Despite the stated partisanship, it's nice to see this piece entitled "Double the NIH Budget".
Someone recently discovered a variety of frog that bears a strong resemblance to the famous frog muppet Kermit. The real frog is a species of glass frog, so named because the skin is translucent, and the organs can be viewed. Kermit, whose mythos includes origins in a swamp in Louisiana, was made from creator Jim Henson's mom's old coat and two halves of a pingpong ball.
The other day in lab, Ryan P., Nate B and i were discussing how the children's movie The Lion King and not-childrens-movie Sons of Anarchy are versions of Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, which brought about the question of from whom did Shakespeare take inspiration? Happily, other people have done this research, and it is thought that it stems from old Icelandic poems (Amleth), which, in turn, might have originated in Celtic legends (outlined in detail here).
i have really been enjoying the new (thrownback) Death Cab for Cutie album, Kintsugi, which is named after the Japanese technique of mending a piece of broken pottery with gold, yielding a unique and even more valuable piece of art (and appropriately, the album deals with the breakup of a marriage, among other things). The band recently promoted the album with a rather brilliant (and possibly among my top 10 favorites) NPR tiny desk concert, and i've had various DCFC works playing for the past two weeks. The other day, their song 'I Will Possess Your Heart' came across, and i've forgotten how pretty, and pretty darn creepy it is. The band apparently openly acknowledges the creepiness, stating, " Nick Harmer told MassLive.com
how he came up with the song's bass line. "I immediately gravitated to
the creepy, stalker-ish theme that Ben created with the lyrics and the
piano chords," he explained. "I cued in on repetitive stalker mood. I
liked the idea that once a stalker gets obsessed with an idea, it just
keeps repeating in his head, so I wanted the bass line to have a
repetitive, incessant theme. The original demo was just a stripped down
piano version, so I had a lot of freedom. Once they heard the bass line,
everybody said let's really build on this thing in the beginning of the
song." ". Anyway.
Speaking of music, i spent about an hour last Friday night watching youtube clips from SpikeTV's Lip Synch Battle. The Ann Hathaway version of Miley Cyrus' Wrecking Ball is hugely scandalous, but John Krasinski does a remarkable Tina Turner. The Rock's Shake It Off turn was inevitable though not terrible.
Other things i've been enjoying for a while is this really neat (free) app that loads a Flickr picture when you open a new tab in Google Chrome. i will confess to sometimes opening new tabs to just see what pops up.
Here is a highly informative youtube clip entitled "Finding the Speed of Light with Peeps", featuring everyone's favorite (ahem) Easter (ahem) candy. Since we're on the topic of candy, i came across this fascinating review candy review blog. She seems to update it once a week, but there are YEARS in backposts. To paraphrase Steve Almond, 'the only thing better than reading about candy is eating candy.'
Another thing that i've been enjoying is Duolingo, a free online language-learning program. Each 5-ish minute lesson is about 20 questions framed as translation of a word or phrase, either written or oral/audible, and the user/student can set lesson goals for each day as incentive. i've been brushing up my Spanish for an upcoming, long-planned family trip, but also took a few German lessons - pretty solid. Their Polish lessons are still forthcoming, unfortunately.
