Here Comes Science, the new release from They Might Be Giants, is the greatest children’s album in the history of recorded music.

I don’t have children of my own, and I don’t have any close friends with children, and I don’t even particularly like children, so I know next-to-nothing about the music that is typically aimed at them. But seeing as a quick search on Amazon suggests such inane drivel as 20 Simply Super Singable Silly Songs and Choo Choo Soul, I feel safe in my assumption. I’m also leaving out such classics as The Tiger Lillies’ masterpiece Shockheaded Peter, because that isn’t actually an album for children so much as it is an album for people who hate children. That being said, whether or not Here Comes Science is literally the best children’s album ever, the fact remains that it’s really fucking good.

Here Comes Science is TMBG’s third educational album for children, following Here Come the ABCs and Here Come the 123s. Both earlier efforts have their merits; though the subject matter is, understandably, limited. How much can you really say in a song about learning how to count? This new effort, in contrast, gives the Giants ample room to shine, which will be no surprise to long-term fans familiar with TMBG classics (found on regular albums aimed at adults!) like “Why Does the Sun Shine?” and “Mammal.”

In its purist form, Here Comes Science is an album about how awesome science is. “I Am a Paleontologist,” for example, is about how exciting it is to have a career in a scientific profession. “My Brother the Ape” is a song about coming to terms with the realization that all life on Earth stems from a single common ancestor (with joyful results). Other songs get down to the business of straight education to catchy rhythms and metaphors, like “The Bloodmobile” (which compares the circulatory system to mass transit), “Solid Liquid Gas,” (which features a neat little device where the singing speeds up or slows down in relation to the movement of the atoms in each state of matter), and “Roy G. Biv” (which is so catchy it could be a standard pop song instead of a kids’ song).

One thing I love about Here Comes Science is that it never feels condescending or dumbed-down. The information is accurate and loaded with big words that children may not know on their first listening, but which they will assimilate given time (in other words, kids who own this album are likely to have the best vocabularies in their classes — hint hint, parents). Parents can listen to the album with their kids without wanting to bang their heads against the wall, and the subject matter is sure to be genuinely thought-provoking.

The real greatness behind Here Comes Science, however, is that it features Stephen Colbert-sized balls. One would expect, in a country where the rational regularly bend over backward to avoid offending the staunchly irrational, that anything potentially controversial might be edited out. This is not the case, and They Might Be Giants are to be commended for their bravery in this matter above all else. The album’s opening song, “Science is Real,” begins with the following lyrics:

“I like the stories
About angels, unicorns and elves
Now I like the stories
As much as anybody else
But when I’m seeking knowledge
Either simple or abstract
The facts are with science…”

When those lyrics were revealed earlier this month, P.Z. Myers (scientist/atheist blogger superhero) posted a quick commentary on his blog displaying some of the angry comments the album received on Amazon.com even before the album was released:

“As a Christian I’m offended by comparing unicorns, elves with angels. Unicorns and Elves are fiction, and angels are biblical. End of story.”
–Some idiot.

Yeah. In other words, John and John are pissing off all the right people.

The best, and most potentially influential, song on Here Comes Science, in my opinion, is “Put it to the Test.” On its surface, it’s an educational song about the Scientific Method. In reality, it’s a scathing attack on all forms of bullshit. Relevant lyrics include:

“Are you sure that that thing is true?
Or did someone just tell it to you?
Come up with a test…

…Find a way to show what would happen
If you were incorrect
A fact is just a fantasy
Unless it can be checked…

…Don’t believe it ’cause they say it’s so
If it’s not true, you have a right to know
Put it to the test…”

Remember now, this is an album for children. And while the Scientific Method is the single greatest tool for every kind of experimentation, this song has a deeper meaning. TMBG is saying, “Hey kids! You know all those adults that tell you things? All those parents and teachers and politicians and clergymen? It’s quite possible that they’re full of shit. Don’t just take them at their word. Demand proof.” And that is the best lesson any child can learn. Thank you, very sincerely, Mr. Flansburgh and Mr. Linnell, for respecting us enough to try to save our future generations from becoming tomorrow’s gullible morons.

Hello everyone, and welcome to “Ask The Beak,” a new segment where we answer questions from fans who think, for whatever reason, that we’re the right sort of people to clear things up. This week’s question comes from long-time reader and occasional contributor Princess Wolfsbane:

“Heard anything more interesting about the green comet than just this summary? I’m not sure what else there is to find out about it at this stage, but if there is more, I would be interested in reading about it in The Beak.”
–Princess Wolfsbane, Brooklyn, NY (Via e-mail)

Well Princess, let’s start out with what we know from the provided Discovery Channel link. The comet’s name is Lulin, and was discovered by a Chinese undergrad in 2007. It’s currently visible in North America, and expected to reach its closest (and therefore most visible) point relative to the Earth on February 24. And it’s green, which, presumably, is what our questioner is really interested in. Regarding the greenness, Discovery says,

“The color is caused by gases spewing off the comet nucleus as it heats up during its trip toward the sun. The gases glow green in sunlight.”

…Which is a bit vague. Comets are composed primarily of water-ice and rock, with various gases mixed in. As with most other objects in the universe, a body’s color depends on its chemical composition. NASA, thankfully, has seen fit to fill in the blanks:

“Jets spewing from the comet’s nucleus contain cyanogen (CN: a poisonous gas found in many comets) and diatomic carbon (C₂). Both substances glow green when illuminated by sunlight in the near-vacuum of space.”

So I’d say that’s pretty interesting, dear reader. The comet is poison! A fucking poisonous comet! Is this a great solar system or what? Not that Lulin’s supply of cyanogen (which, here on Earth, is generated from cyanide compounds) is going to have any effect on us. Though, again according to NASA’s write-up, we wouldn’t have known this a century ago:

“In 1910, many people panicked when astronomers revealed Earth would pass through the cyanogen-rich tail of Comet Halley. False alarm: The wispy tail of the comet couldn’t penetrate Earth’s dense atmosphere; even it if had penetrated, there wasn’t enough cyanogen to cause real trouble. Comet Lulin will cause even less trouble than Halley did. At closest approach in late February, Lulin will stop 38 million miles short of Earth, utterly harmless.”

Summary: Lulin is green because it’s full of poison gas, but too far away to poison us here on Earth. It’s also probably too far away to be seen in brightly-lit areas like New York City (where this week’s letter-writer lives), but in case any of you are planning on being out in the styx in the next few weeks, Sky and Telescope has some tips on the best times to look.

If you would like a Beakly perspective on a lingering issue that’s been bothering you, write to lordhoratio(AT)gmail(DOT)com and varius(AT)thebeak(DOT)org and maybe we’ll answer your question on a slow news day.

Today marks the two-hundredth anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin. All over the world, people are holding Darwin Day events, and if you get to that website early enough, you might still have time to attend one of them, if that’s your thing.

Meanwhile, only 39% of Americans believe in evolution. Indeed, the objections to Darwin’s theory are so widespread that even a respectable polling organization like Gallup discusses evolution in terms of believing. The poll’s intentions seem honorable enough; there’s no sign that they’re trying to tear down belief in evolution, and the accompanying text expresses alarm (of the restrained, Gallup-y variety) that so few people are willing to accept Darwin’s theory.

On the positive side, it also says that people who believe in evolution are the largest single group in the poll, followed by “No opinion either Way” at 36% and “Do not believe in evolution” at 25%. That’s a hell of a lot better than science has done in previous polls — so much better, in fact, that I’m wondering if something has gone horribly wrong with their methodology. Remember this chart from 2006?

(Click for larger image)

Yeah. Either a lot of people have changed their minds in the last couple of years, or Gallup just got lucky and called more indecisive people than crazy ones. Or one of a thousand other, more plausible solutions which I’m not addressing because they aren’t funny.

The worst part is, the Darwin Day festivities will almost certainly backfire. They will be treated as “proof” that scientists secretly worship Darwin, or evolution itself, just as their opponents worship God, or Xenu, or whoever. After all, Charles Darwin wasn’t born with a copy of On the Origin of Species in his hand. His birth has nothing to do with his scientific legacy. And yet, instead of celebrating the voyage of the Beagle, or the publication of his book, they’re holding events on his birthday. Seriously, I have heard this argument being made already.

Well, guess what? It’s not science’s fault that our society places an inordinate amount of emphasis on birthdays and anniversaries. And it’s certainly not their fault that people love to celebrate milestones whenever they get a chance. On the Origin of Species will turn 150 in November, and I’d love to see another round of nerdy celebration when that happens. Richard Dawkins could give a keynote address, perhaps titled, “Apparently, It Takes More Than 150 Fucking Years For an Idea to Sink In.”

I shouldn’t let my frustration color this event any more than it already has. Happy Darwin Day, everyone. Now get your asses out there and evolve already.

P.S. Today marks another important birthday. On February 12, 1809 — the same day as Darwin — Abraham Lincoln was born. Lincoln had a far more profound effect on this country’s history than Darwin, and was the subject of far more controversy at the time, but his legacy is now more or less secure. While he still has his opponents, they are few and far between; nearly every group in America today wants to claim Lincoln as their own. But, in the interest of keeping banks open, we rescheduled his birthday to Presidents’ Day, and now celebrate it by buying shit at Target. It’s not the most dignified memorial for the man who freed the slaves, but I suspect Darwin would envy the public’s easygoing acceptance of Lincoln.

Attention apocalypse crackpots and physics geeks! We (finally) have news on the revised timetable for the world’s (potentially) greatest atom-smasher, the Large Hadron Collider. Get ready, because it’s going to start up in September 2009. Exactly one year later than it was supposed to.

You may recall, loyal reader, that last fall, when we were stressed out by the horrors of the McCain/Palin ticket, certain paranoids were also stressed out by (silly) rumors that the LHC might create a black hole that could swallow Switzerland. Varius mentioned the controversy early on, prompting me to attempt to calm things down again. Then, just when we were getting used to the idea, an unfortunate leak of helium superfluid knocked the entire system out of commission for the duration of the winter, if not longer.

It seems that we’re now on the way to being back in business, with some useful new fail-safes thrown in. According to a report filed yesterday by New Scientist,

“CERN is now installing an early-warning system to detect nano-ohm rises in resistance in the superconducting wires that power the LHC’s bending magnets. It is also fitting all magnets with additional pressure relief valves to reduce collateral damage in case of a similar incident. Half of the valves will be in place this year.”

And that’s good news, because, as has been stated elsewhere, the least little malfunction causes the whole fucking thing to shut down. So take heart, LHC fans! All that cool stuff that was supposed to happen with gravitons and rolled-up dimensions and Higgs boson particles can all still happen. Just push all your hopes and dreams back a year. We’ll see you in September.

Big news tonight out of the marine biology community: the world’s oceans are being invaded by immortal jellyfish.

(Sidenote: You know what I love about the 21st century? It’s turning out to be just as psychotically fucked-up as the weirdest science fiction movies predicted. Hail Eris!)

Meet Turritopsis Nutricula, a jellyfish originally from the Caribbean, a member of the Hydrozoan taxonomic class, and fucking immortal. Turritopsis Nutricula, which deserves a more succinct name, has developed the unique ability to repeat its own life cycle an indefinite number of times. Most species of jellyfish die shortly after reproducing. But Turritopsis Nutricula practices the arcane art of transdifferentiation, which essentially means that an already specialized cell can transform into another kind of cell, similar to the way stem cells do — only here, it’s all the cells in the jellyfish’s body.

As far as we’ve been able to determine, this basically means that Turritopsis Nutricula has harnessed transdifferentiation to, after mating, revert all their cells back to a juvenile (polyp) form. In essence, they restart their lives, return their DNA to its pristine form, and do it all over again. It would be a bit like living into your twenties, having a baby, zapping back into a 5-year-old, and then growing up all over again, having another baby, and so on and so on, at least until something eats you or you get caught in a tuna net.

And because Turritopsis Nutricula never dies of natural causes, their numbers are growing fast, and they’re spreading throughout the world’s oceans. The Daily Telegraph quoted Dr. Maria Miglietta of the Smithsonian explaining it thusly:

“We are looking at a worldwide silent invasion.”

I don’t even care anymore, that’s just fucking cool. This really leaves us with only one question: do Turritopsis Nutriculas taste good?

On January 15, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory held a special party for the 5-year birthdays of their surprisingly resilient rovers Spirit and Opportunity, which I followed, in the laziest way possible, by reading about it on the Mars Rovers Twitter page. And while monitoring the tweets, I noticed two things. 1.) Their keynote speaker was CNN Science Correspondent and top geek Miles O’Brien. 2.) Miles O’Brien doesn’t work at CNN anymore. Wait, what?

“Keynote speaker @MilesOBrien talks about leaving CNN, the impact of the rovers, and the future of space journalism.” 6:46 PM Jan 15th.

“Miles: “Spirit and Oppy are literally, figuratively “rock stars.” If I had their Q rating I’d still be at CNN.” 6:52 PM Jan 15th.

“Well,” I thought, “That’s weird.” Why would CNN fire their top space nerd? But then, in front of a smiling crowd of astroengineers and roboticists, O’Brien began venting his frustration with traditional media.

“Miles: “the world is shifting below the media’s feet. Today’s bloggers, tweeters, etc, can compete with an army of journalists.” 6:58 PM Jan 15th.

“Miles (@milesobrien): “there are interested people out there– the mainstream media may no longer be the best way to reach them.” 7:00 PM Jan 15th.

Harsh! And perfectly accurate, of course. O’Brien’s suddenly vocal cynicism with the news is understandable, and quite timely — as I was soon to discover — but what the hell happened to make CNN dump him in the first place? I did some digging.

A group of conspiracy buffs on the forums over at unexplained-mysteries.com insist that O’Brien was fired for his week-long UFO special, which aired on CNN’s American Morning program. In particular, they cite this video, in which was discussed a possible Martian fossil discovered in a photo taken by the Opportunity rover. I’ll grant that the timing fits, but unfortunately, the reasoning doesn’t. First off all, this supposed fossil is old news; Opportunity took the photo in 2004, at which time it was highly publicized. Nothing in O’Brien’s report was groundbreaking in the least. And, second, if the government is trying to cover up anything space-related, it damn well isn’t going to be a little rock that kind of looks like a worm.

No, I’m afraid the truth of the matter is far more sinister. CNN didn’t just fire Miles O’Brien, CNN fired their entire science team.

“O’Brien’s departure comes as the network dismantles its science, space, environment and technology unit in Atlanta. That includes O’Brien as well as six producers.”

Yes, it seems that CNN has chosen to lump all coverage of what is easily their most broad and complicated topic into the “general editorial structure.” It’s bad enough that the majority of science reporting in the mainstream media today is about pharmaceutical upgrades for aging Baby Boomers and unnecessarily cruel rants about fat children. And now they’re going to cut the only people who were enthusiastic about rocket ships? For shame, CNN.

As Curtis Brainard of the Columbia Journalism Review commented last month,

“The decision to eliminate the positions seems particularly misguided at a time when world events would seem to warrant expanding science and environmental staff.”

He’s right. If you think scientific and technological advances permeate our lives now, just wait until you see what happens in the next four years. Don’t forget, it was only last Tuesday when President Obama declared, “We will restore science to its rightful place.” I don’t recommend taking that shit lightly.