Oh, coronavirus. Sorry, Coronavirus-19. Or Corona-19. Or novel coronavirus. Or the mass hysteria gripping the world.
Whatever you call it, people are obsessed with hospital masks, toilet paper (why?), and washing their hands these days. While washing your hands is always a good thing, a little spritz of water doesn't do the trick.
Since health officials for decades have recommended washing your hands for 20-seconds (usually the time it takes to sing Happy Birthday to yourself twice), this led a U.K. teenager named William Gibson to create a website that generates song lyrics to accompany hand-washing posters by the U.K.'s National Health Service:
🎶 I made a little site in 24h that generates hand washing instructions accompanied by lyrics from a song of your choice instantly - check it out!
Washyourlyrics.com simply asks for an artist's name and song title, and it'll populate the hand-washing poster with lyrics timed to the poster's instructions:
— Reduced Shakespeare Company (@reduced) March 3, 2020
Sure, the Reduced Shakespeare Company could've picked a more lighthearted play than Macbeth. But if everyone is lathered up in hysteria, you might as well choose a play where nearly everyone dies.
Here we'll occasionally dive into mugshots of the criminally-inclined writers who found themselves in the big house. Crime doesn't pay, although literature does sometimes.
Today: Nelson Algren
Someone had a tough night.
The name might not be as famous as Ernest Hemingway or Virginia Woolf, but Nelson Algren's literary star burned brightly for a while. His most famous work was his 1949 novel The Man with the Golden Arm, about a man spiraling into morphine addiction, which won the 1950 National Book Award and was later made into a 1955 movie starring Frank Sinatra.
If the image of Frank Sinatra as a junkie is throwing you off, so might the idea of a writer getting caught up with the police. But Nelson Algren went to the slammer...twice. Because if at first you don't succeed, try, try again.
The first dalliance with crime occurred when Algren was a wannabe drifter after college in the 1930s. Struggling for a career as a writer, he moved to Texas, where he held a series of odd jobs, including pumping gas and a salesman. From there, the facts of the story are vague, but in either 1933 or '34, Algren stole a typewriter and was promptly arrested. Listen, those National Book Awards aren't going to just write themselves.
In 1967, Algren went to the cooler again. This time it was for marijuana possession. Shockingly, people in the late 1960s smoked a bit of the devil's lettuce. Ever the criminal mastermind, Algren somehow was caught. This time, charges were dropped quickly and all we have left of the incident is Algren's mugshot, which channels all the mystique of someone outside of a 7-11 convenience store at 3am.
Oh, by the way, while we're on the topic. Frank Sinatra? He was once arrested, too. His crime? Seduction.
That's the face of seduction, baby!
Yes, that's actually the crime, which was once illegal. In 1938, a 23-year old Frank Sinatra was arrested in Bergen County, NJ, for seduction of a single woman. The 1930s were a heady time of hedonism, and Old Blue Eyes apparently wooed someone he shouldn't have. The crime of seduction involved sexual intercourse with a single woman with the promise of marriage and then reneging on the deal.
Sinatra was quickly released after police determined the woman was actually married. Small mistake! Yet, that led to Sinatra being arrested again, this time after the first charges were revised and he was charged with adultery. No one ever said New Jersey made sense.
Like Algren, charges were eventually dropped against Sinatra.
Thus, this ends the lamest crime log you'll ever read.
Instead of having a shuttered eyesore squat in the middle of Brooklyn, two locals decided to place a haiku on an old cinema's marquee to gussy up the joint.
The Pavillion Theater in the Park Slope neighborhood closed last year and has remained dormant while new owners refurbish the property inside. Locals Molly Gross and Drew Pisarra asked the proprietors if, in the meantime, they could add a little artistic flair to the property and place cinematic-themed haiku that relate to Brooklyn on the marquee.
Gross wrote the first haiku, a nod to Spike Lee's She's Gotta Have It:
Nola Darling dreams A story in black and white Loving herself first
They've also posted a nod to Saturday Night Fever, with a work by poet Diane Mehta:
Right down to my blood Fast-footed strut this disco Love these teenage feet
"We like the idea of creativity in public spaces," Gross told the New York Post. “This is definitely our biggest project to date. We hope that this inspires people."
Well, it's at least inspired me to start humming the Bee Gees' "Stayin' Alive," so it's got that going for itself.
Ayumi Fukushima is a world-class break dancer (or "b-girl" if you're a cool kid down with the slang), traveling the world and in various competitions for solo and group performances.
She is also a kindergarten teacher.
Fukushima is so successful that the website Deadspin lets us know she's going to be a coach when "breaking" becomes a sport at the 2018 Youth Olympic Games.
Here's Fukushima in action with her sister in a two-versus-two event:
And here is a 4-minute documentary by filmmakers Daniel Zhu and Jennifer Whalen of Stance detailing the backstory:
This reminds me of my arthritic, overweight, elderly kindergarten teacher who was an elite beatboxer. It was her side hustle when she wasn't dishing out Teddy Grahams to us for snacktime.
When I was a kid, I memorized The Golden Girls and Cheers theme songs, like it was a Jeopardy category. I was made for karaoke at Japanese bars or to entertain 80-year old grandmas in their living rooms with my dulcet tones.
If you're over the age of fifty--or you're someone who was raised on Nick-at-Nite reruns by nostalgic parents--there's a chance these musical theme songs sound familiar to you. The definition of an ear worm is what these theme songs represent. You'll hum one of them for the next week while standing in line at Starbucks for a unicorn frappuccino. You'll hum them at a bus stop. You'll hum them walking down the street.
In the end, you--will--hum.
It seems many television shows from bygone eras with catchy themes had lyrics all along, except we never knew there were any words to them. THERE WERE WORDS.
So, here are eight television shows that were always known by a musical theme, but apparently had lyrics all along. Impress your grandma and sing them to her the next time you see her.
1.) The Dick Van Dyke Show
If you're over 60-years old, skip ahead. You're humming it right now as you read this.
If you're under 60-years old, The Dick Van Dyke Show was one of the most popular shows on television in the 1960s, routinely airing in the top-10 most watched shows. Its stars, Dick Van Dyke (shocker) and Mary Tyler Moore, both won multiple Emmy Awards for their roles.
And the theme song heavy on the brass section actually had lyrics all along:
So you think that you've got troubles? Well, trouble's a bubble So tell old Mr. Trouble to get lost! Why not hold your head up high and Stop cryin', start tryin' And don't forget to keep your fingers crossed. When you find the joy of livin' Is lovin' and givin' You'll be there when the winning dice are tossed. A smile is just a frown that's turned upside down So smile, and that frown will defrost. And don't forget to keep your fingers crossed.
That's passively-agressively depressing in a lyrical form. Just a hunch, but maybe that's why the producers of the show just went with the instrumental version.
It sounds better when the actual star of the show, Dick Van Dyke, actually sings it, as he did a few years ago on Rachael Ray's show, of all places.
When the 90-ish year old, white-haired star of the show sings it in a grandfatherly tone, it sounds quaint and adorable.
Hat-tip to Mary Tyler Moore for the sound effects.
2.) Hogan's Heroes
Hogan's Heroes took all the rib-tickling hilarity of Nazi POW camps and made a sitcom out of the situation. If you can't laugh at your own potential extermination, what can you laugh at, amiright?
The jaunty lyrics never sung before the show sound like a propaganda film come to life. A public service announcement for the U.S. Marines has less machismo then these words:
Heroes, heroes, husky men of war, Sons of all the heroes of the war before. We're all heroes up to our ear-o's You ask the questions We make suggestions That's what we're heroes for. All good heroes love a good, big fight Open up the bomb bays and brighten up the night. We earn laurels solving your quarrels You pull the roses, We punch the noses, That's what we're heroes for. What's a hero do? Well, we're not gonna tell ya Cause we wish we knew. That's why we heroes are so few. We've got a slogan From Colonel Hogan And Colonel Hogan's a hero too. Never flinch, boys, never be afraid, Heroes are not born, boys, heroes all are made. Ask not why, boys, never say die, boys, Answer the call, remember we'll all be heroes forever more
Well, after hearing that, I've already called my local recruiting office and signed up for a tour of duty.
Side note: Hogan's Heroes ended without World War II ever ending. Did the war ever end? Don't spoil it for me! I want to be surprised!
3.) Bonanza
There was a cute time in America--mainly around the 1950s and '60s--where everyone was in love with cowboys. The whole craze single-handedly kept John Wayne with employment for a solid two decades.
Bonanza aired for 14 seasons AND 431 EPISODES on NBC. Seinfeld, by comparison, in the 1990s had only 180. (And if you think that's insane, another cowboy show, Gunsmoke, which aired during the same era, HAD 635 EPISODES on CBS. Americans loved themselves some rootin'-tootin' stuff in the 1960s.)
The theme song of Bonanza was catchy, though. The version with lyrics never aired, but the original pilot episode had the cast sing them at the end of the episode.
I'm not afraid of any pretty maid — Bonanza! Bonanza! When I give a kiss to any little miss She'll learn a lot from me Hair of brown, hair of gold I'll take what I see We're not a one to saddle up and run — Bonanza! Bonanza! Anyone of us who starts a little fuss Knows he can count on me One for four, four for all This we guarantee
All the appeal of sexual aggression and brouhaha antics that usually leads to arrests and a court date. Sounds delightful!
4.) M*A*S*H
M*A*S*H was originally a 1968 novel made into a 1970 movie, which then became a 1972 television series that lasted eleven years. This is to say it was a cash cow.
It all had to deal with the hilarity of surgeons out in the field of battle of the Korean War--a war which, itself, only lasted three years. Nothing brings a hearty chuckle like extending the thought of warfare by a decade.
But M*A*S*H's theme had lyrics, written originally by the film director Robert Altman's teenage son. The song's title? Suicide Is Painless.
Clearly, it's a comedy built on a speedball of lyrical depression.
Through early morning fog I see Visions of the things to be The pains that are withheld for me I realize that I can see That suicide is painless It brings so many changes And I can take or leave them if I please The game of life is hard to play I'm gonna lose it anyway The losing card of some delay So this is all I have to say The sword of time will pierce our skin It doesn't hurt when it begins But as it works its way on in The pain grows stronger watch I bring A brave man once requested me To answer questions that are key Is it to be or not to be And I replied oh why ask me
What? No references to Lou Gehrig's Disease and cancer while you're at it? Where are the chuckles?!
In case you have short-term memory loss, remember that these weren't the lyrics to some horrifyingly depressing medical drama. This was a comedy show. But apparently nothing tickles the insides like the thought of suicide.
5.) Bewitched
Theme songs in the 1960s were always jaunty little 30-second numbers that apparently had a secret jazzy life, as we see with Bewitched's theme.
Here's Steve Lawrence, famous for being from the husband and wife duo of Steve & Eydie, but also known for a head of hair that required amazing amounts of styling products and creepy Vegas lounge club vibe where he's winking at you nonstop from the stage while he takes a drag from his menthol cigarette.
Bewitched, Bewitched, You've got me in your spell. Bewitched, Bewitched, You know your craft so well. Before I knew what I was doing I looked in your eyes That brand of woo you've been brewin' Took me by surprise. You witch, you witch, One thing is for sure. That stuff you pitch Just hasn't got a cure. My heart was under lock and key, But somehow it got unhitched. I never thought that I could be had But now I'm caught and I'm kinda glad To be Bewitched.
I'm just taken by any song that uses the word "woo" seriously in its lyrics. That takes some moxie.
6.) I Dream of Jeannie
1967 was the Summer of Love, which is to say everyone was in a haze and cloud of various, uhhh, medicinal products freely passed from one to another.
This also explains how two television shows about a witch (Bewitched) and a genie (I Dream of Jeannie) could somehow be the peak of television ratings then.
Jeannie had a boppy little musical intro which had lyrics thrown away by producers. Because when you're high on LSD, odds are the lyrics don't make much sense anyway.
Jeannie, fresh as a daisy. Just love how she obeys me, Does things that just amaze me so. She smiles, Presto the rain goes. She blinks, up come the rainbows. Cars stop, even the train goes slow. When she goes by She paints sunshine on every rafter, Sprinkles the air with laughter, We’re close as a quarter after three. There’s no one like Jeannie. I’ll introduce her, To you, but it’s no use, sir, Cause my Jeannie’s in love with me. She’s in love with me.
Oh, that not-so-subtle second line of how "she obeys me" can't go unheralded. The 1960s were such a hoot for casual misogynism!
7.) Star Trek
It's incredibly hard to find a video of the lyrics to the show without some fanboy of Star Trek dressed up like Spock or some random green alien singing the theme while snacking between their latest Taco Bell Supreme.
Many hours of my life were lost to find even just this basic video. Feel my pain.
Beyond The rim of the star-light My love Is wand'ring in star-flight I know He'll find in star-clustered reaches Love, Strange love a star woman teaches. I know His journey ends never His star trek Will go on forever. But tell him While he wanders his starry sea Remember, remember me.
Whosa--whatsa--whosa singing these lyrics? Is this a mystery woman? What just happened?
Now, Captain Kirk macked on a few women during his travels over the years, but these lyrics are straight out of Days of Our Lives. And a "star woman"? I didn't drink enough to understand what's going on right now.
8.) I Love Lucy
The timeless show--in that it's insane that after all this time people still know of I Love Lucy. It's only pushing seventy years at this point. No rush.
Move on? Pssh.
I love Lucy and she loves me We're as happy as two can be Sometimes we quarrel but then How we love making up again Lucy kisses like no one can She's my missus and I'm her man And life is heaven you see 'Cause I love Lucy Yes, I love Lucy And Lucy loves me
I have to call these lyrics out. The whole show was about how they argued 24/7 over everything, and yet their marriage was full of love? Really? Maybe Lucy doesn't actually love you, Desi--ever think of that? It's lovely to hear some smooth ballad crooned to your wife, but the remaining 23.5 hours of daylight you're yelling at her.
There's a reason Lucy and Desi had individual beds on the show.
This is a segment where we look at famous writers and decide whether they missed their calling as the lead singer for an indie band from Austin, TX.
Because a little facial hair, unkempt clothing, and a stern expression goes a long, long way to being a rock star.
Today's budding indie star: George Bernard Shaw
All your best indie artists stare longingly in a mirror at how fashionable they look. Little did Shaw know that he'd pre-date high school and college women by a hundred years by knowing to place a hand on hip in every potential Facebook or Instagram photo.
The wannabe bowler hat suggests Shaw might sing that song you really want to like, but something about it makes you never want to listen to it.
The abundant wool making up his outfit shows how Shaw doesn't mind being itchy. He'd suggest he's really just suffering for his craft--and he must, especially with socks that extensive, too.
Writers are never known as the studliest or sexiest of people, but that doesn't stop them from showing some skin for the camera once in awhile.
So, occasionally we'll post some literary beefcake for your perusal.
Today: Leonard Bernstein
This is the saddest interpretation of This Little Light of Mine.
The famous writer of orchestral music shows that writing a musical score can build up the biceps.
All your famous composers and conductors in history have gone shirtless. Beethoven used to flex his pecs to the orchestra during breaks. Mozart? Lathered up in baby oil to show off his traps. True story.
Not like it's one of the biggest awards a human being can be bestowed with in life--no rush--but five months after being announced as the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, Bob Dylan will finally get around to accepting his award.
Not to go out of his way, Dylan will be in Stockholm, Sweden, playing two concerts, and figures then will be as good as any to grab the award.
To receive his prize money, though, Dylan must give a lecture--which is not expected to be done in person. Instead, Dylan is expected--if at all--to give a lecture via recording at a later date.
And the reason they couldn't just give this to Paul Simon instead was...?
Colleges and universities self-report violations they commit against the NCAA code of conduct from the previous year. It's a way of hoping that the mea culpa saves them from losing scholarships or lucrative invitations to bowl games and March Madness. It's also just a polite way of saying, "Oh, snap! My bad! Honest mistake!"
Which brings us to the University of Kentucky, which once reported that their former point guard (who has now gone pro), Tyler Ulis, created a violation when he met Drake backstage after a concert in 2015.
This looks about as comfortable as a sixth-grade school dance.
It seems that one of Drake's management team recognized Ulis in the crowd (Wait--whaaaa?--because he's addicted to Kentucky basketball?) and invited him backstage. This was a problem because Drake is a big supporter of Kentucky basketball, for reasons only he and his own personal god understand.
Today's public service announcements are all information and no imagination--but yesteryear's? Those were full of drama, plot lines, and cameos from B-grade celebrities, all wedged into one minute of absolute fantasticness.
Consider this a trip back in time to when PSAs were sometimes worth watching more than the Saturday morning cartoons.
Today: You don't even want to know what Mississippi's roads look like by comparison.
Random Thoughts and Questions: 1.) Wait--did the song just start out by calling me trash?? 2.) You really have to commend the state of Tennessee for admitting a sizable portion of its population is trash. That takes some guts. 3.) I think I'm more impressed that this convertible can hold that much garbage. That's a testament to some quality leg room right there. 4.) Is this a PSA about littering or the lack of state police oversight on Tennessee highways? 5.) Don't we all really want to know who cleaned up all the trash after they filmed this? Like a gusty breeze didn't come around and send thousands of pieces of "fake" litter off into becoming "real" litter.
In the northern reaches of Vermont, snug up against the Quebec border, exists a small library that straddles the international border between Canada and the United States. It is the only library in the world to simultaneously operate in two countries.
Somehow this signage chaos makes sense.
The Haskell Free Library has two addresses, two phone numbers, and two doors of entry between Darby, VT, and Stanstead, QC. Built at the turn of the twentieth century with funds provided by Mrs. Martha Haskell and her son Col. Horace Haskell, the building was deliberately built diagonally across the border between the two nations so that the locals on both sides would have access to educational and cultural resources.
To further add to the curiosity of it all, the Haskell Free Library also has a 400-seat Opera House built on the second floor. That's correct--in a reading space that's usually meant to be quiet, there's an opera house squarely on top of it.
The reason? Instead of constantly looking for money, Martha Haskell intended for the library to be supported through the funds generated by performances at the opera house. Alas, as tastes changed and movies became favored from the 1920s onward, it turned out that the library ended up supporting the performances upstairs.
Visiting the library, one will find a line of electrical tape cutting through the floor dilineating the two countries apart. (There's also a tape line under a row of seats in the opera house.)
Of course Canada would have the more comfortable seating.
The tape is a fairly modern addition to the property. A small fire in the 1970s led to insurance claims with both Canadian and American companies. Insurance companies aren't always the most helpful sort, which led to seemingly endless bickering about which company was responsible for repairs. After repairs finally occurred, the library paid for a surveyor to accurately detail the border inside the building, and assure future insurance claims went to the correct country's company.
Visitors from both countries are allowed inside to freely roam wild across the border to check out books or watch a show. Yet, in a post-9/11 world, immigration and security forces from both countries are typically parked outside both doors to make sure the visitor that went in one nation's door also exits the very same door.
According to Matthew Farfan, President of the Board of Trustees at the library, who was interviewed by Atlas Obscura, the people operating the building aren't interested in politics or borders or security forces.
"This is a friendly institution," Farfan told the site. "We’re not in the policing business."
Today's public service announcements are all information and no imagination--but yesteryear's? Those were full of drama, plot lines, and cameos from B-grade celebrities, all wedged into one minute of absolute fantasticness.
Consider this a trip back in time to when PSAs were sometimes worth watching more than the Saturday morning cartoons.
Today: Dealing drugs makes for a catchy jingle.
Random Thoughts and Questions: 1.) Worst Bell Biv Devoe tribute song ever. 2.) "Yeah, you make a lot of money and you make it fast." Wait, wait, wait--I think my arm was just twisted to begin a life of crime. 3.) Only the most respected PSAs include the running man. 4.) Did they just narc on their friends to the cops? Well, that was bold of them. 5.) It's really cute when we pretend cops would ever hang out with local youth in a friendly way. It's adorable! 6.) A song repeats "straight up" and there's no Paula Abdul crossover? Such a lost opportunity.
The cult of Bob Dylan is a powerful entity, which explains the giant long-form piece in the New York Times and countless stories across news outlets about the folk hero's archive being bought by The Kaiser Foundation and put on display at the University of Tulsa.
Indeed, in their extensive story of his work, the Times refers to Dylan's "dozens of rewrites" of "even minor songs," how he was clearly "an obsessive self-editor in constant motion," and how this whole archive is the next step in the "canonization" of the musical legend. But the Times, like most media outlets and Dylan cultists, largely ignores his history of constant allegations of plagiarism.
Dylan has been accused of plagiarism so often he finally felt the need to speak out in 2012. Regarding accusations he stole lines of poetry from a book of obscure Japanese poetry, as well as an equally obscure American Confederate Civil War-era poet, Dylan told Rolling Stone Magazine the claims were made by "wussies and pussies," and, as Reuters noted in their own reporting, that "[to Dylan] musical appropriation is [as he says] 'part of the folk tradition.'" Moreover, Reuters noted Dylan said that in folk and jazz music "quotation is a rich and enriching tradition."
No. Quotation is what I just did there. I quoted Reuters, who was quoting Rolling Stone, who was quoting Dylan. That's how quoting works. Plagiarizing is when you simply take the work of others and pass it off as your own. It's a rich and enriching tradition of lazy writers who create a persona and piggyback off the work of others to create worldwide fame for themselves. Work like that of obscure Japanese poets. Work like obscure poets from 140-years ago. Plagiarizing happens to lazy writers.
This is a segment where we look at famous writers and decide whether they missed their calling as the lead singer for an indie band from Austin, TX.
Because a little facial hair, unkempt clothing, and a stern expression goes a long, long way to being a rock star.
Today's budding indie star: Samuel Beckett
Any man with a shock of windswept hair with a skunk's tail streak is channeling his inner indie guitarist vibe straight out of Athens, GA. The peacoat? Seals the deal.
Sure, you see the face of a man incapable of showing any human emotion besides subtle disdain. But you don't get the facial equivalent of a cinnamon bun without smoking three packs-a-day while stressing about absurdist ideas that can be sung without harmony.
Open-mic nights in Cambridge, MA, love music you can't hum.
No, really. It's entirely less creepy than it sounds.
Started in 1960 by the students from Snyder Hall at the University of Illinois, residents from the building man phones around the clock while rockin' around the Christmas tree, taking calls and requests all day, all night, to sing any holiday song you ask. They don't promise you'll get someone on the other end of the line with the pipes of Aretha Franklin or Nat King Cole--but that's sort of the charm, isn't it?
In terms of popularity, it's fairly clear which song wins. A few years ago, the singing students started a Mariah Meter in order to count how many times Mariah Carey's famed, perky, holiday earworm "All I Want for Christmas Is You" was requested. Last year it was asked for 339 times, almost as often as it can be heard during drunken holiday karaoke at Chinese food restaurants.
So if you're feeling a Christmas groove coming on at 3am during a moment of insomnia, you have until December 16th at 11:59pm to call in a request, when phones close for another year.
The number?
(217) 332-1882
Request "Good King Wenceslas" if you know what's good for you.
In 1987, Ice-T could lay claim to one first in music history: the first explicit warning label on an album.
In 1992, the country was aflutter over his song 'Cop Killer.'
But in 2015, things have changed a bit. Maybe age has slowed him down, but Ice-T doesn't care for controversy so much as he cares for jazz and poetry. That doesn't mean he doesn't want to speak out about inequalities he sees in the world--he just wants to change the way he speaks about them. To do that, he's joining a jazz ensemble to recite Langston Hughes's poetry at the EFG London Jazz Festival.
Indeed, Hughes often wrote poetry with a heavy jazz influence. In 1961 he wrote 'Ask Your Mama,' a series of verse about the experience of living in America as a black person specifically to be accompanied by jazz music. Before his verses ever made the stage, Hughes died.
Now, Ice-T is taking over where Hughes left off. Musician Ron McCurdy wrote a score to Hughes's verses, but sat on the project for nearly twenty years until now--when he approached Ice-T to be the presenter of the verses as the jazz played, accompanied by art work that flashes on screen behind him.
So do the issues of the 1960s still resonate today? Ice-T tells the BBC he thinks so. "What Langston was writing is definitely still relevant--all that stuff about civil rights and poor people [...] You can go back to the '60s and you see stuff that's still going on in society now."
The next time you see a flock of pigeons in your way on an open concourse, remember this: Your future radiologist might be amongst them.
Professors Richard Levenson and Edward Wasserman studied 16 pigeons and their ability to differentiate between benign and malignant breast tissue on a touchscreen image, and what they found might surprise. Not only do pigeons still strut like Mick Jagger while under study, but they can detect malignancy with surprising accuracy
On day one of testing, a pigeon's detection ability is no better than chance--50%. But within 13-to-15 days that percentage increases to 85%, or, as the professors note, "a task that can perplex inexperienced human observers who typically require considerable training to attain mastery."
Pigeon doctors. Once they learn to handle a scalpel, we're all goners.
Hot air isn't for balloons and your grandpa anymore. Starting with human cells, scientists have created, for the first time, vocal cords that actually properly vibrate when air is pushed through, dooming us to bad pop music for eternity.
Using the two main cell types that appear in vocal cords, scientists placed them in a 3D collagen matrix (a thing that mimics conditions in the body), and grew a vocal cord. After implanting the newly grown cords in cadaver dogs (not Fido!!), they pushed air through to find that the cords vibrated, and sounded, strikingly similar to regular vocal cords.
Said associate professor Nathan Welham, who led the development team: "I remember holding it and thinking, gosh, this feels like the real thing, which has a distinct feel—sort of like Jell-O but stronger and able to return to its shape if you deform it." Mmm, deformed Jell-O vocal cords. Sounds tasty! I'm ready for dessert!
The FDA has approved genetically engineered salmon. This is not to be confused with farm-raised salmon, which is normal salmon that wears plaid and overalls.
Critics claim the genetically engineered variety is a 'Frankenfish,' a creation blending chromosomes from an Atlantic salmon, a growth hormone from Chinook salmon, and a gene from the eel-like ocean pout, electric bolts not included.
While the FDA and most outside experts agree the new fish is safe to eat, the environmental impact is up for debate. The eggs for the fish are developed at a facility in Canada, for which a lawsuit remains. The fear? What happens if Frankenfish's eggs escape the Prince Edward Island facility?
If it follow's Mary Shelley's book, it goes on a casual murderous rampage before drifting away on an ice flow. How dramatic!
Nick Williams, a high school science teacher out of the San Francisco area, was awarded a $25,000 prize for promoting the sciences to his students. How? He raps occasionally.
From a sea of over 100,000 educators up for the Milken Educator Award, Williams was one of 40 selected to win a cash prize.
Let's see him in action:
He went with the finger-to-the-temple move and an "okay/three/West Coast" symbol! Man means business.
If he was an English teacher, he'd politely remind you to use a semicolon properly--in a whisper, quietly ashamed, weeping in a corner.
