While I am sure much of the collegiate student body was at Assembly Hall last night for the Basketball Madness tipoff, I joined a suprisingly youthful crowd in reveling in the music of Cecilia Bartoli’s latest production, Opera Proibita. Any collection featuring the works of Handel and Scarlatti deserves my seal of approval, and especially when done by one so talented as Signora Bartoli. Yet no audio recording can capture the expressive, soulful vividity of her in-person singing, especially when captured in the acoustic perfection of the Foellinger Great Hall (only one of seven in the United States, I am told). She conducted her accompanyinging orchestra by appropriate hand motions and gesticulations of her shoulders without ever turning her back on the audience! Quite remarkable. Also rediscovered an old favorite in lascia la spina, cogli la rosa (Scorn the thorn, pick the rose). Four encores and $20 down on her latest CD, I must have been in seventh heaven. Winning ‘Best Poster’ at the symposium was also an unexpected bonus, which I am sure must have contributed to the good mood.

News from Illinois
The University of Illinois appeals the NCAA allegation that Chief Illiniwek is a “hostile and abusive” mascot that is disrespectful of American Indian traditions.

News from Home
Graham Streeter’s latest film, Cages, is garnering interest at the Pusan International film festival.

The Casino Bill is finally up for public debate. Singaporeclassics vows to dissect it for edification. And Prof. Ang Peng Hwa also agrees with me that the racist bloggers’ débâcle should have been best dealt with in the social arena, rather than in the judicial context. And the University of Warwick’s Senate has voted resoundingly against setting up a Singapore campus, dealing a blow to said university’s entreaties to set up shop abroad. The bone of contention? Concerns over restrictions on academic freedom and the right to expression. « Singabloodypore.

Online News
Lifehacker links to a list of the Best Free Web Applications available, at least according to NedWolf Lists like this existed in the previous millennium, but were so outdated as to be useless fossils. I’ve been looking for something like this for a long time.

News from Science
The New York Times runs a feature on the National Academies’ report to Congress lamenting “an Erosion of the U.S. Competitive Edge in Science” « David Bacon, The Quantum Pontiff; Mark Trodden, Cosmic Variance

NASA’s new Spitzer Space Telescope is rapidly filling the soft spot in my heart which was once filled by Hubble. Just look at this gorgeous view of the Andromeda galaxy, especially the one taken in the 24 micron window.

badscience references an article in the Guardian which reveals (shockingly) that many scandalous lab tests revealing the presence of superbugs (germs that can’t be killed using the regular array of medicines, especially antivirals and antibiotics) were in fact done in a lab supervised by an uncredited microbiologist who got his Ph. D. by correspondence. While I am not disparaging the utility and validity of correspondence courses, I find it really hard to think about how a competent microbiologist can be trained without actually, physically getting his or her hands dirty in the lab, getting familiar with standard protocols, reagents, procedures, blah blah blah.

Boing Boing links designer Jan-Henrik Andersen’s visualizations of particles and their interactions, bringing the concepts of beauty in science and beauty in art asymptotically closer together. Part of the PEXU project, Photon is by far my favorite:

Visualization of a photon interaction

Whimsical
Lancerlord recommends the Egg Game which I find extremely difficult to play, owing to the violations of the laws of physics entailed in the dynamics of said eggs. (When I toss an egg from the cup, I expect it to still be carrying momentum in the horizontal direction!)

China opens Internet addiction clinic. So when are the anti-blogging mind reconditioning specialist treatment centers coming up? « Vaghan, Mind Hacks

Five Toes the Cat of Nobson, NC, not only has five toes per paw, it also has two tongues. Ripley’s plans to feature Five Toes.