Big Up Science Singles

It's Monday. Let's see what we've got here then....

The big release for me this week is Chemical Brothers with The Salmon Dance


Science? They are called the Chemical Brothers, but that's not all. This song is jam packed with salmon facts, all presented in a handy hip-hop format by Sammy the Salmon:
Fact 1: "All my peeps spend part of their life in fresh water and part of their life in salt water... They change round a couple of days after spawning, then we die."
Indeed, at around 2 years of age, young salmon leave their river habitats and migrate to the sea. They then return to the river after a year or so to spawn. However, they don't then die, instead they go back to the sea and return to the river gain around every 18 months to spawn. I'm disappointed in that factual error Sammy the Salmon.
Fact 2: "Most of our friends find home waters by sense of smell, which is even more key than that of a dog or a bear."
Salmon which were imprinted to Morpholine (C₄H₉NO), a heterocyclic amine, could detect the chemical at concentrations below 5.7x 10-10 M.
Fact 3: "My family also rely on ocean currents, tides, the gravitational pull of the moon."
There is also a theory that some salmon species can detect the earth's magnetic field.
Fact 4" "Polluted water can kill both baby salmon that are developing and the adult salmon that are on their way to spawn."
Epigenetic factors, such a water pollution, can affect the development of salmon, or indeed any fish; not just killing the developing fish, but also leading to malformations. This of particular importance when you consider the economic value of farmed species such as salmon.

Is it any good? It like a novelty record, and I suppose it is. However, the Chemical Brothers arn't about to release any old rubbish. It's novelty in the Lemon Jelly style, rather than the Mr Blobby one, and unlike Mr Blobby the guest rapper, Fatlip who used to be in the Pharcyde, is ace. Not to mention that salmon are a type of fish. Fish are still cool right?


HIM and The kiss of dawn


Science? The HIM proteins , or "High Incidence of Males", are a group of 19 proteins found in the C. elegans. Interesting huh?

Is it any good? As much as I'm not into worm genetics, I'd rather would enjoy sitting though a 5 day conference on gene-protein interaction in C. elegans than waste another 3 minutes 55 seconds of my precious life listening to this again.