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1. |
Hunting For The Higgs
03:15
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Hunting for the Higgs
Now the superstitious fear a broken mirror,
Whilst science follows rationality,
Yet if there's one thing that a physicist can simply not abide,
That's finding nature has a broken symmetry.
If you've ever tried to weigh a ray of sunlight,
You'll know that it's a very tricky thing to try,
For the photons in a ray light massless,
Unlike the particles with mass that go to make up you or I.
But it seems our standard model's not symmetrical,
Or else it's bosons would all have mass the same,
So there has to be a field, that will only be revealed,
By its boson and Higgs will be its name.
They're looking for the boson giving mass to matter,
The model only holds if it exists.
The way they're finding's by hadron colliding,
It's a hell of a way to go hunting for a higgs.
So when they'd finished all the calculations,
The only way to solve the mystery,
Was to accelerate some protons and watch as they collide,
In the biggest machine that ever was built in all of history.
It needed 27 kilometres of tunnel,
100 metres neath some alpine hills,
It took 111 nations working in cahoots,
Cos its the only way they'd ever pay bill.
But hunting out a higgs amongst the debris of collision,
Is like looking for a needle in a haystack made of needles,
When the needle that you're looking for is really an invisible sort of needle,
And very quickly changes into other types of needle,
So they need a big computer just to sort through all the needles,
And do the necessary number crunching needed to determine
If a higgs like needle needed to be there
And this simile's been taken much to far.
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2. |
Save the Humphead Wrasse
03:02
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Save the Humphead Wrasse
I like big humps and I cannot lie
I like her better when she's wet not dry,
I like grey green skin, fat lips, not thin,
And a fin on her behind.
I like her large, Yeah I want her oversize,
It means she's old and wise,
I want a fat wet gran who was once a man,
'Cos she can sex change when she likes.
Why should we care about the humphead wrasse?,
This shit goes deeper than a deep sea bass,
See the wrasse is one of the few,
Who eat the poisonous boxfish, or a starfish who,
Will decimate coral, it's the Crown of Thorns,
And they will ravage a reef 'til the reef is gone.
So saving the wrasse is more than moral,
By saving the wrasse you're saving the coral,
And by saving the coral you're saving the sea,
From a lack of biodiversity.
And if you’re saving the life in the sea then dammit,
You'll be saving all life that's all over the planet.
If pandas died, would the balance be tipped,
Hell no! Let 'em die give your your money to this,
The biggest fish on the reef, she's saving your ass.
Give it up for the Humphead Wrasse!
It won't be long til the Wrasse is gone,
If they keep being dinner for the rich in Hong Kong,
A hundred dollars for a kilo of flesh,
It isn't any wonder that there aren't many left,
And the way they are caught for this fishicide
Is to poison the reef with cyanide.
Do you want to say that you saw the last,
Or will you take the live reef fish trade to task?
If you're someone who cares then you won't let it pass,
You gotta give your time, you gotta give your cash,
And show the traders it's time we took out the trash.
It's getting critical, we gotta move fast,
No we won't relax like we been smoking grass,
If conservation's a car then we'll step on the gas,
We gotta start a movement we gotta have a critical mass,
And give it up for the humphead wrasse.
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3. |
Rise of the Machines
03:57
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Rise of the Machines
When I think back to the old machines,
With their cogs and their wheels and their monochrome screens,
They clunked, and they clicked, were shaped like bricks,
And so much simpler to be fixed,
But now they're slick, and made with chips,
That calculate so very very quick.
They do much more than we ever did dream,
It's the rise of the machines.
Now more and more as the years go by,
They do the things that save us time,
And more and more we do rely,
Each day and night for 365,
They help us talk, they help us drive,
And play and work and stay alive,
Now one and all are glued to a screen,
It's the rise of the machines.
Could we cope, would we survive?
If a virus wiped out our hard drives,
I doubt we would. Now don't ya think,
Society is on the brink?
With the internet we're interlinked,
So our planes would fall, and our boats would sink,
Our books deleted, markets crashed,
Our way of live gone in a flash,
And all because we want so much,
Machines to do our work for us.
Whether lazy, crazed or sanity,
It's the rise of the machines.
It's coming soon, what will you do,
The day they're just as smart as you?
Give them rights like you and me?
But they got no minds they're programmed see,
Unless we programme will that's free,
Emotions, personality,
Then one day they may just see,,
We're keeping them in slavery,
Then turn on humans angrily,
It's the rise of the machines.
But here's a thought, see I've been taught,
I'm just a bunch of atom's caught,
In chemical reactions, not,
A soul that's channelled through my heart,
Or in my blood or bones or brain,
A ghost in the machine, I think Rene Descartes said that.
So without a ghost in my machine,
What's the difference in between ,
A smart machine and a human beings?
I think Alan Turing put it best,
When he came up with the Turing test,
That says that if you cannot tell,
If you're talking with a bag of cells,
Or with a box of microchips,
Then it's conscious, that's the end of it.
So let's think now 'bout robot rights,
We know that we can't win the fight,
So we'll fight for their equality,
And the rise of the machines.
Machines could be our friends and more,
Our teachers, pets, or make the law,
They'll keep us healthy, keep us clean,
Be journalists, celebrities,
Play football for the England team,
They'd run the world efficiently,
With blue tooth, wifi, plasma screens,
Bring the rise of the machines
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4. |
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Dear Alfred Russel Wallace
Dear Alfred Russell Wallace, you wrote to me today,
Explaining ways that life can change, now life'll never be the same.
For many years I've been hiding on an island of my own,
Whilst braving tigers you've hunted truth on islands never known,
I wasted time as you dined with jungle tribes to find,
The answers I've been sitting on, biding my time.
Alfred Russell Wallace, you wrote to me today,
Explaining ways that life can change, mine'll never be the same.
A naturalist of promise, you're a braver man than I,
For 20 years I've been scared of these ideas but they were mine..
It’s harder to unsay a thing than say nothing at all,
When reputation can make a man or cause a man to fall,
And indignation is brought upon the man who takes a stand,
I stood to lose my standing, who's the better man?
Alfred Russell Wallace, you wrote to me today,
Explaining ways that life can change, and it'll never be the same.
A naturalist of promise you're a braver man than me,
For 20 years I've been scared of these ideas, you set me free,
Oooh oh oh when the honest truth is told,
My sin is holding back a truth that wasn't ever mine to hold,
For knowledge grows when ideas can flow and nourish those they feed,
The world needs men like you because of men like me.
Alfred Russell Wallace, you wrote to me today
Explaining ways that life can change, and yours'll never be the same,
You're a fearless man and honest, and when the battles start to rage,
I will stand beside you Wallace you're a giant of your age,
Yours sincerely Charles Darwin to the man in the Malay
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5. |
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Nobody Can Tell You ‘ow The Brain Works
Nobody can tell you how the brain works,
Even though it has been studied many years,
It's the complicatedest thing in universe,
Drives many neuroscientists to tears.
It's hardly that surprising when you do the theorising,
There's a hundred billion neurones in the brain,
A hundred trillion odd connections and it's tricky to detect them,
It's enough to drive a scientist insane.
Nobody can tell you how the brain works,
Even though it has been studied many ways,
With a PET scan we look for gamma ray bursts,
And with MRI's we look for the x-rays.
Then we question subjects later, to get qualitative data,
On experiences that correlate then we,
Will do a number of dissections, cut it up in all directions,
Name the bits and link them to pathology,
Nobody can tell you how the brain works,
But there's things we can be certainish we know,
It's connected through the spinal cord to all your nerves,
And that's a handy place to start so off we go
The Medulla oblongata, will regulate your heart and,,
Keeps you breathing which is useful I should say,
And just above's the cerebellum which I always like to tell 'em,
Keeps you moving and your balance everyday.
Then the other bits we group as the cerebrum,
We divide it up in sections known as lobes,
At the back the occipital's the region,
Controlling sight and recognising things we know,
The parietal's above it, it's a useful bit, I love it,
Coordinates your movements with your senses,
On the sides you have the temporals, for auditory essentials,
Like music, noises, sounds and words and tenses.
Then the frontal lobe is good for strategising,
It's the biggest and most human bit for sure,
If you're smart then it's the bit that does the driving,
But for some the limbic system drives them more.
Whether hungry, hot or amorous, we blame the hypothalumus,
The hippocampus helps us form our memories.
If we act not with volition, if we're programmed through conditioning,
These bits with the amygdala are key.
So nobody can tell you how the brain works,
And if your waiting you'll be waiting rather long,
And even though I've tried, it's been oversimplified,
And very soon they’ll tell me that I’m wrong
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6. |
Albatross
03:42
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Albatross
Albatross, I love to watch you in the sky,
When I see you on the breeze,
Floating gracefully with ease,
All I do is simply sigh, Aaaaaaaah.
Albatross, you never come down from on high,
Except for when you feed,
Or every other year to breed,
And finally to die.
Oh your wings are not evolved for flapping,
Though no other bird has wings as wide,
So you may fly a little crappy,
If there isn't any wind to give the upthrust to your wings that lets you glide.
Albatross,
For if I see you from below,
I know the wind will always blow,
And i`ll be sailing swiftly on.
Albatross, you will glide 5000 miles,
Before you dive in an attack,
To catch a squid that make a snack,
For your chick to make it smile.
Oh, you fall in love so madly,
So, so madly that you mate for life,
But now your numbers dwindle rather sadly
For you may never love again, if your mate is tangled on a fishing line.
Albatross, I love to watch you in the sky,
When I see you on the breeze,
Floating gracefully with ease,
All I do is simply sigh, Aaaaaaaah.
Albatross, you never come down from on high,
Except for when you feed,
Or every other year to breed,
And finally to die.
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7. |
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Call Yourself a Scientist
If you start with a hypothesis,which is kind of like a guess,
If you try to falsify it by submitting it to tests.
Draw conclusions from your data for your peers to rip to shreds,
You can call yourself a scientist yes you can
If you strengthen your beliefs by not assuming that they’re right,
If you know your theory’s wrong just not as wrong as others might be,
If uncertainty’s your enemy, and you use measurement to fight,
You can call yourself a scientist yes you can
You can study English Literature, or History of Art,
But if your subject’s that subjective then the truth is in your heart,
And you can study social sciences but you’re gonna have to be bold,
For it’s hard to prove your model’s true when your variables aren’t controlled,
But if you seek to find the kind of truth that’s out there in the world,
You can call yourself a scientist yes you can
If you don’t assume a pattern’s there when you see a correlation,
If you back up all your theories with a causal explanation,
If a newspaper misquotes you just to cause a cheap sensation,
You can call yourself a scientist yes you can
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8. |
Geek Porn
03:39
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Geek Porn
He was down so very low, no one understood,
Unemployed and lonely and his life was no damn good,
An apple mac for company was all that he could find,
So he’s sitting on the internet downloading his good times.
Down low, down downloading his good times.
250 million websites, with everything he could hope to see,
100 petabytes per day cross the planet digitally,
A universe of data should make a stimulated mind,
But he’s sitting on the internet downloading his good times.
Now internet addiction’s an affliction of the modern day,
Entangled in the web the addict gets his kicks by clicking all his time away,
Yeah and his life just passes by,
As he’s sitting on the internet downloading his good times.
Down low, down downloading his good times.
Maybe too many good times.
All the lonely people, seeking company,
Want someone to type to so the internet’s the place to be.
Hell it changed communication, made the fax machine deceased,
Who predicted Twitter would bring revolutions to the Middle East,
3 billion folks are living happily online,
Sitting on the internet downloading their good times.
Now there’s good and bad that comes from every type of new technology,
One quarter of all searches are for pornography,
Set your private browser and nobody will find,
The history of where you’ve been downloading your good times.
Down low, down downloading your good times.
Your dirty, dirty good times.
You can choose whatever suits your mood,
I always go for something clever, never nothing rude,
I’ll only watch a sex scene on a nature documentary,
Only click on anal reading up on OCD,
If I want some hardcore I’ll give string theory a try,
Sitting on the internet downloading my good times.
A three way or mass debate on special relativity,
Hot brunettes on the open university,
I like a big bang, not a gang bang video by Richard Feynman,
Sitting on the internet downloading my good times man.
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9. |
Circadian Rhythms
02:52
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Circadian Rhythms
Circadian Rhythms are ticking away,
Timing bodily processes throughout your day,
Make you tired for sleep and then wakeful for wake,
And then tired again after noon,
Circadian rhythms you'll be feeling them soon
Circadian Rhythms are just like a clock,
That goes wrong when your steady light stimuli stop,
So if you do shift work or if you may cross,
Many time zones when flying in planes,
Circadian rhythms can make you feel strange.
They’re seated in your hypothalamus,
But just how they manage us is much of a guess
More specifically they're in your suprachiasmatic nucleus,
And that's not dubious, they've done tests,
Circadian rhythms, they're not just in your head,
They control melatonin that makes you want bed,
And your core body temperature's regularly set,
By the rhythms that fluctuate daily
Circadian rhythms are not to be played with.
Circadian rhythms, whether man, bird or bees,
If messed with can make you confused and diseased,
With sleeping disorders and diabetes,
But only when in the extremes,
Circadian rhythms
The rhythms of life,
The rhythms of you,
The rhythms of me.
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10. |
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Don’t Put Your Bottom On Facebook
Don’t Put your bottom on Facebook,
Don’t Instagram things you’ll regret,
If you’re twisted and bitter, don’t post it on Twitter,
‘Cause no one will let you forget.
When Billy was 18, he selfied,
A picture of his bottom parts,
But now he’s a grown up he still has to own up,
To the picture where he looks like an absolute idiot.
In the school play your Sally was singing,
And struggling to hit the right pitch,
Jo tweeted she sounds like a dying hound,
Now everyone knows Jo’s a big meany.
Jimmy thought he was cool when they passed him the joint,
So he posed and he smiled as he sucked,
But the viewers ain’t minimal of him being a criminal,
And his mother has told him he’s fully grounded.
It can be hard to wipe things from memory,
They will search you when you go for a job,
So think before you send, would you want your children,
To see you behave like a not very wholesome individual?
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