Science Song of the Week #5

This week's featured song is actually a pair of songs.

Though we tend to think of science songs as a new, experimental frontier in education, they have been around for many decades. The true aficionados out there are familiar with such classics as "First and Second Law" by Flanders and Swann and "The Elements" by Tom Lehrer. Even more remarkable than these one-off pieces was the production of a SIX-ALBUM set of Ballads For The Age Of Science in the late '50s and early '60s, with lyrics by Hy Zaret and music by Lou Singer. Of the Zaret/Singer songs, "Why Does The Sun Shine?" (orginally performed by Tom Glazer on the album Space Songs) remains well-known thanks to various cover versions recorded by They Might Be Giants.



Despite the authentic-sounding content of "Why Does The Sun Shine?" -- also known by its first line, "The sun is a mass of incandescent gas" -- They Might Be Giants decided that it needed to be updated. Their new song "Why Does the Sun Really Shine?" begins, "The sun is a miasma of incandescent plasma." As they explain, "Plasma: electrons are free. Plasma: a fourth state of matter. Not gas, liquid, or solid. Plasma -- forget that song. Plasma -- they got it wrong. That thesis has been rendered invalid."



Kudos to They Might Be Giants for keeping up with the latest research!

Science Song of the Week #4

My old friend Jeremy Fox, an ecology professor at the University of Calgary, alerted me to the video below, a live performance of Performance, Feedback, Revision taken from the album The Rap Guide to Evolution by Baba Brinkman. The song is interesting for at least a couple of reasons. First, it (and the rest of the album) grew out of a dialog between Brinkman, a professional "rap troubadour," and Mark Pallen, an evolutionary biologist. Second, it uses the analogy of making music to explain how evolution works, and does so in a reasonably accurate and compelling way. Watch for the freestyle section where Brinkman introduces some new "mutations" into his song!

Most popular science songs of all time?

We've made a preliminary list of the most popular science songs to be found on YouTube. There are at least eight with over 850,000 views! Check out our "Chart Recorder" page...
http://www.singaboutscience.org/youtube.html
...and let us know if we've missed any!

I'll Take Care of You...

In earlier posts (e.g., What rhymes with "RuBisCO"?) we mentioned a song created by Dave Nachmanoff and participants in the UC-Davis "Oak Discovery Day." That song is now available on Dave's website. It is called I'll Take Care of You (If You'll Take Care of Me).

While some of the lyrics are almost comically specific ("Thank you . . . for visiting the UC-Davis arboretum oaks"), it's a nice example of what can happen when musicians, scientists, and others come together in a collaborative music-making project.

Science Song of the Week #3

One reason to use science songs as educational tools is that they are a form of advertising, with "hooks" to grab people's attention.

Much to my delight, two biotech companies have taken this idea and run with it, creating very catchy science songs that showcase their expertise and products. First, in January 2008, Bio-Rad released Scientists for Better PCR.

As if in response to this bit of Bio-Rad brilliance, Eppendorf put forth its own ad-in-a-song a few months later: It's Called epMotion.

In case it isn't obvious how much effort went into producing these pieces, the following featurettes dutifully chronicle the application of makeup, positioning of cameras, and so forth.
• Behind the Scenes: "Scientists for Better PCR"
• The making of "It's Called epMotion"