Green and Black Aurora Over Norway

An Aurora Over Norway

The Unheard Music

Today's song is from a band that is not as "unheard" as some of the others I have posted. The band is The Psychedelic Furs. Most people know "Pretty In Pink", "Heaven" & "Love My Way" but their first self titled album in 1980 had a harder post-punk edge. This song is one of my favorite Furs tracks: PULSE.

I'd Like To Buy Some Art

Dali, Red Orchestra, 1957

The Unheard Music

Pylon was founded by guitarist Randy Bewley and bassist Michael Lachowski. Curtis Crowe soon signed on to play drums and after auditioning a series of vocalists, the band finally settled on Vanessa Briscoe, whose distinctive yelping style ideally complemented the music's jagged guitars and martial rhythms. The quartet made its live debut in March 1979. Pylon's debut single, "Cool," earned them strong critical notices and the song was a major underground dance hit. That summer, they issued their debut LP Gyrate, also opening for the B-52's in New York's Central Park. After Pylon’s second album, 1983's Chomp, and an abortive tour in support of U2, the band dissolved. In 1987 Rolling Stone named R.E.M. "America's Best Band," drummer Bill Berry argued the honor actually belonged to Pylon. With the 1988 release of the Hits compilation, Pylon reformed. After opening for R.E.M. on their Green tour, they also recorded a new album, 1990s Chain. When Bewley decided to leave the band Pylon called it quits once again, playing their final show at Athens' famed 40 Watt Club on November 22, 1991. (Source) 2005 saw the return of Pylon once again. A few shows were played to sold out crowds. The band promises unreleased Pylon music and possible new music to be released. Visit wearepylon for more.

Here is the song “Crazy” from their second album Chomp. More from Pylon in the weeks to come.


Another Unheard artist is Sexbeat. Their song "Sexbeat" was an underground dance punk new wave hit. I searched but could not find anything out about them! Let me know if you have any info.

Here is the only song I know from them called "Sexbeat".

Creamy Pink Snow Covers Russian Region

Creamy pink snow has covered the northern regions of Russia’s Maritime territory, news agencies reported Monday.For some reason, the snow that fell in the densely populated northern regions after a powerful cyclone had acquired a pink color of varying tints.Experts at the local meteorology centre said sand from neighboring Mongolia was to blame for this unusual natural phenomenon. Before it arrived in Maritime, the cyclone passed Mongolia, where sand storms had been raging in the desert. “The winds of the cyclone embraced dust particles that colored the fallouts,” the experts said.February’s yellow snowfall with a strong odor and an oily texture was observed on Russia’s Far East island of Sakhalin. The color, odor and texture of the snow may have been a result of environmental pollution caused by the island’s oil and natural gas industry. However, experts do not rule out this could be caused by volcanic activity. (Source)

The Z Machine

Z Machine Sets Unexpected Earth Temperature Record
Why is this plasma so hot? Physicists aren't sure. What is known for sure is that the Z Machine running at Sandia National Laboratories created a plasma that was unexpectedly hot. The plasma reached a temperature in excess of two billion Kelvin, making it arguably the hottest human made thing ever in the history of the Earth and, for a brief time, hotter than the interiors of stars. The Z Machine experiment, pictured above, purposely creates high temperatures by focusing 20 million amps of electricity into a small region further confined by a magnetic field. Vertical wires give the Z Machine its name. During the unexpected powerful contained explosion, the Z machine released about 80 times the world's entire electrical power usage for a brief fraction of a second. Experiments with the Z Machine are helping to explain the physics of Solar flares, design more efficient nuclear fusion plants, test materials under extreme heat, and gather data for the computer modeling of nuclear explosions.
(Source)

Dino

Bruiser

Bruiser

Afternoon In Ft. Lauderdale

Water On Saturn’s Moon???

NASA's Cassini spacecraft may have found evidence of liquid water reservoirs that erupt in Yellowstone-like geysers on Saturn's moon Enceladus. The rare occurrence of liquid water so near the surface raises many new questions about this mysterious moon.

"We realize that this is a radical conclusion -- that we may have evidence for liquid water within a body so small and so cold," said Carolyn Porco, Cassini imaging team leader at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo. "However, if we are right, we have significantly broadened the diversity of solar system environments where we might possibly have conditions suitable for living organisms."

High-resolution Cassini images show icy jets and towering plumes ejecting huge quantities of particles at high speed. Scientists examined several models to explain the process. They ruled out the idea the particles are produced or blown off the moon's surface by vapor created when warm water ice converts to a gas. Instead, scientists have found evidence for a much more exciting possibility. The jets might be erupting from near-surface pockets of liquid water above 0 degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit), like cold versions of the Old Faithful geyser in Yellowstone

"We previously knew of at most three places where active volcanism exists: Jupiter's moon Io, Earth, and possibly Neptune's moon Triton. Cassini changed all that, making Enceladus the latest member of this very exclusive club, and one of the most exciting places in the solar system," said John Spencer, Cassini scientist, Southwest Research Institute, Boulder.
"Other moons in the solar system [may] have liquid-water oceans covered by kilometers of icy crust," said Andrew Ingersoll, imaging team member and atmospheric scientist at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif. "What's different here is that pockets of liquid water may be no more than tens of meters below the surface."
"As Cassini approached Saturn, we discovered the Saturnian system is filled with oxygen atoms. At the time we had no idea where the oxygen was coming from," said Candy Hansen, Cassini scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena. "Now we know Enceladus is spewing out water molecules, which break down into oxygen and hydrogen."
Scientists still have many questions. Why is Enceladus so active? Might this activity have been continuous enough over the moon's history for life to have had a chance to take hold in the moon's interior? In the spring of 2008, scientists will get another chance to look at the geysers--and another crack at answering these questions--when Cassini flies within 350 kilometers (approximately 220 miles) of Enceladus.
"There's no question, along with the moon Titan, Enceladus should be a very high priority for us," said Jonathan Lunine, Cassini interdisciplinary scientist, University of Arizona, Tucson, Ariz. "Saturn has given us two exciting worlds to explore."Mission scientists report these and other Enceladus findings in this week's issue of Science.
(Source)

Weird...

Want to know what this is???

Jupiter's New Red Spot.

Jupiter is growing a new red spot - The official name of this storm is "Oval BA," but "Red Jr." might be better. It's about half the size of the famous Great Red Spot and almost exactly the same color. Oval BA first appeared in the year 2000 when three smaller spots collided and merged. Using Hubble and other telescopes, astronomers watched with great interest. A similar merger centuries ago may have created the original Great Red Spot, a storm twice as wide as our planet and at least 300 years old.

At first, Oval BA remained white—the same color as the storms that combined to create it. But in recent months, things began to change:
"The oval was white in November 2005, it slowly turned brown in December 2005, and red a few weeks ago," reports Go. "Now it is the same color as the Great Red Spot!"

For the full story, click here.

I'd Like To Buy Some Art

Dali, The Colossus of Rhodes, 1954

CD Of The Week

Wolfmother bring the heavy! Check it.

Earth's Shrinking Antarctic!

Is the continent at the end of the Earth slowly melting? For millions of years, Antarctica, the frozen continent at the southern end of planet Earth, has been encased in a gigantic sheet of ice. Recently, the orbiting robotic GRACE satellite has been taking sensitive measurements of the gravity for the entire Earth, including Antarctica. Recent analysis of Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) data indicate that the Antarctic ice sheet might have lost enough mass to cause the worlds' oceans to rise about 1.2 millimeters, on the average, from between 2002 and 2005. Although this may not seem like much, the equivalent amount of water is about 150 trillion liters, equivalent to the amount of water used by US residents in three months. Uncertainties in the measurement make the mass loss uncertain by about 80 trillion liters. Pictured above is an iceberg that is a small part of the Antarctic ice sheet. Future research will likely focus on trying to better understand the data, take more data, predict future trends, and understand possible effects of these trends on the future climate of our entire home planet.
(Source)

"I'd Like To Buy Some Art"

Plant, 1924 Dali