I don't generally exhort people to go out and buy things, but this will just have to be the exception. You might have heard a certain band interviewed on Science Friday last week. If you care about science at all, if you're remotely interested, have kids that you want to interest, or are just a bit of a fan, then you need to get the new disc from They Might Be Giants, Here Comes Science. Even if you're not a fan of TMBG - and to be honest, while I like them, they're not my favourite musical combo - the lyrical content is fantastic. Good solid science, presented for children and adults alike.
Favourite songs so far? "I Am a Paleontologist", "Why Does the Sun Shine?", "Photosynthesis", and, of course, "Here Comes Science". I laughed out loud at these songs: they're that brilliant. Frankly, lyrics like these that don't mince any words or pander to the nonsense of the superstitious are a necessity right now.So, as I say, if you're a friend of Science (I think the capital "s" appropriate here), an FCD (Friend of Charles Darwin), a teacher, friend of reason, or anything like that, give these tracks a listen. The two-disc set includes a DVD with some quirkily animated versions of the songs, which I can't imagine kids not going for. I'll test it on ours this week-end and report the results (I could probably construct a doubly-blinded study, if I really wanted to put the effort into it...)
Of course, these things sound all the nicer on a nice 160GB iPod, which thanks to GHR I now have, and can fit my entire music and audio and podcast library onto, with all of ten gigabytes to spare. Best gift for no discernible reason ever - now how to reciprocate?
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