Science Corner
by Molly Lambert
“I’m still alive, betch!”
Born Sept. 18, 1895, Tomoji Tanabe was named world’s oldest male after the death of Emiliano Mercado Del Toro of Puerto Rico. On Tuesday, the mayor of Miyakonojo City, where Tanabe lives, presented him with a bouquet and a letter of congratulations. When the mayor asked how many more years Tanabe wanted to live, Tanabe replied, “for infinity,” according to city official Yasuo Yamashita.
Another old guy also died.
Earth even older than we thought, purple, full of tiny Cthulus. God I love the internet.
Science tells career ladies: Have some kids, betch!
Let’s say the 20-year-old college student claims to not want a child until the age of 35, yet also indicates both family life and career goals are important. The model suggests rather than waiting until she is more established at work, her best bet would be to conceive before age 35.
Study aims to show why women worry more than men.
Wow all this makes me want to get drunk in the sunlight.
Suicides actually drop around the holidaze.
Monkeys also have a problem with too many choices.
death maps
Your brain makes you think your decisions are right, even when they maybe aren’t:
Our brains, then, weren’t so much designed to make choices as to pretend, no matter what, that we made the right choices. The goal seems to be mental peace; as we all know too well, the time from bad choice to righteousness is very uncomfortable and so the sooner we justify our decisions, the better.
Tiny Two-Headed Turtle!
Cosmic bullets traced to galactic Black Holes.
Where old cell phones go to die.
South Koreans clone glowing cat, meow. We prefer to tell people about this by saying, “Hai, did you know scientists gloned a clowing cat?” See how we did that?
Google’s wikipedia rival.
Pristine and enchanting giant rat.
One of the last Titanic survivors dies, my heart will go on.
Dainton, born in Bournemouth in southern England in 1911, was too young to remember the night when the huge liner hit an iceberg and sank in the Atlantic in April 1912, killing 1,500 people, including her father, Edwy Arthur West. He waved farewell as the lifeboat carrying Barbara; her mother, Ada; and her sister, Constance, was lowered into the ocean.
Parasitic star, parasitic flowers discovered. The world is more Katamari Damacylike everyday.
Mammoth hair!
Brains for science, not stolen by Igor.
Canadian guy gets big phone bill.
“Ghost Chili” scares elephants.
Transexual African Bat Bugs!
The physics of fading eyesight.
Molly Lambert is senior editor at This Recording. She lives in Echo Park.
MUSIC FOR THE SCIENCE TIMES
“The Confessor” – Joe Walsh (mp3)
“Turn to Stone” – Joe Walsh (mp3)
“Looking Inwardly” – The Chameleons (mp3)
“The Fan and the Bellows” — The Chameleons (mp3)
ALL THE SCIENCE CORNER YOU CAN PHYSICALLY STOMACH
Synaesthesia, Flavonoids, and Baby Otters
Space’s Stellar Explosions and Sade’s Quiet Storm
PREVIOUSLY ON THIS RECORDING
Molly talks Kanye.
And you wonder why we have anxiety issues.
Nannies roll all the way home.
John Ashbery and Tony Soprano.
This Recording 
So glad you posted something by The Chameleons. They are/were one of our great, lost bands. Coming from Manchester as I do, I’ve always had a soft spot for them as a “local band” and I’ve seen them live at least a dozen times, from the early 80s through to the “reunion” gigs in 2000.
The first two albums in particular (“Script of the Bridge” and “What Does Anything Mean, Basically”) are both excellent examples of riff-driven, indie rock. Think early Cure, or maybe the first Echo & The Bunnymen album. For the guitarists among us, there are layers of tunes just dripping out of the speakers. There’s lots of early 80s reverb, chorus pedals and echo units going on, giving you the most fluid and beautiful guitar sounds you’ve heard in ages.
They never really bothered the charts much after their first single (“In Shreds”) but they had critical acclaim in spadefuls to make up for the lack of commercial success.
Thanks for reminding me of all this!