Today I Love Teaching

Astrodyke linked to a great article about the total lunar eclipse. Among other things, it explains why the moon looks red during the eclipse.

I could not help myself, so I sent an e-mail to students in my last semester's general education science course. In this class we talked about many many different things - but one of them was sky color during sunsets.

Hi former [cool physchembio gened] students!

This article explains why the moon looks red in a total lunar eclipse (See the section "Red Light in the Dark"):

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/home/15357796.html

(And, if you are getting this note in real time - the eclipse looks pretty cool right now!)

- Prof. Twice

And I received back:

I was talking to [another student] earlier and said "why the heck is it red if the Earth is between the moon and the sun blocking the light?" Lol, now I know the answer. Thank you!

Hope the semester is going well,

-A. Student

In another nice episode of perfect timing in teaching, our seminar speaker (a guest I invited, but from a totally different sub-field) spoke about a phenomenon I covered only 6 hours earlier in class. Gotta love it when that happens.

On the not-so-great side, due to the total eclipse of the moon and coming of age in the eighties, I now have the song Total Eclipse of the Heart stuck in my head. And now perhaps you do too. Sorry.

About this Radiohead thing...

So, all over NPR this morning, I heard a lot about how innovative the band was being. Yes, it is interesting that they are selling their latest album directly to fans via download. And it is also cool that buyers get to choose what they are going to pay.

But all I could think of was, isn't this more or less what shareware has been, for like, ever?

Clearly, I'm a Child of the Eighties

Music from my recent road trip:

Scorpions: Best of Rockers and Ballads
Queensryche: Empire
Van Halen: Van Halen
Aerosmith: Greatest Hits
Queen: Classic Queen

Satisfaction

Heard on NPR's Hearing Voices today...

How to described the sound of Mick Jagger's voice?

The first bad thing you did that felt good

Oh yeah.