Songs and parodies about science

Subject: RE: Songs and parodies about science
From: GUEST,raredance
Date: 18 Jul 10 - 12:50 AM

http://practicality.wordpress.com/2008/01/13/the-pcr-song-with-lyrics/

The PCR Song by Scientists for Better PCR

There was a time when to amplify DNA,
You had to grow tons and tons of tiny cells.
(Oooh) Then along came a guy named Dr. Kary Mullis,
Said you can amplify in vitro just as well.

Just mix your template with a buffer and some primers,
Nucleotides and polymerases too.
Denaturing, annealing, and extending,
Well it's amazing what heating and cooling and heating will do.

[Chorus]
PCR when you need to detect mutation (detect mutation)
PCR when you need to recombine (recombine)
PCR when you need to find out who the daddy is (who's your daddy?)
PCR when you need to solve a crime (solve a crime)
[x2



http://practicality.wordpress.com/2009/09/11/video-bio-rad-gtca-song/

GTCA Song

Randolph: Six years of graduate school, and look at our boy now.
Randolph's Wife: Oh Randolph! Now I remember somebody who wasn't too different from this not too long ago.

Enzyme, whatcha doin' today?
I said enzyme, want to make DNA?
I said enzyme, show me your binding way
Let me mix you with some primers
Enzyme, time to build a new strand
I said enzyme, cause I know that you can
I said enzyme, these letters also spell DAN
All we need to get things started

Is just a little bit of GTCA
Is just a little bit of GTCA
I can build DNA
I can be a big star
You're the key to my PCR
Thats right I'm talkin' bout GTCA
Just a little bit of GTCA
I can make some new strands
I can view all my bands
I can be the best that I can

Enzyme, you have come a long way
But in my lab, demands are higher today
I said enzyme, now its time to go fast
We have got to increase throughput
Enzyme, I think I found what I need
It's an enzyme, it gives me much higher speed
It goes so fast, when it builds DNA
All we need to get it started

Is just a little bit of GTCA
Is just a little bit of GTCA
I can build DNA
I can reach for the stars
I can do faster PCR
Yeeeeeaaaa-eeee-ehhh

Subject: RE: Songs and parodies about science
From: Joe Offer
Date: 18 Jul 10 - 01:03 AM

Raredance, I haven't seen a post from you in years! Nice to see you back.
Contact me if you need a password reset.
-Joe-
[e-mail]

Subject: RE: Songs and parodies about science
From: Joe_F
Date: 18 Jul 10 - 11:01 AM

One by me

Subject: RE: Songs and parodies about science
From: GUEST,Steamin' Willie
Date: 18 Jul 10 - 11:33 AM

The late lamented Ian Dury wrote a wonderful song that was released as the B side of Hit Me with Your Rhythm Stick, called "There ain't half been some clever bastards."

One verse goes;

Einstein can't be classed as witless,
He claimed atoms were the littlest, *
When you did a bit of splitiness,
Frightened everybody shitless.

Mind you, ignoring science (to a degree) my favourite verse goes;

Van Gogh did some eyeball pleasers,
He must have been a pencil squeezer,
He didn't do the Mona Lisa,
That was an Italian geezer.

He was one of my heros, that guy...

* yes, yes, I know he didn't, but Nils Bohr doesn't scan as good I suppose!

Subject: RE: Songs and parodies about science
From: GUEST,guest, john f weldon
Date: 18 Jul 10 - 11:49 AM

This song video about Isaac Newton's dog.....

diamond

...qualifies, sort of....

Subject: RE: Songs and parodies about science
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 18 Jul 10 - 12:16 PM

From the aforementioned Lyrical Learning series:

The Scientific Method

to the tune of "Dixie"

Oh, what do you think a scientist does
To solve a problem found because
Many scientists are scientists
'Cause they're great problem solvers

There is a systematic way
They go about 'most every day
It's methodical and it's logical
The scientific method

Chorus:
A way to solve a problem, a way, a way
The scientific method is a way to solve a problem
A way, a way, a way to solve a problem
A way, a way, a way to solve a problem

It may not seem important to you
But the first thing that they always do
Is state the problem or ask a question
So, they know just what they're after

Then they review everything involved
that might help get the problem solved
By reading, researching
And gathering information...

Subject: RE: Songs and parodies about science
From: Gingerbeardman
Date: 18 Jul 10 - 06:51 PM

Jonathan Coulton has some great songs about science, notably his mini-album "Our Bodies, Ourselves, Our Cybernetic Arms". I won't list them all (his website lets you listen and you can download several songs for free) but they're original songs (not parodies) and very catchy. The songs cover things like the attraction between Charon & Pluto ("I'm Your Moon"), heredity ("That Spells DNA"), and an ode to Benoit Mandelbrot ("Mandelbrot Set"). Most of his songs have tabs or chords on the website, and you can find video tutorials for how to play many of the songs on guitar here (choose 'Lesson A Week' from 'Playlists').

To give an idea of what they're like, here are the lyrics from "That Spells DNA":

We start the story when Mom met Dad
And they danced all night and he took her home
It might have been all the wine they had
But they rolled the dice and won your genome

Then you grew and you grew and one day you were you
And you looked like your father and mother
If you're looking for someone convenient to blame
You can take your pick it's one or the other

DNA, you're in my heart
DNA, in fact you're in every part of my body
Each cell has a nucleus, each nucleus has chromosomes
And DNA, baby, that spells DNA

Guanine met Cytosine, fell in love
And then Thymine got busy with Adenine
They sent the messenger-RNA
To the ribosome to make more protein

And while it's killing you dead it will mess with your head
And it's the light in the dark that will guide you
It's the pages and pages of what you are like
In the giant book that's hidden inside you

DNA, you're in my heart
DNA, in fact you're in every part of my body
Each cell has a nucleus, each nucleus has chromosomes
And DNA, baby, that spells DNA

If it says TGGTCGAAC
Then you might get the cancer
If it says GTCACGACAGG
Then you shouldn't eat shrimp or nuts
If it says TATACACATATCCTCGT
Then you'll probably wish that you didn't know

The time will come when you're almost gone
And you try to guess but you'll never know
You do your best and you soldier on
Every day you're here till it's time to go

All the good things and bad that you do or don't have
You can find out for sure if you got 'em
But there's a spiraling staircase that you're falling down
And you're nothing but dead at the bottom

DNA, you're in my heart
DNA, in fact you're in every part of my body
Each cell has a nucleus, each nucleus has chromosomes
And DNA, baby, that spells DNA

Subject: RE: Songs and parodies about science
From: Suffet
Date: 18 Jul 10 - 07:00 PM

To the tune of Harrigan by George M. Cohan:

H C double bond O
With one more H you see,
Is a smell you can tell
Inside your laboratory,
Formaldehyde -- that's me!

--- Steve

Subject: RE: Songs and parodies about science
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 19 Jul 10 - 06:39 PM

"Little Willie's dead and gone"

I remember from at least the 1960s, maybe even a decade earlier....

Subject: RE: Songs and parodies about science
From: Joe_F
Date: 19 Jul 10 - 09:15 PM

Sung at a celebration of Linus Pauling's first Nobel prize (1954):

Diggin' rocks in the chandelier,
And was I havin' fun.
Then one night, I got it right,
Now Stockholm here I come!

Hey, lay them crystals down, boy,
Lay them crystals down,
Crystal-crackin' papa,
Lay them crystals down.

I measured all the bond lengths,
The contacts all looked swell.
The H-bond's straight, now ain't that great?
It filled the unit cell.

Peptide bonds and side groups,
I put them all in place.
It sure was plain, they formed a chain
And had such HELLical grace.

Diggin' rocks in the chandelier, etc.

(Digging was already hip slang for understanding. Rocks was still ham-radio slang for crystals. One of the chemistry buildings at Caltech had a chandelier representing a crystal structure.)

Subject: RE: Songs and parodies about science
From: pavane
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 09:14 AM

"As Time Goes By" music and words by Herman Hupfeld

The first verses are often omitted!

[This day and age we're living in
Gives cause for apprehension
With speed and new invention
And things like fourth dimension.

Yet we get a trifle weary
With Mr. Einstein's theory.
So we must get down to earth at times
Relax relieve the tension

And no matter what the progress
Or what may yet be proved
The simple facts of life are such
They cannot be removed.]

You must remember this
A kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh.
The fundamental things apply
As time goes by.

Subject: RE: Songs and parodies about science
From: pavane
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 09:15 AM

But I think the post from Amrit PZ10,COM (above) is spam

Subject: RE: Songs and parodies about science
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 18 Feb 11 - 04:25 PM

Yet another MM-G parody:

The Model of a Psychopharmacologist

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: Lyr Add: NOGIES CREEK (H Kaplan via M Cooney)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 08 Dec 14 - 10:59 AM

These lyrics and the footnote copied from the songwriter's web site where he also has a song sheet (PDF), MIDI file of the voice part, MIDI of a 4-part arrangement, and a performance MP3. (The latter is not as good as Michael Cooney's.)


NOGIES CREEK
Written by Howard L. Kaplan, ©1979.
Recorded by Michael Cooney on "Together Again" (2002)

1. My name is Edwin Crossman, and I'm an ecologist.
I'm studying the bullfrog now; I also study fish.
My group works down at Nogies Creek in east Ontario.
We make extensive measurements to see the species grow.
We measure tadpoles, note their weight, and estimate their age.
We want to know how many pass through each important stage,
But there are few statistics in these facts which I now speak:
What happened on the booming ground last year at Nogies Creek.

CHORUS: Tell me, why does the bullfrog begin to go courting?
Is it something in the water? Is it something in the sky?
Is it daylight getting longer? River current growing stronger?
Do not ask me; I'm the expert, but I cannot tell you why.

2. Some things we learn by measurement; some things we learn by chance.
We've learned that water lily pads are not their favourite plants.
The bullfrog is too heavy for a perch upon their leaf.
He'd rather something bushier that's stronger down beneath.
He'll set his feet upon the stems as wind and wave go by,
To catch the food that comes to him, the beetle and the fly,
And when the heat of summer comes, each cottage owner wants
His fifty feet of waterfront kept free of tangled plants.

3. Each spring throughout the province in the rivers and the ponds,
Each male cries his greeting out; each female responds.
To us it is a message that the springtime does arrive.
For them it has the meaning that the species will survive.
At Nogies Creek we see them meet in shallows by the shore.
They gather by the hundreds now; there once were many more.
We've named their place of gathering; it's nothing too profound.
It's taken from the sound they make and called the "booming ground".

4. Last spring we went to Nogies Creek in time to see them mate.
The sound of males booming let us know we weren't too late.
We set out with our dip nets and our cameras and our pails,
To take our yearly census, and discovered only males.
We spent some days in listening; the sound brought no delight,
To hear that male chorus crying out into the night,
And when their time had ended, and the earth had lost their sound,
We saw the females swimming out to fill the booming ground.

5. What caused this lack of synchrony? Which sex is wrong? Which right?
Do males follow temperature? Do females follow light?
Is this some fault in nature's plan? Unlikely that does seem.
Is this a batch of chemicals that someone dumped upstream?
A scientist knows causes and effects recur again.
Those things that happen once, we find much harder to explain.
It may not be good science, but I've not the heart to seek
Another instance of last year's events at Nogies Creek.


Based on a lecture given by Dr. Edwin Crossman of the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, at the 1979 annual meeting of the Federation of Ontario Naturalists. Nogies Creek (no apostrophe) is located about 130 miles northeast of Toronto.

Subject: RE: Songs and parodies about science
From: Vic Smith
Date: 08 Dec 14 - 12:12 PM

More mathematical than scientific, but I remember a parody of Dylan's Blowing In The Wind that had some lines in the form of questions about dividing the radius of a circle into its perimeter and so on. I can only remember the last few lines which went:-

...And what is the value of pi?
The answer, my friends is 3.142
Recurring but 3.142

I would be delighted if anyone can supply more of this.

Subject: RE: Songs and parodies about science
From: GUEST,John from Kemsing
Date: 08 Dec 14 - 12:43 PM

Here`s one that may fit the bill.

"https://soundcloud.com/john-hills/when-were-gone">

Subject: RE: Songs and parodies about science
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 08 Dec 14 - 01:29 PM

Vic: The answer, my friends is 3.142
Recurring but 3.142

But it's not....the most significant property of pi is that it's decimals *don't* recur :-)

Subject: RE: Songs and parodies about science
From: Vic Smith
Date: 09 Dec 14 - 08:00 AM

OK if ever I get the words, I alter the last line to :-
Rounded up, but 3.142
if that makes people happy.

Subject: RE: Songs and parodies about science
From: Howard Kaplan
Date: 09 Dec 14 - 10:53 PM

Thanks to Jim Dixon for mentioning one of my songs. By my count, there are about two dozen songs of some scientific interest on my web site, starting here. All of them are in the form of lead sheets and MIDI files, but only a few have .mp3 versions at the moment.

It's now mid-December, though of course it may not be mid-December the next time someone re-activates this thread. If you're looking for something seasonal and scientific as an antidote to the usual sort of Christmas song, I can suggest these four:

Long is the Winter Till the Sun's Return, a counting-down song with natural rather than biblical references

The Holly is the Ilex, a recounting of the botanical, rather than religious, attributes of holly, with a passing reference to ivy

Wren 2K, a depiction of the annual Christmas bird count in the style of The Cutty Wren

The Moon and the Solstices, an explanation of why Earth's axis tilts enough to make the solstices important

Subject: RE: Songs and parodies about science
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 10 Dec 14 - 02:36 PM

Howard Kaplan: The thing I like most about your song NOGIES CREEK is that it contains a description of how science is done.

Too often people talk as if science is a collection of facts, forgetting that, more importantly, science is a process.

People often think they are studying science when in fact they are learning some of the facts that have been brought to light by science. Often they learn nothing about the process by which those facts were brought to light, which is a shame.

Subject: RE: Songs and parodies about science
From: GUEST,Neon Leon
Date: 11 Feb 18 - 10:09 PM

I would offer They Might Be Giants' "Particle Man", and, from the old school yard, "One Ton Amoeba".

BONUS TRACK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NU51lJIdrg