Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Chilling with Samchillian

Tufts Students Chill with the Samchillian
This article appeared in the Brookline and Medford regional editions of Boston.com!

Blurb: For Leon Gruenbaum, Brookline-reared inventor of an instrument called the Samchillian tip tip tip cheeepeeeee, it all started with an Amiga computer and a standard, black-and-white piano keyboard. Well, that and a Harvard degree in math, childhood piano and clarinet lessons, a little avant-garde jazz, and a move to New York.

“I wanted to merge my interests in math and music,” he said simply. On Monday, March 15, Gruenbaum brought the product of these forces, his “musical instrument digital interface” (MIDI) Samchillian, to Professor Paul Lehrman’s Electronic Musical Instrument Design class at Tufts in Medford, where students are learning to do just what Gruenbaum did.

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Click here to experience Leon's most recent collaboration featuring the Samchillian, Genes and Machines.

Daddy Evolution

This one's kind of an oldie:

Is Charles Darwin Ready for his own Holiday?
This article was featured by BioLogos!

Blurb: Charles Darwin turns 201 this Friday, February 12, 2010, and schools and churches across the Bay State are gearing up to celebrate. Salem State College and the Unitarian Universalist Church of Falmouth, MA, devote entire weeks to evolution’s daddy. If the International Darwin Day Foundation has its way, the 12th of February could even become an official holiday.

Not everyone, though, is ready to party. Some local scientists aren’t convinced there’s a need for such a holiday and don’t think it will happen. Karl Giberson (pictured here), a professor of physics and engineering at Eastern Nazarene College in Quincy, MA, and author of the best-selling book “Saving Darwin,” doesn’t see the point.

Note: The article should say that 483 church leaders from Massachusetts have signed the Clergy Letter, not 43. Also, the Unitarian Universalist Church in Falmouth is in fact tied to the Clergy Letter Project and has proudly signed the letter.