Science Singles: Back once again

Yep, it's back .



Let's see what sciencey pop songs I've missed while I was stuck in a hole writing up.


Kaiser Chiefs - "Love's Not A Competition (but I'm winning)"




Science?: If one takes the rather unromantic and reductionist view that the concept of romantic love is nothing but the complex manifestation of basic mating urges combined with a strong pair bonding instinct, then love is indeed a competition. Many animals compete to win a mate, or to win valuable access to favourable mating grounds. From stag beetles to elephant seals, they're all at it. Zoologists consider the successful males those that have their share of successful copulations with fecund females, resulting in the birth of progeny. Is Ricky Kaiser Chiefs winning? Wikipedia no mention of Ricky Wilson having successfully copulated with a fecund females resulting the birth of progeny. Therefore, this hard boiled Darwinian blog considers him not a winner, but a loser.

What's it like?: When I first heard this I was convinced it was a cover of some 80s tune by Duran Duran or some such (apparently it's not). That should act as all the review you need.

Pendulum - "Granite"

Science?: Pendulums are part of a bit of science known as "Physics". This type of science, considered by many to be a dark art practised by black hearted necromancers, is so obtuse and arcane that no mortal can understand its ways without first going mad. The diagram below showing the key components of a pendulum clearly demonstrates this, as each elements sounds as if it belongs in a piece of gritty social realism theatre about life in a 1960s prison rather than a weight swinging about on a piece of string.

What's it like?: Granite is a common type of igneous rock, and this tune most certainly does (rock that is, not igneous. This tune igneouses would make no sense). It manages to achieve sounding great, whilst simultaneously sounding like a late 1990s dance remix of a slightly gothic metal song. Quite how this is done without sounding shite is a mystery only bettered by that of physics. Also there are X-Files-esque aliens in the video, which earns extra geek points and make me slightly scared. Well done.

Big Up Pinball Number Count

Science singles will wait this week, too much writing of thesis to do.
In the mean time I want to big up this to the nth degree.



You need to be able to count to do science. I pretty much learnt to count from this. And it's so funky, it almost funks itself to death.

This sounds familiar

Once again we're ahead of the curve. LOOK!

I reckon they just read what we said about their publishers and decided to get their own back...

one all New Scientist... One all.

Science Mix Tape = SciPop

In a beautiful example of the convergence of memes, the people over at Null Hypothesis have been making a list of science rock and roll songs. Well done them, they have a much bigger list than ours.

Perhaps it is due to their brighter minds, keener understanding of the zeitgeist and larger music collection? Or maybe it's just that more than two people read their site (that's right, our readership is growing)?

I must say though, I see Atomic Kitten listed for "The tide is high". That's not cool. That's not cool at all. It's the Paragons, or I'd also accept Blondie, but Atomic Kitten? Words fail me.

Dropping Science 2

A selection of suggestions for the mix tape from Blue and Brown and Dan, up form the comments.
Firstly, blue and brown's, note that there is a ban on all coldplay:

Apologies to Insect Life - British Sea Power.
The Test - The Chemical Brothers
Nature Boy - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds


Now Dan's
Bovine Spungiform Economics - Million Dead
Biological - Air
Gene By Gene - Blur
Tendon #7 - Chris TT [late addition due to non-emo nature, that and the fact that he lists Dawkins, Darwin, the Nat. Hist. and Sherlock's bro as influences on his MySpace thingymajigger, good man.]

(I'm going to ignore the rest of Dan's as they are either too emo, or I havn't heard of them... Or both)

dropping science

More suggestions for the science mix tape:

"Inertia Creeps", Massive Attack
"Particle Man", They Might Be Giants
"Mercy Mercy Me (the Ecology)", Marvin Gaye
"Girl, You Have No Faith In Medicine", White Stripes

Rock and roll science

I'm getting used to this slightly higher frequency posting game. It won't last.

Anyway, in my last post I mused if any (succesful) rock musicians quit the road and hit the lab. But I'd also be interested to hear of any link between rock and roll, and the world of science. So far, other than Dr Bryan May, all i can think of is that guy from the Offspring starting his PhD at UCLA, or the University of Southern California, or some place, but never finished it. Oh, and doesn't the guy from Bad Religion actual have a PhD?
Are there any good rock star scientists out there (other than Bryan May, the man is a legend), or are we stuck with rubbish Californian punk bands? I'll have a think and report back.

I'm also wanting to put together a mix tape of Sciencey tunes; here are a couple to be starting off with.

"Go Tell The Women", Grinderman.
"Lesson 6: The Lecture", Jurrasic 5
"The Scene is Dead", We Are Scientists
"Dr Funkenstein", Parliament

watch this space....