stairway to Kelvin" by the Incubators
D. "Furrier Than Thou" by Dr. Chordate
E. "The First 1000 Digits of Pi" by Math MC

The answer is (B). You can listen to this song -- all 12 minutes and 51 seconds of it -- and find its lyrics at: www1.cs.columbia.edu/~evs/songs/.

8. Which of the following is a real science song (for which a recording exists)?
A. "Albert Einstein's Comb" by Mister Mark
B. "Barbara McClintock's Lipstick" by Jamminella
C. "Archimedes' Socks" by They Might Be Science
D. "Heisenberg's Wallet" by Fun Factory
E. "Newton's Wig" by Terminal Velocity

The answer is (A). "Mister Mark" is the stage name of Mark Burrows, a musician in Fort Worth, Texas.

9. Match the songs (1-5) to the recording artists who've performed them (A-E).
1) "Big Science"
2) "Disco Science"
3) "Mad Science"
4) "Pure Science"
5) "Weird Science"
A) B. Hill-Smith
B) Hustlers of Culture
C) Laurie Anderson
D) Mirwais
E) Oingo Boingo

The answers: 1-C, 2-D, 3-B, 4-A, 5-E. To be honest, even I haven't heard of all these recording artists, but I still thought it was interesting how many songs with "science" in the title are out there.

10. Moving away from the usual multiple-choice format, this question is an essay question. Assignment: assess the chemistry content of the song "Chemical Calisthenics" by Blackalicious. Song lyrics can be found at
www.seeklyrics.com/lyrics/Blackalicious/Chemical-Calisthentics.html.

Answer: Although the song is a long stream of words, at least some of them appear scientifically suspect. For example, calcium hydroxide and laughing gas are identified as "C-O-H-O-2" and "N-O-2" rather than the more commonly accepted formulas of Ca(OH)2 and N2O. Pretty funny, eh? There is also a reference to "boraxic acid," which I'm not sure is a real acid. Boric acid, maybe?

Test your knowledge of the science songs universe!

From 2004 to 2006, I sent out a monthly science songs newsletter ("MUSE: Music for Use in Science Education") to members and friends of the Science Songwriters' Association via our Yahoo groups email list. Many newsletters included a science songs trivia question whose answer was revealed in the following month's newsletter. I thought it would be fun to revisit those trivia questions now, so let's take a look! Answers will be (re-)revealed tomorrow!

1. The song "Drops of Jupiter" by the group Train was a #1 hit in 2001. Which of the following incorrect "facts" is implied by the lyrics of the song?
A. Earth is not part of the Milky Way.
B. We now have proof that life once existed on Mars.
C. Jupiter was named for the Greek god of metallurgy.
D. Saturn is the only planet with rings.
E. Pluto was discovered by Galileo.

2. Though most SSA members toil in anonymity, every so often a science song makes it into the repertoire of a famous person or group. Which of the following recording artists has NOT recorded a science song?
A. Biz Markie ("Energy blues")
B. Flanders and Swann ("First and second law")
C. Kate and Anna McGarrigle ("NaCl")
D. Sam Hinton ("It's a long way from Amphioxus")
E. Sheryl Crow ("Fathom the atom")
F. They Might Be Giants ("Mammal")
G. Tom Lehrer ("The Elements")

3. The overall winner in the 2001 SSA Student Science Songwriting Contest was a song that included these lyrics:
I got isotopes
Of an element.
They have different masses --
It just don't make sense.
I'll guess you'll say,
"How come they don't weigh the same?"
Neutrons, neutrons, neutrons
Talkin' 'bout neutrons, neutrons.
To which oldie hit are these words meant to be sung?
A. "Born To Be Wild" by Steppenwolf
B. "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" by The Shirelles
C. "I Want You Back" by The Jackson 5
D. "Your Song" by Elton John
E. "My Girl" by The Temptations

4. Only one of the following purveyors of science songs is/was based in the United States. Which one is it?
A. Les Horribles Cernettes
B. The Metabolites
C. Chris Rawlings
D. Billy B. Brennen
E. Flanders & Swann

5. A brilliant and famous 19th-century physicist wrote many poems, including the following lines, which he may have sung while accompanying himself on guitar:
If a body meet a body
Flyin' through the air.
If a body hit a body,
Will it fly? And where?
Every impact has its measure,
Ne'er a one have I,
Yet all the lads they measure me,
Or, at least, they try.
Who is the author?
A. Henri Becquerel
B. Ludwig Boltzmann
C. Carl F. Gauss
D. Jean Foucault
E. James Clerk Maxwell

6. In 2000, the York Theatre Company premiered a musical play titled "Fermat's Last Tango." In a nutshell, what is the plot of this play?
A. A Princeton professor struggles to prove a 350-year-old theorem.
B. A dance instructor derives equations that explain the aesthetic beauty of his discipline.
C. An elderly Pierre de Fermat reflects upon a life in mathematics.
D. Parisian disco revelers welcome the arrival of the 1980s at a New Year's Eve party.
E. A famed French composer's most celebrated works are secretly ghostwritten by a mathematician.

7. Of the following, which is the longest science/math song that is currently available in its entirety on the web?
A. "The Krebs Cycle" by Science Groove
B. "Digital Love" by Eric Siegel
C. "Stairway to Kelvin" by the Incubators
D. "Furrier Than Thou" by Dr. Chordate
E. "The First 1000 Digits of Pi" by Math MC

8. Which of the following is a real science song (for which a recording exists)?
A. "Albert Einstein's Comb" by Mister Mark
B. "Barbara McClintock's Lipstick" by Jamminella
C. "Archimedes' Socks" by They Might Be Science
D. "Heisenberg's Wallet" by Fun Factory
E. "Newton's Wig" by Terminal Velocity

9. Match the songs (1-5) to the recording artists who've performed them (A-E).
1) "Big Science"
2) "Disco Science"
3) "Mad Science"
4) "Pure Science"
5) "Weird Science"
A) B. Hill-Smith
B) Hustlers of Culture
C) Laurie Anderson
D) Mirwais
E) Oingo Boingo

10. Moving away from the usual multiple-choice format, this question is an essay question. Assignment: assess the chemistry content of the song "Chemical Calisthenics" by Blackalicious. Song lyrics can be found at
www.seeklyrics.com/lyrics/Blackalicious/Chemical-Calisthentics.html.

Science Song of the Week #20: "Living with a Hernia"

Another not-totally-infused-with-science selection this week ... but aside from Weird Al's excellent James Brown impersonation, I love the fact that he breaks out a list of the different types of hernias during the bridge of this song: "There's Incomplete! Epigastric! Bladder! Strangulated! Lumbar Hernia! Richter's Hernia! Obstructed! Inguinal, and Direct!"