ABBA

The song of the day is Dancing Queen from the 1976 album Arrival by Swedish band ABBA (Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad). From 1975 to 1982, ABBA’s music topped the charts worldwide and made them the second best-selling music group of all time, after the Beatles.

Lucy Hale

The song of the day is Jolene by actress and singer Lucy Hale (Karen Lucille Hale). Jolene was originally released in 1973 by country singer Dolly Parton.

Ella Henderson

The song of the day is 2014's Glow by British singer-songwriter Ella Henderson (Gabriella Michelle Henderson).

The Lumineers

The song of the day is Ho Hey from the 2012 album The Lumineers by folk rock band The Lumineers.

Leona Lewis

The song of the day is Bleeding Love from the 2007 album Spirit by British singer, songwriter, and animal welfare campaigner Leona Louise Lewis.

Dung Beetle Research

I just found out – by reading Internet news – that dung beetles use celestial chromatic gradients to navigate. They must be pretty smart beetles. Most humans can’t spell celestial chromatic gradients, let alone use them. If you’re a dung beetle, you don’t need a GPS to navigate. You only need the – what I said before.

Here’s a question: why do we care?

So dung beetles can roll a ball of dung in a straight line without visible landmarks. I’ll give the beetles their due: that’s very clever of them.

But who pays for research that studies how they do it? And why? And who is this researcher who thinks, “Let’s see, I have a pot of money, what can I do with it? I know, I’ll study how dung beetles roll balls of dung in a straight line.”? I don’t get it. Wouldn’t almost anything be more interesting? With less eww-factor?

The one thing this new study suggests to me is that we’re running out of things to study.

I could be wrong. For all I know, dung beetle research makes a fascinating conversation starter at a party or on a date. “Let me show you my dung beetle photos.” Nah, I don’t see it.

Other scientists probably call this researcher “dung beetle guy.” I kid dung beetle guy. I know how very important dung beetle research is to the world of science and national security. If you have extra research dollars, please consider studying the impact of global warming on dung beetles. It’s probably the only facet of global warming that hasn’t been studied to death, and you could earn your PhD with it. Quick, before someone else steals this idea!

Cheryl

The song of the day is Parachute from the 2009 album 3 Words by English singer and dancer Cheryl (Cheryl Ann Fernandez-Versini, formerly Cheryl Cole). Cheryl’s dance partner in the video is 5-times Dancing with the Stars champion, Derek Hough.

Alesha Dixon

The song of the day is The Way We Are from the 2015 album Do It for Love by English singer, dancer, rapper, and model Alesha Dixon.

Flight 9268

Recently, a Russian airliner, Metrojet Flight 9268 flying at 31,000 feet, broke into pieces and crashed in a remote area of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, killing the 224 people on board. An official from the airline said the crash must have been caused by “an external influence” because planes don’t break apart in midair.

The same official, Alexander Smirnov, also said, “We exclude technical problems and reject human error" as possible causes of the crash.

Why would an airline official reject human error as a possible cause of an accident? According to an FAA report, 70 to 80 percent of civil and military plane crashes are due to human error. Sometimes the pilot makes a mistake. Sometimes maintenance people make a mistake.

In 1985, Japan Airlines Flight 123 experienced explosive decompression when an improper repair to the plane’s aft pressure bulkhead led to failure of the bulkhead which then blew the vertical stabilizer off the airplane. The plane  subsequently crashed, killing 505 people. The pressure bulkhead had been damaged seven years earlier during a tail strike. A tail strike happens when the plane is landing or taking off and the pilot rotates the nose too high, causing the tail of the fuselage to strike the runway. A repair was improperly made, and for seven more years the airplane flew without problems, until the defective repair failed.

Like the Japanese airliner, the aircraft called Metrojet Flight 9268 experienced a tail strike that caused significant damage. Was the repair made improperly, causing the aft pressure bulkhead to fail years later? While a few planes have been brought down by “an external influence,” the number is very small compared to the number of planes that have crashed due to technical problems or human error. Ruling out the factors that have caused 99 percent of all airplane crashes – and ruling them out at the beginning of the investigation – is wishful thinking in the extreme.

Magna Carta

The song of the day is Airport Song from the 1970 album Seasons by English progressive rock band Magna Carta with vocals by Australian Lyell Tranter.