I know this is an important scientific discovery/accomplishment, but couldn’t they have chosen a different tune?

Dolphins sing ‘Batman’ theme

Jennifer Viegas

Discovery News

Scientists have taught dolphins to combine both rhythm and vocalisations to produce music, resulting in an extremely high-pitched, short version of the Batman theme song.

The findings, outlined in two studies, are the first time that nonhuman mammals have demonstrated they can recognise rhythms and reproduce them vocally.

“Humans are sensitive to rhythms embedded in sequences of sounds, but we typically consider this skill to be part of processing for language and music, cognitive domains that we consider to be uniquely human,” says Professor Heidi Harley, lead author of both studies.

“Clearly, aspects of those domains are available to other species.”

I don’t want to hear any shouts of “Freebird!!!!” in the comments…

Technorati Tags: geek humor, humor, science, science & technology, science and technology

Why do writers write? Because it isn’t there.
   -Thomas Berger

Technorati Tags: blogging, quotes, weblogs

…this idealism is a royal pain in the ass.

I read lots of weblogs that I’d love to link to, for humorous or other lighthearted purposes, but I am driven to write portentous and possibly pretentious posts upon matters which I will doubtfully have much if any influence.

Yet that one chance in a million pulls at the idealist in me who refuses to die, and I devote far more time to the remote chance than I do to the more probable and definitely far more readable links that have a component which has at least some sense of humor (which I have been told is one of my more desirable characteristics, despite the jokes being those of a very, very dry wit).

Argh!!!

Technorati Tags: personal, blogging, weblogs

From a press release on a soon to be broadcast BBC series:

In Elusive Peace: Israel and the Arabs, a major three-part series on BBC TWO (at 9.00pm on Monday 10, Monday 17 and Monday 24 October), Abu Mazen, Palestinian Prime Minister, and Nabil Shaath, his Foreign Minister, describe their first meeting with President Bush in June 2003.

Nabil Shaath says: “President Bush said to all of us: ‘I’m driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, “George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan.” And I did, and then God would tell me, “George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq …” And I did. And now, again, I feel God’s words coming to me, “Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East.” And by God I’m gonna do it.’”

Abu Mazen was at the same meeting and recounts how President Bush told him: “I have a moral and religious obligation. So I will get you a Palestinian state.”

I hope this is an exaggeration to get viewers.

I pray this is an exaggeration to get viewers.

Remember the old joke?

If you talk to God, it is called prayer.

If God talks back, it is called schizophrenia.

Even if this would explain a LOT about the past 5 years (the past several months, especially), I do NOT want this to pan out.

Technorati Tags: politics, President Bush, President George Bush, President George W. Bush

Recalling my favorite phrase, “Do the math,” the following news story caught my eye:

Math Unites The Celestial And The Atomic

Providence, RI (September 28, 2005) — In recent years, researchers have developed astonishing new insights into a hidden unity between the motion of objects in space and that of the smallest particles. It turns out there is an almost perfect parallel between the mathematics describing celestial mechanics and the mathematics governing some aspects of atomic physics. These insights have led to new ways to design space missions, as described in the article, “Ground Control to Niels Bohr: Exploring Outer Space with Atomic Physics� by Mason Porter and Predrag Cvitanovic, which appears in the October 2005 issue of the Notices of the American Mathematical Society.

I’ve studied both quantum and celestial mechanics (the first as part of my graduate work in Solid State Physics, the second as a part of my hobby of Astronomy), and while I saw some of the connections between the two that are pointed out in this article, the links didn’t seem as strong as is implied.

I need to look into this more deeply, and perhaps incorporate it into that story I’m writing that I posted about recently; the one where I needed to work out the strange effects experienced in a rotating space station and came up with an odd observation.

Technorati Tags: science, science & technology, science and technology

The Christian religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one.
   -David Hume

Ask a scientist a very profound question on his science and he will be silent. Ask a religious person a very simple question on his religion and he will be frenzied.
   -Kedar Joshi

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