Computers that write to memory faster with germanium lasers

The breakthrough about how germanium lasers can be used to send computer data to memory more quickly than conducted electricity is filled top to bottom with juicy physics. It includes computer chip wafer design and assembly, how germanium can be put into chips easily but doesn’t normally make for a good laser, what distinguishes a semiconductor that does make a good laser from one that doesn’t, and how researchers at MIT have – via doping and straining – made germanium lase after all. The end result is a path for investigating much more efficient information transfer inside your computer.

New tunng album coming: “…And Then We Saw Land”

Folktronica folks tunng will be releasing their new album, …And Then We Saw Land, on 01 March 2010. I love these guys. It’s quirky but simple, catchy but varied, slightly gloomy yet somehow…upbeat.

You can listen to one of the new tracks, “Don’t Look Down Or Back”, on their MySpace page. Or you can watch the teaser – with clips of several of the new songs, all of which make me smile like a simpleton – right here:

If you like what you hear you can pre-order the CD, LP, MP3s or FLACs over here.

If you don’t have tunng, you don’t have taste.

Sorry. Lame. But tunng are good.

Twittering from space

If you’re on Twitter and you’re not one of the 62,000+ people already following astronaut Soichi Noguchi, what’s wrong with you? He’s twitpiccing our planet from the International Space Station, people! It’s too cool.

Picture from Soichi's twitter feed: Pico De Orizaba, the highest mountain in Mexico

New album from The Duke Spirit being recorded

Superb rockers The Duke Spirit have written a ton of new songs, and have started to record them. This makes me happy, since few rock like they do. Give us a date, guys, so we can write it in our calendars.

New Gorillaz album soon: Plastic Beach

Everyone’s favourite cartoon band since Josie and the Pussycats, Gorillaz, are noodling their way back into our ears. Their upcoming album, Plastic Beach, hits stores on 8 March 2010.

You can listen to first single “Stylo” now on the band’s web page, and download it from iTunes. There are plenty of other tidbits there, too, including video and audio snippets.

I can’t say that I’m very fond of “Stylo” at this point. But both previous Gorillaz albums have been fantastic, so I have no reason to doubt that Damon they’ll do it again.

Eureka’s Top 30 Science Blogs

Eureka Zone, the Times Online’s science blog, has listed what it considers to be the thirty best science blogs of the moment. I read many of these, and will add the others to my feed.

I can only presume The Plummet Onions was disqualified because I dilute my blogging with posts about music.

We Stole The Organ

I’ve heard “Anytime You Want”, the first track from Sydney-area band We Stole The Organ, a few times in the last couple of days. Both FBi and triple j are featuring it. It makes me boogie. I’m keen to hear more.

FBi Radio

Since I’ve started driving into work again I’ve been looking for radio stations to listen to. I stumbled across FBi 95.4FM and love it.

FBi is

an independent, community-based radio station, delivering the best in new music and emerging culture. FBi plays 50% Australian music, with half of that from Sydney.

Much of the music I’ve heard has been completely new to me, and really interesting, different stuff. As I write this blog the FBi show playing is In The Pines, which showcases “folk, neo-folk, anti-folk, folktronica, folk rock, alt-country, slowcore, twee, violindie, singer-songwriter & instrumental music”. Check out this playlist.

You can listen to the stream yourself here.

Between this and triple j I think my radio music needs are completely sorted.

UK Homeopathy overdose: sugar rush

I blogged last week about 10:23, the protest in the UK that say people “overdose” on homeopathy pills to show they have no effect. They can’t, since they are not medicine, and the pharmacies that sell them know this.

You’ll be pleased to know that – to no one’s surprise – all the folks who swallowed all those pills are just fine and dandy. They were perhaps a little rushed on the sugar. And their feeling of rationality.

It doesn’t seem to stop the gullible and desperate from believing in it, though.

Peter Gabriel covers Arcade Fire, and a bunch of others

Peter Gabriel’s new album is called Scratch My Back, and it’s him and an orchestra covering rock songs.

I don’t know about you, but that sounds pretty awesome to me.

Stereogum has premiered it, and they’re raving about Gabriel’s version of Bon Iver’s “Flume”.

You know the story: In 2007 Justin Vernon holed up in a Wisconsin cabin writing For Emma, Forever Ago for the benefit, he presumed, of handfuls. Three years on, it’s taken him around the world and earned him honors, although I’m not sure what could equal hearing Peter Gabriel imbue one of your melodies with his all of his unmistakable Peter Gabrielness. It’s an extension of the For Emma story in that way, the idea of this young guy — the youngest on a hero-heavy tracklist — who was singing to himself in the snow so recently now having his song sung by an icon. Another stanza in the poetry of Justin’s story. But the sound of this cover, like the sound of Bon Iver’s album, needs no external narrative to resonate, its affect achieved upon hearing the painterly piano and brass over which Peter first bursts, widescreen, into that chorus. “Only love is all maroon.” But it’s not only love that’s all maroon — so is the heart of this cover album’s cover art. Fitting, somehow. You should hear it.

Read and listen more here.

Obama drops moon mission funding from NASA

US President Barack Obama is planning to axe the NASA funding for Constellation, the space program that would see NASA return to the Moon by 2020. They’ll put development plans for the shuttle replacement into the hands of private industry.

This is bad news.

I’ve waffled on many times in this blog about the apparent short-term wisdom but long-term foolishness of abandoning (or putting at great risk) research like this. I know that times are tough, and money is needed elsewhere. And US space funding has roller-coastered over the decades.

But this is important for the future. It was important enough that Obama made it a campaign pledge, as did John McCain. It’s important because we can’t even imagine today what might be discovered by scientists who don’t have to make profits. Here are a few historical reasons that represent only the spinoffs of the space program, to say nothing of actual space exploration:

Under the Space Act of 1958, NASA has had a mandate to share all the information it has gained with the public. Here are a few of the practical applications that have resulted from technologies and information learned by space scientists:

• CAT scans
• MRIs
• Kidney dialysis machines
• Heart defibrillator technology
• Remote robotic surgery
• Artificial heart pump technology
• Physical therapy machines
• Positron emission tomography
• Microwave receivers used in scans for breast cancer
• Cardiac angiography
• Monitoring neutron activity in the brain
• Cleaning techniques for hospital operating rooms
• Portable x-ray technology for neonatal offices and 3rd world countries
• Freeze-dried food
• Water purification filters
• ATM technology
• Pay at the Pump satellite technology
• Athletic shoe manufacturing technique
• Insulation barriers for autos
• Image-processing software for crash-testing automobiles
• Holographic testing of communications antennas
• Low-noise receivers
• Cordless tools
• A computer language used by businesses such as car repair shops, Kodak, hand-held computers, express mail
• Aerial reconnaissance and Earth resources mapping
• Airport baggage scanners
• Distinction between natural space objects and satellites/warheads/rockets for defense
• Satellite monitors for nuclear detonations
• Hazardous gas sensors
• Precision navigation
• Clock synchronization
• Ballistic missile guidance
• Secure communications
• Study of ozone depletion
• Climate change studies
• Monitoring of Earth-based storms such as hurricanes
• Solar collectors
• Fusion reactors
• Space-age fabrics for divers, swimmers, hazardous material workers, and others
• Teflon-coated fiberglass for roofing material
• Lightweight breathing system used by firefighters
• Atomic oxygen facility for removing unwanted material from 19th century paintings
• FDA-adopted food safety program that has reduced salmonella cases by a factor of 2
• Multispectral imaging methods used to read ancient Roman manuscripts buried by Mt. Vesuvius

But if you don’t want to bother, America, feel free to drop it. China will happily step in.

Still no proof from Steorn

Irish company Steorn held what they say will be their final demo of their Orbo technology today, a machine that they claim breaks physics and produces more energy than it uses (over unity).

Twitter implies it was far from a convincing demo. Ooh, shocker!

Big Deal

The local paper back where I grew up is carrying a story about a local band of guys I know, Big Deal. They’re doing well in eastern Canada, and are set to release their second album. You can listen to some of their tunes on their MySpace page. If you live in Nova Scotia you should check out some of their live dates.

Good luck, boys!

Sydney Festival: Rogue’s Gallery LIVE

Last night was our last Sydney Festival 2010 event. It was Rogue’s Gallery, a live performance of many of the songs recorded for a 2006 album of the same name. We heard sea shanties and pirate ballads, sweet and bawdy. It was an unusual event, that’s for sure.

It was held outside, in front of the Opera House. This would normally be a good location, as the performers and audience could all see the harbour and the boats to-ing and fro-ing. Last night, however, it pissed down rain for about an hour just before and during the performance. Despite some flimsy rain gear we got fairly wet. We spun that as optimistically as we could, saying that it promoted the idea of a life at sea.

The performers were a motley crew: Marianne Faithful, Todd Rundgren, Peter Garrett, Tim Robbins (huh?), Sarah Blasko, Baby Gramps, Peaches, Liam Finn and others. Few sang sweetly; there was much more rough-and-ready growling. Some of the songs worked brilliantly, some were fun, some were downright weird. A couple were so raunchy – to be expected from sailors’ working songs, I guess – that the performers asked for forgiveness beforehand.

It was two and a half hours of reworked maritime singalong history, and an obvious labour of love for those involved. It wasn’t smooth. Much of it was cheesy. Some was too bizarre to enjoy. But it was fun and varied and completely unique. Those last two things are key to the Sydney Festival being a showcase for all sorts of interesting art, and so bravo.

Photo from Diamond Geyser via Creative Commons license

Them Crooked Vultures at the Hordern Pavillion

Last night was a full and proper return to live music; my gig habit back in full swing. Sydney may not be quite the relentless pusher that London was, but it looks like it might be close. This city has now given me a great show that featured a member of Led Zeppelin, and that is a fix worth waiting for.

It was easier than I expected to get to the Hordern Pavillion. It is no more than it says, a big square room, with big square acoustics. There are a few bleachers of seats at the back and sides, which may be useful for future gigs. But not last night: I was back in the pit for this one.

Opening act was Melbourne’s Fangs. I liked ‘em. They were having unabashed fun. There’s a musical match in this show, as they’re quite Foo Fighters-y: guitar rock with a slap of punk. There’s some pomposity too, which I suppose the success of Wolfmother has allowed, and of which I approve. They had good crunch, and I had fun. They’re releasing their first album this year.

The reason we were all here was main act Them Crooked Vultures. I’ve blogged about this supergroup before; if you don’t know who they are, you don’t love guitar rock, but you can read more here.

They make a great team. Josh Homme is the huge, don’t-give-a-fuck, swaggering guitar tough. Dave Grohl is the goofing-around long-haired drum basher. John Paul Jones is the too-cool elder statesman and master of instruments. Alain Johannes is the secret weapon, that most unlikely of musical assassins who slips in the back with the killer riffs you didn’t even know were there.

When I reflect, they didn’t really do much, though. They came out, played the first album, spoke a bit, had some coloured lights flash, and left. No smoke, no special effects, no covers, no guests, no encore. On paper that could be a problem, since while I found the album to be great I did find that it suffered a bit from lack of variety. All is forgiven live, though: they can push the dynamics a bit more, noodle out some crowd-pleasing solos, and it all gets very, very exciting.

The crowd was certainly pleased, too, and excited. The live sound of Grohl’s bashing and the guitar screaming and Homme’s high crooning and JPJ just being about the coolest guy on a stage anywhere were awesome. Every song sounded great. The guitar breaks led to some super keyboard and bass fills. Everyone on stage had a chance to shine. Crowd highlight? “Scumbag Blues”, without a doubt. We all lost it.

When the lights came on, we shuffled out – grinning – to the sounds of Roy Orbison’s “It’s Over”. Maybe for now.

Photo from Maxime Dodinet via Creative Commons license

Stereogum’s 10 most NSFW videos of 2009

Need a dose of the inappropriate? Check out Stereogum’s 10 Most Not-Suitable-For-Work videos of last year. Most of them aren’t just shocking, they’re also shockingly bad.

Homeopathy: There’s nothing in it

Homeopathy is bollocks. It’s just water, sugar pills. It doesn’t work.

To demonstrate this, hundreds of people in the UK will this weekend simultaneously take a mass homeopathic ‘overdose’ in what’s being called the 10:23 event:

At 10:23am on January 30th, more than three hundred homeopathy sceptics nationwide will be taking part in a mass homeopathic ‘overdose’ in protest at Boots‘ continued endorsement and sale of homeopathic remedies, and to raise public awareness about the fact that homeopathic remedies have nothing in them.

Sceptics and consumer rights activists will publicly swallow an entire bottle of homeopathic ‘pillules’ to demonstrate that these ‘remedies’, prepared according to a long-discredited 18th century ritual, are nothing but sugar pills.

The protest will raise public awareness about the reality of homeopathy, and put further pressure on Boots to live up to its responsibilites as the ’scientist on the high street’ and stop selling treatments which do not work.

Yay!

Slime mould simulates Tokyo rail network

From ScienceBlogs’ Not Exactly Rocket Science, a piece about how evolution can result in efficiencies in nature that we can take advantage of. The lowly slime mould grows in a self-optimised pattern that looks surprisingly like that of the actual Tokyo network. Perhaps it could be used to optimise other networks of transport or distribution.

Living thing also rely on transport networks, from the protein tracks that run through all of our cells to the gangways patrolled by ant colonies. Like man-made networks, these biological ones face the same balancing act of efficiency and resilience, but unlike man-made networks, they have been optimised through millions of years of evolution. Their strategies have to work – if our networks crash, the penalties are power outages or traffic jams; if theirs crash, the penalty is death.

This is really interesting work, but I hope the end result isn’t something like this:

New BRMC track and release info

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s next album, Beat The Devil’s Tattoo, is out in early March. You can listen to the title single here. It sounds very BRMC-y. A bit of the acoustic roots sound of Howl, but darker. It’s a decent little stomper, but it’s not blowing me away.

Here’s further info on the release from the band’s mailing list:

Album Release and Formats:

1. Beat The Devil’s Tattoo
2. Conscience Killer
3. Bad Blood
4. War Machine
5. Sweet Feeling
6. Evol
7. Mama Taught Me Better
8. River Styx
9. The Toll
10. Aya
11. Shadow’s Keeper
12. Long Way Down
13. Half-State

“Beat The Devil’s Tattoo” will be released March 8th in the UK & Europe and March 9th in North Hollywood and will available in a variety of formats. The first 50k copies in the US will come on a special edition black disc. In the UK & Europe, there will be a standard jewel case version containing the 13 album tracks, as well as a deluxe version that comes in the same special packaging as the US release and contains the 13 album tracks plus two B-Sides.

A Vinyl edition will be released as well and will contain the track “Annabel Lee.”

The album will also be available for pre-order on iTunes starting in the US on February 9th and in the UK & Europe on February 8th (awaiting confirmation). All pre-orders will come with an instant download of the track “Beat The Devil’s Tattoo.”

The US iTunes Version will have the album only track “Annabel Lee,” a Digital Booklet of the album art as well as the B-Side Track “1:51″ (exclusive to the pre-order period). The UK/European iTunes version will include the album only track “Annabel Lee” and the Digital Booklet.

Exclusive album bundles will be available for order soon from our new merch store which will be launching soon, and will be featuring some new items.

Tour Update:

As a reminder, the world tour is on sale now with in Los Angeles, Vancouver, Toronto, London, and Brighton already selling out.

A 3rd show in LA has been added and will take place on March 12th at The Echoplex. T his will be the last show in LA on this tour and there are only a handful of tickets remaining for it, as well as for the April 8th show in New York at Webster Hall

After briefly moving from it’s home at The Phoenix in Toronto, Ontario, the April 1st show has returned to The Phoenix and is now sold out. To accommodate the demand for tickets, a second show has been added in Toronto at The Phoenix on April 11th. This show is On Sale Now!

The UK tour will now start in London on April 15th at The Electric Ballroom. Tickets are On Sale Now and going quickly now that the April 23rd show at The Forum is Sold Out.

Additionally the band has added a show at the Rockhouse in Salzburg, Austria on May 19th. Tickets for this show are On Sale Now.

Support for the US tour will come from:

The Whigs:

2/26: Sacramento, CA / Harlow’s Nightclub
2/27: Reno, NV / The Knitting Factory
2/28: Las Vegas, NV / Wasted Space @ The Hard Rock
3/2: Denver, CO / The Gothic Theatre
3/4: Boise, ID / Knitting Factory
3/5: Seattle, WA / Showbox
3/6: Vancouver, BC / Commodore Ballroom
3/7: Portland, OR / Wonder Ballroom
3/9: San Francisco, CA / Slim’s
3/11: Los Angeles, CA / Echoplex
3/12: Los Angeles, CA / Echoplex
3/13: San Diego, CA / House of Blues

Band Of Skulls:

3/18: Dallas, TX / House of Blues
3/20: Houston, TX / House of Blues
3/21: Tulsa, OK / Cain’s
3/23: St. Louis, MO / The Pageant
3/24: Madison, WI / High Noon Saloon
3/25: Chicago, IL / The Metro
3/26: Milwaukee, WI / Turner Hall
3/27: Minneapolis, MN / First Ave
3/30: Columbus, OH / Newport Music Hall

Support for the rest of the US dates will be announced soon.

Support for the Electric Ballroom show  will come from Little Fish and the UK & European support will be announced shortly.

N.A.S.A.: Spacious Thoughts featuring Tom Waits and Kool Keith

I guess in the heady rush of moving Down Under I somehow missed the project that spawned this incredibly cool song and video.

From BoingBoing:

a new piece from the “great god almighty could it get any more awesome?” N.A.S.A. music project, this one from two personal music heroes: Tom Waits, and Kool Keith. The track is called Spacious Thoughts, and you can pick it up on the project’s debut album, Spirit of Apollo…

NASA, short for “North America South America,” is a music collaboration project assembled by Squeak E. Clean (aka Sam Spiegel, brother of film director Spike Jonze) and DJ Zegon (Ze Gonzales, professional skateboarder).