As you can imagine from the video's title, I got immediately curious about what monsters lie in the cosmos. Throw in Morgan Freeman and I'm completely sold! Enjoy it and learn more about what is all around our planet and will eventually kill it. In fact, make sure to check out all the videos from Symphony of Science - it's awesome!

~Ally

      If I'm not mistaken, I must have completed the big-music-festivals cycle this weekend, attending Lollapalooza in São Paulo!
      I'd say mainly two things about this festival:
     1. Never arrive almost in time for your favorite band's gig (I didn't see Imagine Dragons because of it - crap!);
    2. Dear organizers, please don't make the stages so far from each other again! Seriously, it took almost half an hour to get from one stage to another, which resulted in several show minutes lost, not to mention the difficulty of locating the stages!
     It wasn't so well organized as Rock in Rio, if you want comparisons - and I know you do! -, the place was too big (although it comported the crowd relatively well) and, as always, food and beer were too expensive. The only mega downside was the "how-to-get-home" organization: there were few public transportations and taxis simply wouldn't collect passangers (it was the first time I saw it in my whole life!), which almost ruined my night.
     As a whole, it was the festival that I least enjoyed, when comparing it with SWU and Rock in Rio. Anyway, my final conclusion regarding Lolla is this: I'll go again next year, if the line-up is cool and if I arrange a decent transportation to and from the festival.

~Ally

     After watching the new Disney movie "Frozen" a couple of times, I found out that one of my favorite songs in it (called "Vuelie") were based on chants from the Saami people. So I decided to dig a little deeper about their history and traditions. Oh boy... Amazing folks.
     Saami (also referred to as Sami) in Scandinavia can be compared to many other indigenous peoples. They now live in relative harmony with the mainstream population, but the relationship has by no means been one without conflict. In the past the Sami have been known as Lapps, though this term is now widely considered to be derogatory. The giant area named Sapmi, which covers all land north of the Arctic Circle in Sweden, Norway, Finland and the Russian Kola Peninsula, as well as south into Jämtland and Dalarna in the northwest part of Sweden near the Norwegian border, is partly recognized as a Sami nation in all these countries. In Sweden, the Sami homeland area covers more than 150 000 square kilometers, around 35 percent of the countries' total area. There are Sami political, cultural and youth organizations in all four countries and a Sami parliament in each of the three Nordic countries. The Sametingslag, the Swedish Sami Parliament was established on January 1, 1993.
     Through the years many efforts have been made to assimilate the Sami into the mainstream culture of Sweden with the hard custody of Sami peoples resulting in a great loss of their culture. The Sami still bear the consequences of language and culture loss related to generations of them being taken to missionary and/or state-run boarding schools, and the legacy of laws that were created to deny their rights. Yoiking, drumming and scarification have been regarded as "magic" or "sorcery", and banned during various periods of history. The Sami language has been forbidden in schools. In 1913-1920, the Swedish race-segregation policy created an institute which collected research material from living people and graves. Sami women were sterilized under the auspices of a programme that was in existence until 1975. In the 1990s the Swedish government revoked the Sami exclusive right for hunting within their communities and created a new law permitting non-Sami people to fish in lakes previously reserved for the Sami. Throughout history, settlers have been en-couraged to move to the northern regions through incentives such as land - and water - rights, tax-allowances, and military exemptions. Strong economic development in the form of mines and railways has led to a weakening of status and economy for the Saami. In 1998 Sweden formally apologized for the wrongs committed against the Sami and the authorities have been making an effort to build up Sami cultural institutions and promote Sami culture and language to make up for past suppression. But economic development, like the world's largest onshore wind farm being built where the Eastern Kikkejaure village has its winter reindeer pastures, are a cause of concern for the Sami.
     Though they have, in most aspects, been fully assimilated in modern Swedish society, the Sami still proudly and energetically retain their traditional culture and lifestyle. A large majority of the Sami live in permanent urban and rural settings but an element of their traditional nomadic lifestyle remains as the reindeer herders and their families follow the herds over huge areas, from the forests in winter to the mountain highlands in summer, though today they use modern equipment such as snowmobiles, motorcycles and helicopters, rather than skis and dogs. The traditional Sami tepee is still used.

~Ally

     Way before Julie Andrews and the Von Trapp children enchanted us in "The Sound of Music" (1965), the musical notes had different names. In fact, since ancient times, the standard naming used letters from the alphabet - as is still nowadays in English speaking countries. Even letters from the archaic Greek alphabet were used for this purpose in the past. But the Italian Benedictine monk Guido d'Arezzo decided to change that in the eleventh century.
     He named the note scale inspired by a hymn to Saint John the Baptist, composed by Paolo Diacono three centuries earlier. The verses in the hymn were these:

"Ut queant laxis... resonare fibris... mira gestorum... famuli tuorum... solve polluti... labii reatum... Sancte Iohannes."

     As you can see, d'Arezzo adapted the last two words  to form the Si. Five centuries later, though, the musician Giovanni Maria Bononcini made one last change in the scale. He excluded the "Ut" and exchanged it for "Do", from Dominus (which means "Lord"). This system, however, spread mainly to latin countries.

~Ally

    Your first thought about the title of this post was probably "duh uh". But I'll explain you why that's true. Back in last november, there was a big fuzz on the internet about how the composer Jim Wilson recorded the sound of crickets and, when he slowed the recording down, the sound seemed very much like a human choir. He then allgedly combined two types of cricket sounds: one slowed down and the other in normal speed, and got the result you can hear here.
     However, for Tom Waits' great disappointment, the recordings WERE manipulated. Wilson combined the sound of crickets and the human opera singer called Bonnie Jo Hunt performing “Ballad of the Twisted Hair”, a song which is part of the album Medicine Songs by David Carson & the Little Wolf Band, recorded in 1992.
     So that's one more big farce you can say you fell for!

~Ally

     Everyone knows Leonardo da Vinci was a hell of a genius. The dude invented all sorts of things, from warfare machines to parachutes. But he also invented a musical instrument! And now, after 500 years, da Vinci's idea came true.
     Slawomir Zubrycki, a Polish guy very fond of da Vinci's works decided to build the organist viola, which unites features from the organ, the harpsichord and the viola. It looks like a grand piano from afar, but sounds completely different. Check out the video to hear it! The 61 strings, instead of being played by small hammers (as in traditional pianos), are stimulated by four swivel wheels coated in horsehair (the same material used in the bows to play the violin and cello). This intrument was a part of Leonardo's Codex Atlanticus, a 12 volume manuscript with many typer of projects.

~Ally

      And all you need to do this is some OOMOO 30, a special type of silicone, liquid plastic and a cool record! I'm not sure I'd do this with a rare vinyl or one that I liked very much, but it's nice to know there's a way to do it. Check out the tutorial here (in Portuguese).

~Ally

      Such a great tune from Ed Sheeran, I couldn't not post it here. Enjoy while we wait for the movie!

~Ally

      If you saw his concert in Rock in Rio tonight, you know what I'm talking about. Enough said.

~Ally

    I met this band in Rock in Rio last saturday and was completely amazed! Seriously, celtic sounds, Scottish influences, steampunk looks and funny Portuguese lyrics? Yes please!
      You can get to know the band in their official website. Have fun!

~Ally