As one of his last acts on the International Space Station before touching down on terra firma tonight, astronaut and musician Chris Hadfield recorded his own take on David Bowie’s Space Oddity. The footage stands as the first music video ever recorded in space (while still leaving room for others to nab the titles of first musical performance entirely recorded in space and first fully live ... »
More skeptical hip-hop! I can’t get enough! Today’s lab track also happened to be submitted by (and features!) another rapper who was highlighted in a Lab Track, Marshall “Gripp” Gillson (Go listen to that one, too!). Today’s artist is Jack & The Mad Psyentist, who just released The Five Pillars EP, a musical critique on modern society using the five pillars of Is... »
On November 13, 2013, NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN, or MAVEN mission will blast off for the upper atmosphere of Mars. Once there, it’ll make measurements of the atmosphere and ionosphere that will help scientists find clues about the Red Planet’s climatological history. To help spur public support and interest for the mission, the University of Colorado at Boulde... »
Once, to dream of going to space meant getting a PhD in science and training your body and your mind for years before even getting on the radar of someone at NASA. But no longer is outer space reserved for astronauts. Space travel is getting awful cheap (if by “cheap” you mean the price of a private jet or a loft in Tribeca), and little by little, scientists are being joined by run-of-... »
Today’s Lab Track requires a bit of explanation. Back in 2005, British singer Katie Melua had a track on the radio entitled “Nine Million Bicycles.” In it, she mentions various facts about the world (for example, there are nine million bicycles in Beijing, there are six billion people in the world [this was 2005, folks, cool your jets]), then uses a bit of poetic finagling to con... »
Today’s lab track features a hip-hop artist from my own fair city of Chicago. Gabe Caruso raps about a variety of topics, but many of them tend toward a criticism of religion. This one is no exception. It’s easy to write a song about atheism or skepticism and have it come off stilted — nobody ever said words like “falsifiable” were poetic — but Gabe is one of th... »
For a person on the fence about a scientific issue, especially a personal one like GMOs, fluoridated drinking water, or vaccines, a seed of doubt is often all it takes to push them over the fence on the side opposite the scientific consensus. That’s why internet memes touting the dangers of these issues can be so effective — those against them only have to make you wonder “what i... »
Those of you who have been following MAL for a while know that we love sciency tattoos. Lots of people do, in fact — Carl Zimmer even compiled a bunch of them into a book. Sometimes, we even catch a glimpse of them on strangers. And what better way to approach a stranger than to say “Hi, I’m a contributor to this cool art and science blog. Can I take a picture of your tattoo?R... »
