A really fantastic tribute to Carl Sagan, done as a song, using clips from his Cosmos television series. I love the technology used to make him ‘sing’. It’s quite effective when used in this way, and has produced a haunting melody and given his already wonderful way of speaking an interesting twist. You can download the mp3 version by visiting the webpage listed at the end of the video.
Author Archives: the Meathead
Happy Monkey Music
I’ve always thought, as I suspect many of you have, that animals in general (and our pets in particular) will respond to human music, even like it. It turns out that this idea may be wrong. A recent study has revealed that monkeys don’t like human music, but will listen and respond to music based on the vocalizations they make. This article from Wired explains the details. I listened to both samples of music and found the fearful monkey music very irritating. The happy monkey music wasn’t much better!
Amazing! NASA’s Kepler Mission
NASA has successfully launched the Kepler satellite to look for Earth-like planets around other stars. The Planetologist explains it much better than I can. Again, amazing!
Discovery Institute Smackdown
This is how you respond to creationist attempts to legitimize their ‘science’. Pwnd. Dr. Gotelli is my hero.
I’m Hopeful
Great video from President Obama on his commitment to science education and support. He’s saying the right words. It’s the best way to start undoing the anti-science damage that has occurred over the last 8 years.
The Evolution of Life in 60 Seconds
Seed presents a very cool video compressing the 4.6 billion years of Earth’s existence down to one minute. See if you can catch the final extremely brief blip at the end representing the moment humans show up.
Darwin’s Birthday
Excellent opinion piece at the New York Times on the significance of Darwin’s grand contribution to science and understanding the history of the human species. Today would be Darwin’s 200th birthday.
Instruction Manual for Life
Saw this over at Godless Woman. It is a powerful story and one I can relate to.
Obama is On the Right Track
I’m not one to post much about politics that aren’t directly related to atheism and anti-science, but seeing as it’s such an overwhelmingly historic time right now with Obama as our new president, I have to at least comment a bit!
I watched on Tuesday, along with my co-workers, as Obama was sworn in as president. I think the reality of what he’d accomplished hit him right as he started his oath, as he stumbled over the words at first. He’s been so busy since the election getting organized and preparing his team that he probably hadn’t really thought about what was coming. I can’t imagine what he was feeling at that moment.
I was disappointed by the seeming disinterest of several students on campus. I saw them wandering into the offices while we were all watching the inauguration and waved them over to watch. All but one declined. One of those great moments in the history of the USA, that will be remembered forever as a very significant first, and these students were not interested.
Well, there’s great hope at least for the future. His first day in office and Obama seems to be doing exactly what he promised in his campaign. Many of the things Bush had put in place to limit access to knowledge of government activities have been effectively repealed. As this New York Times article shows, more transparency and openess in government business will be the rule of the day. Go Obama!
UPDATE: Just caught on the news that the reason Obama stumbled on his oath was because the justice giving it messed up. Oh, well. I’d still like to think it was at that moment it all hit home!
A New Fad? Or a New Style of Performance Art?
I recently was sent a link to a YouTube video showing a young man by the name of Freddie who performs a tune from Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker. What’s unusual about this is that he plays all the instrumental parts himself, using physical instruments (and not a synthesizer) and also, my favorite, unique percussion instruments as well. Now, multi-track recording is nothing new and a staple of anyone recording their own music. What sets this song apart is that Freddie recorded the video in such as way as to show him playing (and singing) all the parts together. The result is a beautiful song made somewhat surreal by seeing all the ‘Freddies’ playing together on the screen. Excellent video and excellent performance! Enjoy!
UPDATE: I’ve poked around and only found a few more videos doing something similar (and none, so far, as good as this one). If anyone knows of more, please post in the comments!
Singing Meat 