Science song of the week: "Coral Reef" by Billy B

From Geophysical Research Letters via Science News comes the word that corals off the coast of Japan are moving northward, perhaps in response to the warming of the ocean.

The team, led by geographer Hiroya Yamano of the National Institute for Environmental Studies in Tsukuba, Japan, analyzed maps of corals from four time periods starting in the 1930s. They found that of nine common coral species, four had expanded northward, and two went as far as temperate waters. The study confirms what marine biologists and fishermen have speculated for years.

For some background information on choral reefs, we go to a live performance in which Billy B is supported by a coral group, er, choral group, of schoolchildren. If this song doesn't teach you the word "zooxanthellae," I don't know what will!

One man's trash is another man's science song

Our featured science story of the week is Turning garbage into gas (from The Economist).

Appropriately tweaked, the destruction of organic materials (including paper and plastics) by plasma torches produces a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen called syngas. That, in turn, can be burned to generate electricity. Add in the value of the tipping fees that do not have to be paid if rubbish is simply vaporised, plus the fact that energy prices in general are rising, and plasma torches start to look like a plausible alternative to burial.

A science song that aligns fairly well with this story is "Making biogas is a gas, gas, gas" by T. H. Culhane. Note, however, the difference between syngas, discussed in the article, and biogas, discussed in the song. The gases produced are different -- syngas is carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrogen (H₂), while biogas usually consists mostly of methane (CH₄) -- and they are produced by different processes, with biogas arising from the metabolism of living organisms such as bacteria.

Antimatter hey, antimatter ho...

Jonathan Coulton, who we've mentioned before, is somewhat famous for his "Thing a Week" project, in which he recorded a new song every week for a year. A pretty strict schedule ... and yet downright lax compared to that of Jonathan Mann, who has been posting a new song to YouTube every single day for over two years running! His Song A Day #686 ("CERN Created and Held Anti-Matter") is our selection as this week's Science Song of the Week. Feel free to sing along with the chorus: "Antimatter hey, antimatter ho -- our model of the universe needs you, bro...."



Mann's song was chosen because it may serve as a fun entry point into a recent Science News article, "Sizing up the electron," which explains the connection between electrons and antimatter as follows.

[The electron] inspired the mathematical equation that first hinted at the existence of antimatter, the exotic, oppositely charged counterpart to ordinary matter.

Now the electron is poised to go one step further, by helping scientists understand why matter triumphed over antimatter in the early universe. In theory, the Big Bang should have created matter and antimatter in equal amounts, but if so they would have annihilated each other and left nothing behind.

Though the standard model of particle physics, the mathematical framework for explaining how stuff is held together, can't quite account for how matter beat out antimatter, some theories that go beyond the standard model do. By carefully measuring the shape of the electron, through a particular property known as the electric dipole moment, scientists think they can narrow those theories down to get at the one that best reflects reality.

"The electron EDM is one of the places where there should be a good chance of seeing some new phenomena that can't be explained in the standard model, and could in turn help to explain this matter-antimatter imbalance in the universe," says physicist David DeMille of Yale University.

Science song of the week: arsenic-using bacteria revisited

Back on December 9th, we mentioned the controversial Science paper on a bacterium that can supposedly substitute arsenic for phosphorus in the structure of its DNA. The most relevant freely available song that I could find at the time was a DNA Replication Song that reviewed the structure of DNA.... But now there is at least one song that directly addresses the Wolfe-Simon paper: "GFAJ-1 Arsenic Blues" by Adrian Ebsary.



We at Sing About Science and Math have no official position on the correctness of the original research or this particular response to it (which seems mostly critical of the publicity blitz rather than the research itself). However, we do think that singing about the primary literature has great potential for increasing the public's awareness of this literature.

More interesting stuff from Adrian is coming soon at ScienceSounds.com (currently under construction).

You'll love this week's featured science song, thanks to dopamine

"Whether it's the Beatles or Beethoven, people like music for the same reason they like eating or having sex: It makes the brain release a chemical that gives pleasure, a new study says."

Thus begins Malcom Ritter's article (Study: Love music? Thank a substance in your brain) summarizing a study just published in Nature Neuroscience (Anatomically distinct dopamine release during anticipation and experience of peak emotion to music by Valorie Salimpoor et al.).

To complete the dopamine/music pleasure circuit, how about listening to a song about this particular neurotransmitter (as well as its cousin norepinephrine)? "Chemical Love" by Charlie McDonnell is sure to fire up those striatal neurons!

Science song of the week: Tevatron requiem

Tuesday's Nature News announced, "Tevatron faces final curtain."

After much debate, officials at the US Department of Energy's Office of Science revealed this week that they have decided not to extend funding for the Tevatron, the proton–antiproton collider at Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois, by an additional three years. The decision means that the first glimpse of the long-predicted Higgs particle, thought to endow other particles with mass, will probably be achieved by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, Europe's particle-physics lab near Geneva in Switzerland.

Below is the YouTube video for "Particle Business" by rapper funky49 (a.k.a. Steven Rush). It does a nice job conveying that CERN's LHC and Fermilab's Tevatron have been in a high-stakes race to find evidence of the Higgs particle:

Tevatron, OG atom smasher
say hello to CERN’s party crasher, the
new "Lord of the Rings" LHC, hear me, this
be competitive collaboration baby...
rock stars of physics, particle business
smash matter, antimatter and witness
quarks, bottom to top they don’t stop
"where the Higgs at?" yo that’s their mark
where the Higgs at? where the Higgs at?
where the Higgs at?

One more "year-in-review" song, and then on to 2011 in earnest!

The Scientist has published several compilations of the year's top biology papers, including a top 7 in biochemistry and a top 5 for all of biology, both ranked by the Faculty of 1000. The key advances included two prized crystal structures: complex I of the bacterial electron transport chain, and the two subunits of the yeast ribosome. The most pertinent song I found was "The Structural Biology Rap" by Zach Powers (a.k.a. The Science Rapper), which gives an overview of pertinent techniques including protein expression and crystallography.

Science song of the week, or the year, or whatever

'Tis the season for end-of-year summaries. PhysicsWorld.com has a ranked list of the top ten physics breakthroughs of 2010, including this entry:

3rd place: Quantum effects seen in a visible object

In what is an important step towards testing Schrodinger's cat paradox, physicists at the University of California, Santa Barbara have bagged third place in our top 10 by observing true quantum behaviour in a macroscopic object big enough to be seen with the naked eye. Andrew Cleland and crew reduced the amplitude of the vibrations in a resonator by cooling it down to below 0.1 K. They were then able to create a superposition state of the resonator where they simultaneously had an excitation in the resonator and no excitation in the resonator. "This is analogous to Schrödinger's cat being dead and alive at the same time," says Cleland. This is the first time this feat has been achieved and it could shed light on the mysterious boundaries between the classical and quantum worlds.

To remind us non-physicists of the basics of Schrodinger's cat, we turn once again to Mark Rosengarten. His song "Schodinger's Cat Strikes Back" explains the paradox:
http://www.youtube.com/MarkRosengarten#p/c/65159266CFC74682/10/5SvtsKsh9Fo

Of course, if you only play the song a single time without doing any additional reading, you might feel that the concept has been simultaneously explained and not explained. Quantum physics can be like that....

Science Song of the Week: "Silent Night (for the cosmically inclined)"

This week we take a break from the news-of-the-week format to celebrate the holidays ... in a scientifically correct manner, of course! The song below is described by its writer, Connie Barlow, as a "traditional Christmas song rewritten to celebrate the scientific fact that we are made of stardust."

Science song of the week and "teaching the controversy"

The past week's science-related news stories included much coverage of the Cancun Climate Summit convened by the United Nations. The tone of this coverage varied widely, with many liberal sources stressing the urgency of the global warming problem and some conservative ones questioning whether there is a problem at all.

If you look for songs about global warming, you'll find a similar range of views. One that is highly critical of the scientific support for global warming is "Hide the Decline," by a group called Minnesotans For Global Warming.



If I were teaching a class about climate change, I might show a video like this one and then ask students to do some further reading at websites such as SkepticalScience.com. Remember that, in an educational context, songs do not have to be used simply for ramming textbook facts down people's throats; they can serve as jumping-off points for discussion. A good discussion starter does not have to represent a scientific consensus; why not start with the "controversy" and then examine the evidence in more detail?

Science song of the week: the structure of DNA

Continuing with the new, newsier format introduced last week, we note the considerable media buzz concerning the NASA research by Felisa Wolfe-Simon et al. that was just published (online) by Science: A bacterium that can grow by using arsenic instead of phosphorus. The central claim of this paper is that, when growing in a high-arsenic, phosphate-free environment, a bacterial strain known as GFAJ-1 can substitute arsenate (AsO₄^3-) for phosphate (PO₄^3-). This claim has been hotly disputed by prominent scientists, but if it were true, the standard textbook explanations and diagrams of nucleic acids having a "sugar-phosphate backbone" would not necessarily apply to all life.

At this point, casual biology students and scientifically curious adults may be thinking, "Right.... Now what does that sugar-phosphate backbone look like, again?" Most DNA songs focus on the hydrogen bonding between complementary bases, but here's one (performed by two high school teachers) that shows you the backbone as well. Bonus points for using the word "phosphodiester"!

Science Song of the Week -- new, newsier format!

Up to now, this Science Song of the Week series has lacked any real cohesion. That isn't necessarily a problem, but a conversation with Kate and Wendy about the future of the Sing About Science project led to the idea that we could work harder to connect songs to current science news stories for which the songs may provide context and background. Starting this week, my SSotW plan is to pair a news story with a song that is at least loosely related to it.

Our topic for this week? Stem cells!

Laura Ungar of the Washington Post reports that Stem cells in fat may help repair damaged hearts. And why do so many people study stem cells, again? Tufts University professor Jonathan Garlick "breaks it down" for us.....

Science Song of the Week #27: "A Wave of Reason"

John Boswell has taken a highly innovative approach to creating music out of science: he uses Auto-Tune software to create vocal tracks of Carl Sagan and others "singing" and creates instrumental accompaniment for their "melodies." He describes his latest piece, just released this week, as follows:

"A Wave of Reason" is the seventh installment in the Symphony of Science music video series. It is intended to promote scientific reasoning and skepticism in the face of growing amounts of pseudoscientific pursuits, such as Astrology and Homeopathy, and also to promote the scientific worldview as equally enlightening as religion. It features Carl Sagan, Bertrand Russell, Sam Harris, Michael Shermer, Lawrence Krauss, Carolyn Porco, Richard Dawkins, Richard Feynman, Phil Plait, and James Randi.

Science Song of the Week #26: "Fossil Man"

Well, here we are already -- halfway through a year of Science Songs of the Week!

The SECOND-biggest YouTube collection of science songs of which I'm aware is that of Mark Rosengarten, who was featured in week 14. The biggest YouTube collection of all, I think, has been posted by a Bill Nye fan who has uploaded music videos from nearly every episode of Bill Nye the Science Guy.

Below is one of my favorites, a parody of the Elton John song we were just discussing.

Science Song of the Week #25: "Natural Selection"

The topic of this week's song is a bit redundant with SSotW #4, but the songs themselves could hardly be more different. "Natural Selection" comes from a unique album called The Origin of Species in Dub, a reggae representation of Darwin's famous book. The video is embedded below, but I recommend going to the Genomic Dub Collective's web page on this video for complete lyrics and other relevant information.

Science Song of the Week #24: "A Song About An Anglerfish" by Hank Green

I've been doing a lot of grant-writing lately and haven't been outside for two days. But things could be worse -- I could be an anglerfish.



On second thought, maybe it would be better to be an anglerfish right now. In the words of the song, "You can't hate the night if you live your whole life without light."

(Thanks to London Parker for emailing me this link!)

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

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

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.

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....

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!"