The Klein Four Group is a very talented a cappella group "of the world of higher mathematics" of the Northwestern University mathematics department, composed of Clark Alexander, Scott Bailey, Mike Johnson, Kal Nanes, and Matt Salomone. Their viral single, a mathematical love song called Finite Simple Group (of Order Two), is funny and clever in an endearingly nerdy way.

The lyrics for Finite Simple Group (of Order Two):

The path of love is never smooth
But mine’s continuous for you
You’re the upper bound in the chains of my heart
You’re my Axiom of Choice, you know it’s true

But lately our relation’s not so well-defined
And I just can’t function without you
I’ll prove my proposition and I’m sure you’ll find
We’re a finite simple group of order two

I’m losing my identity
I’m getting tensor every day
And without loss of generality
I will assume that you feel the same way

Since every time I see you, you just quotient out
The faithful image that I map into
But when we’re one-to-one you’ll see what I’m about
‘Cause we’re a finite simple group of order two

Our equivalence was stable,
A principal love bundle sitting deep inside
But then you drove a wedge between our two-forms
Now everything is so complexified

When we first met, we simply connected
My heart was open but too dense
Our system was already directed
To have a finite limit, in some sense

I’m living in the kernel of a rank-one map
From my domain, its image looks so blue,
‘Cause all I see are zeroes, it’s a cruel trap
But we’re a finite simple group of order two

I’m not the smoothest operator in my class,
But we’re a mirror pair, me and you,
So let’s apply forgetful functors to the past
And be a finite simple group, a finite simple group,
Let’s be a finite simple group of order two
(Oughter: "Why not three?")

I’ve proved my proposition now, as you can see,
So let’s both be associative and free
And by corollary, this shows you and I to be
Purely inseparable. Q. E. D.

Simply brilliant! Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – via Fugufish

A fantastic find by the Athanasius Kircher Society:

The only piece of art on the moon (depending, we suppose, on one’s definition of art) is a 3?-tall aluminum sculpture titled “Fallen Astronaut.” It was created by Belgian artist Paul Van Hoeydonck and installed by Apollo 15 astronaut David Scott, along with a plaque bearing the names of the 14 astronauts and cosmonauts who died in the service of space exploration.

Link

Guitar and Marionette. A very funny clip about a guitarist (Patrick Sebastien?) and a marionette … You’ve gotta see it. Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – Thanks Ajit!

Astronomers have discovered a reservoir of simple sugars in a cloud of gas and dust near the center of our galaxy, some 26,000 light-years away – such a discovery suggested how molecular building blocks necessary for life may have come from outer space.

Although the chemistry on Earth and in interstellar clouds is much different, the results can be very similar. This and other recent studies show that prebiotic chemistry — the formation of the molecular building blocks necessary for the creation of life — occurs in interstellar clouds long before that cloud collapses to form a new solar system with planets. "Many of the interstellar molecules discovered to date are the same kinds detected in laboratory experiments specifically designed to synthesize prebiotic molecules. This fact suggests a universal prebiotic chemistry," said Jan M. Hollis of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD. This suggests that the molecular building blocks for the creation of life on a new planet might get a head start in the dust of interstellar clouds.

Link – via Cosmic Watercooler

From the website:

Lava cascades down the slopes of the Mayon volcano during its continuing ‘quiet eruption’ in Legazpi city, Albay province, south of Manila August 5, 2006. The Mayon volcano, the most active in the Philippines, has been erupting slowly, putting at risk the thousands of villagers around its slopes.

Link – via Random Citations

I wonder if this really works: a remote controlled, automatic crib rocker to "rock" a baby to sleep! Link – via sdamy

Photo: Richard Termine

Sesame Workshop (the makers of Sesame Street) launched a DVD package as part of an outreach program for family dealing with military deployment. In the DVD, Elmo’s red, fuzzy father goes to war …

Link – via William T. Foxtrot

Why send that ol’ boring bouquet of flowers when you can send an empty-calorie-laden bouquet of junk food snacks?

Link – via Tofupunk

From wikipedia:

The Wilhelm scream is a stock sound effect first used in 1951 for the movie Distant Drums. It has been featured in dozens of movies since. Alongside a certain recording of the cry of the Red-tailed Hawk, the "Universal telephone ring" [1] and "castle thunder," it is probably one of the most well-known cinematic sound clichés.

Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – via AQFL

Photo: Rick Stevens/SMH

From the website:

For the first time, Taronga Zoo has successfully bred the spectacular Jackson’s Chameleon, with 22 of the little creatures doing extremely well. Only 4cm long, the young tree dwellers were introduced to the media late last month.

Link – via olgui

5qm.de has a nice collection of vintage wallpapers from the fifties, sixties, and seventies! Link – via Drawn

Check out Travis Pastrana’s historic double back flip in Moto X Best Trick in the 2006 X-Games.

Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – via A Welsh View

Who says chemistry is boring? Just check out this oldie-but-goodie website by Paul May for molecules with silly or unusual names .. For example, did you know there is :

• Clitorin
• Constipatic Acid
• Erectone
  Fucitol (no, not that miracle drug)
• George and Bi-George
• Mirasorvone (yes, named after the actress Mira Sorvino)
• Moronic acid
  Penguinone
• Spamol
• Unununium (technically not a molecule. This element with a funny name was renamed roentgenium)

And many, many more: Link

In an article called "Hair Soy Sauce: A Revolting Alternative to the Conventional" for the Internet Journal of Toxicology, Alexander Tse-Yan Lee exposed that a cheap soy sauce brand in China marketed as "blended using the latest bioengineering technoloogy" had a secret ingredient: amino acid made from human hair!

The journalists then found the amino acid syrup manufacturer (a bioengineering company) in Hubei province. When asking how the amino acid syrup (or powder) was generated, the manufacturer replied that the powder was generated from human hair ( 1 , 2 , 3 ). Because the human hair was gathered from salon, barbershop and hospitals around the country, it was unhygienic and mixed with condom, used hospital cottons, used menstrual cycle pad, used syringe, etc (figure 1). After filtered by the workers, the hair would then cut small for being processed into amino acid syrup

Link – via Fortean Times