Rap ID Advice for H1N1

If you get H1N1 influenza or any other infectious disease (ID) this year, chances are really, really good that it won't be from a radiologist. If you are auscultated, touched or sneezed upon by a physician, we're not the 'droids you're looking for.

However, there are a lot of other major disease vectors out there to contend with, i.e., your friends and family and co-workers. To protect yourself from them, here are a few helpful hints from Dr. John D. Clarke, medical director of Long Island Railroad:





HT to Medgadget

Maybe There is Hope for Humans, After All

I recently posted about a very cool high speed robotic hand that could beat most humans in a finger race.

However, I was somewhat comforted today when I ran across this video of the real thing, playing guitar at speeds I would not have believed possible.

Rest easy, John Henry -- we're still ahead of the steam drills at a few things.


World Record Guitar Speed 2008 Tiago Della Vega

Violin-Playing Robot

Okay, dammit. It's not just the banjo players that will be losing gigs. Looks like fiddlers had also better keep an eye on their rear-view mirrors.

I'm almost afraid to look at YouTube these days, lest I see an X-ray-reading robot looking back at me...

The Power of the Pentatonic Scale

An old friend (and discerning reader of this blog) pointed me to the following video, wherein Bobby McFerrin demonstrates the power of the pentatonic scale at the World Science Festival 2009.

As Mr. McFerrin shows, the pentatonic scale is a great scale for improvisation -- it's hard to sing a wrong note. On a guitar, just noodling around on the simple 1-4, 1-3, 1-3, 1-3, 1-4, 1-4 pentatonic pattern is a fine way to spend a happy hour or two. It's impressive how many classic rock and blues licks fall out of this simple scale.

Pentatonicity is also the basis for a number of great old-time fiddle tunes, of which Billy in the Low Ground is an examplar. This version of BITLG shows the Blue Ridge Mountain Boys flinging a tasty torrent of notes about a pentatonic C scale.

I'll have to ask our physicists to program a pentatonic pulse sequence for me to use on our MRI machine. Seems like that ought to be handy for imaging the elusive banjo center of the brain.

(Hat tip to Anita Anderson)