Science Week: Harry Potter Goes Chemical

This whole week is going to be the "Science Week" in Ireland, the aim of "Science Week" is to promote the relevance of science, engineering and technology in our everyday lives and to demonstrate the importance of these disciplines to the future development of Irish society and to the economy.

And trying to do my bit for my country, I'm posting a very funny video of Daniel Radcliffe, also known as Harry Potter singing the song "Elements" by his hero (according to his words) Tom Lehrer.  Aparently the "chosen one" was very much into chemistry before getting interested in magic...

It's really worth the listening! 

Here you are the lyrics:

There's antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium,
And hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen and rhenium,
And nickel, neodymium, neptunium, germanium,
And iron, americium, ruthenium, uranium,
Europium, zirconium, lutetium, vanadium,
And lanthanum and osmium and astatine and radium,
And gold and protactinium and indium and gallium,
And iodine and thorium and thulium and thallium. 

There's yttrium, ytterbium, actinium, rubidium, 
And boron, gadolinium, niobium, iridium, 
And strontium and silicon and silver and samarium, 
And bismuth, bromine, lithium, beryllium, and barium. 

There's holmium and helium and hafnium and erbium, 
And phosphorus and francium and fluorine and terbium, 
And manganese and mercury, molybdenum, magnesium, 
Dysprosium and scandium and cerium and cesium. 
And lead, praseodymium, and platinum, plutonium, 
Palladium, promethium, potassium, polonium, 
And tantalum, technetium, titanium, tellurium, 
And cadmium and calcium and chromium and curium. 

There's sulfur, californium, and fermium, berkelium, 
And also mendelevium, einsteinium, nobelium, 
And argon, krypton, neon, radon, xenon, zinc, and rhodium, 
And chlorine, carbon, cobalt, copper, tungsten, tin, and sodium. 

These are the only ones of which the news has come to Harvard, 
And there may be many others, but they haven't been discovered.

Also if you like, the chance to listen to the original version by Tom Lehrer may be interesting, and just in case you find it difficult to follow, which i highly doubt, you can read the lyrics.

11/11/11

Les numérologues sont dans tous leurs états à l'approche du vendredi 11 novembre 2011, 49 minutes avant midi: il sera alors 11H11, le 11/11/11, un alignement rare de ce nombre qui, pour les adeptes des sciences occultes, pourrait signaler la survenue d'événements hors du commun.

Alors que, pour la plupart des gens, cette concordance chiffrée de la pendule et du calendrier, qui se produit une fois par siècle, passera totalement inaperçue, les numérologues et autres ésotéristes y chercheront tout un ensemble de signes.

Certains évoquent le début d'un renouveau humaniste, d'une nouvelle harmonie dans le monde voire même de l'ouverture d'une porte dans une nouvelle dimension ou encore "un bouleversement de la conscience".

Des milliers d'adeptes prévoient de se retrouver ce jour-là pour des cérémonies ou des danses. Plusieurs pages consacrées à cette date ont fait leur apparition sur Facebook.

L'organisation espagnole pour les aveugles Once organisera une loterie spéciale dotée d'un prix de onze millions d'euro.

Les médiums et grands prêtres du paranormal les plus connus saluent tous l'importance selon eux de "la synchronicité" du 11/11/11, comme l'Israélien Uri Geller, l'Américaine Solara, "experte en numérologie" et auteur d'un livre sur la signification du nombre onze, ou encore les fans de "Spinal Tap".

Il s'agit d'un film de 1984, décrivant un groupe de hard rock, basé sur des faits réels ou imaginaires et dans lequel le nombre onze revêt une signification toute particulière.

"Avoir un triple nombre clé sur le calendrier a certainement une grande signification", a dit Solara, interrogée par l'AFP. "Je vois un grand changement dans la conscience de la planète et cela coïncide avec cette date", a ajouté ce médium.

Solara, qui vit au Pérou, garde le secret sur ses projets pour le 11/11/11, révélant seulement que des groupes dans plus de cinquante pays marqueront cet événement en s'asseyant en silence pour méditer.

Les numérologues attribuent au nombre onze des pouvoirs paranormaux qui offrent un canal de communication avec le subconscient. Pour d'autres, comme Solara, onze représente la dualité du bien et du mal dans l'humanité.

Internet est aussi rempli de blogueurs qui insistent sur le caractère mystique de ce nombre régulièrement lié à des catastrophes, selon eux, comme les attaques du 11 septembre 2001 aux Etats-Unis.

Certains insistent aussi sur le fait que les deux tours du World Trade Center à New York rappelaient par leur forme le chiffre onze. De plus, le premier avion de passagers à s'écraser sur les tours était le vol numéro 11.

D'autres citent la prophétie de Saint Malachie, qui au XIe siècle prédisait qu'il y aurait 112 papes avant une apocalypse biblique. Benoît XVI est le 111e pontife.

La date du 11 est historiquement chargée. L'armistice de la 1ère Guerre Mondiale a été signé à 11H00 du matin le 11 novembre 1918.

"Il y a une synchronicité intéressante dans le fait qu'un grand nombre d'événements sont associés au nombre 11", observe Ellie Crystal, blogueuse qui se présente comme une "exploratrice du monde métaphysique".

Pour John Hoopes, professeur de pensée critique à l'Université du Kansas, toutes ces théories pseudo-scientifiques sont un parfait exemple du "biais de confirmation d'hypothèse". Il s'agit de la tendance à privilégier des informations qui confirment des idées préconçues sans tenir compte de celles qui les démentent, explique-t-il

Commémoration de l'Armistice de 1918

Latinoamerica

CALLE 13 WINS BIG AT LATIN GRAMMYS

Calle 13, a Puerto Rican hip-hop group with Pan-American music, rebellious politics and a raunchy sense of humor, triumphed at the 12th annual Latin Grammy Awards,  which were televised Thursday from the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas. “Entren Los Que Quieran” (“Everybody Is Welcome”), the fourth Calle 13 album, was nominated for 10 awards this year, a record for the Latin Grammys. It helped that  Calle 13’s eclecticism qualified its songs for multiple categories —Urban, Alternative, Tropical.

“Entren Los Que Quieran” is Calle 13’s second album in a row to be named Album of the Year; it won the same award for its 2008 album, “Los de Atrás Vienen Conmigo” (“Those From Behind Are Coming With Me”)

Calle 13’s “Latinoamérica”— a panorama of Latin American images, problems and perseverance, set to an Andean-rooted beat — was named Record of the Year (for the recording) and Song of the Year (for the songwriting).  The band performed it to open the awards show, with the lead singer, rapper Residente (René Pérez),   backed by a Venezuelan symphony orchestra conducted by Gustavo Dudamel.

Accepting one award, for Best Urban Album, Residente said, “It’s very difficult for us navigating against the current,” and vowed to keep making “true music.” Returning for the Best Urban song award,  for “Baile de los Pobres” (“Dance of the Poor”), Residente added, “I know that we’re those who are heard not on the radio, but in the heart of the people.”

The show’s other major presence was Shakira, the Colombian superstar who was named Person of the Year by the Latin Recording Academy. She sang a ballad (“Antes de las Seis”), a rocker (“Devoción”) and a Latin dance tune, “Loca,” while out-shimmying the dancers around her.

She won the Best Female Pop Album award for her “Sale El Sol.”

This year’s Latin Grammy Awards show ratified Latin pop’s spreading crossover aspirations. Latin music is a coalition of national, regional and local styles, many of them aiming at different niche audiences. But musicians, marketers and the Internet have made musical boundaries far more porous over the last decade.

Latin pop has been cannily seeking crossover hits lately, bringing together performers from different countries and genres. The Best Pop Album by a Duo or Group with Vocal went to a multinational trio — Alex, Jorge y Lena — from Cuba, Spain and Colombia. 

The Latin Grammys show re-enacted many studio collaborations onstage. Romeo Santos, a member of the Dominican-rooted New York group Aventura who has just  released a solo album, sang alongside with the R&B singer Usher to introduce a bachata in Spanish and English, “Promise,” with both singers sustaining smooth high-tenor melismas, a bilingual urban crossover.

The Dominican-rooted New Yorker Prince Royce turned “El Verdadero Amor Perdona,” an earnest rocker by the long-running Mexican band Maná — which won Best Rock Album for its “Drama y Luz” — into a lilting bachata. Alejandra Guzmán, a Mexican rock singer, brought husky melodrama to her duet with the Venezuelan songwriter Franco de Vita, draping herself on the piano in “Tan Solo Tú”; he was a winner for Best Male Pop Album. The reggaetón duo Wisin y Yandel shared “Fever” with the reggae singer Sean Kingston. And Sie7e welcomed Taboo, a member of Black Eyed Peas, for a guest spot in “Tengo Tu Love.”

Sie7e, a Puerto Rican singer and songwriter who often tosses a few words of English into his breezy folk-pop songs,  was named Best New Artist, although the album he released this year, “Mucha Cosa Buena,” is his third one.

Most of Pitbull’s “Rain Over Me”— with a rap that boasted “Latin’s the new majority”— was in English, with Marc Anthony singing the hook. The production numbers at the Latin Grammys often drew on Las Vegas revues, and Pitbull got a bevy of showgirls posing on chairs in bikinis. The productions didn’t always serve the songs.  Marco Antonio Solís performed his aching ballad (and the theme song for the telenovela “Teresa”) “A Dónde Vamos a Parar?”— winner for Best Regional Mexican Song— amid a stage full of dancers unfurling parasols. Shakira had to contend with whooshing smoke machines that her microphone picked up.

Amid the crossovers, there were also regional holdouts like Pepe Aguilar, singing his “Canción Mexicana”— a homage to Mexican favorites — with a glittering mariachi band.  But another regional mainstay, the  accordion-driven Mexican-American band Los Tigres del Norte, won Best Norteño  

Album for a collection of collaborations with musicians from across Latin America, embracing crossover.  Among them was Calle 13’s Residente — who, at this year’s Latin Grammys, was the star among stars.

“Today music triumphed,” Residente said as he accepted the Album of the Year award.

  

  Source: The New York Times

And now I leave you go to bed with the sound of the music that succeeded last night in yours ears, Vamos caminando...
 

Auguries of Innocence

Auguries of Innocence

To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.

A robin redbreast in a cage
Puts all heaven in a rage.

A dove-house fill'd with doves and pigeons
Shudders hell thro' all its regions.
A dog starv'd at his master's gate
Predicts the ruin of the state.

A horse misused upon the road
Calls to heaven for human blood.
Each outcry of the hunted hare
A fibre from the brain does tear.

A skylark wounded in the wing,
A cherubim does cease to sing.
The game-cock clipt and arm'd for fight
Does the rising sun affright.

Every wolf's and lion's howl
Raises from hell a human soul.

The wild deer, wand'ring here and there,
Keeps the human soul from care.
The lamb misus'd breeds public strife,
And yet forgives the butcher's knife.

The bat that flits at close of eve
Has left the brain that won't believe.
The owl that calls upon the night
Speaks the unbeliever's fright.

He who shall hurt the little wren
Shall never be belov'd by men.
He who the ox to wrath has mov'd
Shall never be by woman lov'd.

The wanton boy that kills the fly
Shall feel the spider's enmity.
He who torments the chafer's sprite
Weaves a bower in endless night.

The caterpillar on the leaf
Repeats to thee thy mother's grief.
Kill not the moth nor butterfly,
For the last judgement draweth nigh.

He who shall train the horse to war
Shall never pass the polar bar.
The beggar's dog and widow's cat,
Feed them and thou wilt grow fat.

The gnat that sings his summer's song
Poison gets from slander's tongue.
The poison of the snake and newt
Is the sweat of envy's foot.

The poison of the honey bee
Is the artist's jealousy.

The prince's robes and beggar's rags
Are toadstools on the miser's bags.
A truth that's told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.

It is right it should be so;
Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.

Joy and woe are woven fine,
A clothing for the soul divine.
Under every grief and pine
Runs a joy with silken twine.

The babe is more than swaddling bands;
Every farmer understands.
Every tear from every eye
Becomes a babe in eternity;

This is caught by females bright,
And return'd to its own delight.
The bleat, the bark, bellow, and roar,
Are waves that beat on heaven's shore.

The babe that weeps the rod beneath
Writes revenge in realms of death.
The beggar's rags, fluttering in air,
Does to rags the heavens tear.

The soldier, arm'd with sword and gun,
Palsied strikes the summer's sun.
The poor man's farthing is worth more
Than all the gold on Afric's shore.

One mite wrung from the lab'rer's hands
Shall buy and sell the miser's lands;
Or, if protected from on high,
Does that whole nation sell and buy.

He who mocks the infant's faith
Shall be mock'd in age and death.
He who shall teach the child to doubt
The rotting grave shall ne'er get out.

He who respects the infant's faith
Triumphs over hell and death.
The child's toys and the old man's reasons
Are the fruits of the two seasons.

The questioner, who sits so sly,
Shall never know how to reply.
He who replies to words of doubt
Doth put the light of knowledge out.

The strongest poison ever known
Came from Caesar's laurel crown.
Nought can deform the human race
Like to the armour's iron brace.

When gold and gems adorn the plow,
To peaceful arts shall envy bow.
A riddle, or the cricket's cry,
Is to doubt a fit reply.

The emmet's inch and eagle's mile
Make lame philosophy to smile.
He who doubts from what he sees
Will ne'er believe, do what you please.

If the sun and moon should doubt,
They'd immediately go out.
To be in a passion you good may do,
But no good if a passion is in you.

The whore and gambler, by the state
Licensed, build that nation's fate.
The harlot's cry from street to street
Shall weave old England's winding-sheet.

The winner's shout, the loser's curse,
Dance before dead England's hearse.

Every night and every morn
Some to misery are born,
Every morn and every night
Some are born to sweet delight.

Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night.

We are led to believe a lie
When we see not thro' the eye,
Which was born in a night to perish in a night,
When the soul slept in beams of light.

God appears, and God is light,
To those poor souls who dwell in night;
But does a human form display
To those who dwell in realms of day. 

William Blake

Trick or Treat?

Watching the last episode of the American TV show "Community" which by the way, I highly recommend you to watch, and I was really surprised when suddenly realized that the funny characters of the sitcom were talking about nothing but the scary story our assistant teacher Nicole was telling us last Thursday in class... "The Hook". Of course, I immediately thought of you mates, thus here you are in this so special, bloody magical night of Halloween the revisited story of The Hook in the sharply smart, weirdly irreverent Greendale Community College style.

HAPPY HAUNTED HALLOWEEN YA PEOPLE!!!

125 years enlightening the world

Today marks the 125th anniversary of the dedication of the Statue of Liberty, the world’s most iconic symbol of freedom.

She was a gift from the French, who helped us acquire our independence from Britain but whom we now resent because they refused, wisely, to follow us into Iraq.

Since her debut on Oct. 28, 1886, the Statue of Liberty has been the one thing millions of immigrants have longed to see.

Whenever her form emerges from the mist, no translation is necessary.

In those times when their “otherness” ran headlong into nativism and prejudice, she was reassurance for immigrants who were trying to navigate the swirling uncertainties of life in a new land. She was their reminder that the promise was sure.

For those whose land was taken, or whose forefathers were brought here against their will, the broken chains that lay at her feet are proof that freedom and suppression cannot long co-exist, that God-given equality can never be usurped by man.

The statue, which depicts “Libertas,” the Roman goddess of freedom, was the brainchild of Edouard de Laboulaye, a Parisian poet, law professor and ardent abolitionist. Laboulaye elicited his friend, sculptor Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi, to create not only an enduring symbol of the friendship between France and America but also a rebuke to the oppressive Napoleon III.

Not everyone was on board. It took a New York newspaperman, Joseph Pulitzer, to spur American support for the statue. Eventually, 120,000 readers responded, most giving less than $1.

In a nation currently roiled by anger and fear, it feels as if Liberty, and all that she stands for, has drifted out of our sights. But we need only to lift our heads again to see that her torch still glows in defiance of the willful ignorance and demagoguery that threaten to extinguish it. Her purpose, her meaning, as expressed by the poet Emma Lazarus, has not changed:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame,
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

These words, and the hope they still bear, are for all of us.