Links for 2011-12-21

A Grantlad writer's personal top ten songs out of Billboard's top 100 for the year. Notable primarily because I only recognize one of the ten songs.

Much as we enjoy reporting the complex and intriguing advances made in physics each year, we do love an interesting picture to go with it. Here are 12 of our favourite images of 2011, in no particular order. These range from the beautiful and historical to pictures that show how science affects the world we live in. We hope you enjoy them

As we tuck our children into bed at night, this is an America many of us fail to see, but it is a part of the country we live in, an increasing part. I believe a place and a people are judged not just by their accomplishments, but also by their compassion and sense of justice. In the future, that's the frontier where we will all be tested. How well we do will be the America we leave behind for our children and grandchildren.

Today I am going to share with you my one and only Christmas tradition. I hope you are worthy of it. Like all good traditions, this one comes with rules. It is also a song,one that may be familiar to you: "O Holy Night." But this is not just any version of the song. Dr. G found it somewhere on the internet several years ago and downloaded it. Once a year, we fish it up from the depths of the hard drives and listen to it again. Rumor has it that this recording was sent by an aspiring vocalist as a demo to a Nashville record company, and some indiscreet staffer circulated it around. Others suggest that the achievements of this singer would be impossible for an amateur, and that every note is carefully planned. Either way, it's a stunner.