Last weekend's 53rd Annual Grammy Awards ceremony seemed to have forgotten one category very close to our hearts—Best Lab Song of the Year.
So we'll take over where the Grammys left off, by bringing you the best and brightest in music that the Science Recording Academy has to offer in research rock and laboratory lyricism.
The nominees in this category include original compositions and parodies of
pop songs with at least two things in common—a passion for science and a
strange sense of humor. Graduate students, postdocs, and even doctors in
labs across the country with entirely too much time between their PCR runs
and journal club meetings have shared with us their clever lyrics,
just-in-tune singing, and best attempts at choreography. Naturally, we
applaud them all for filling labs around the world with much-needed laughter.
And the nominees are...
| Bad Habits Nathaniel Krefman, University of California Department of Molecular and Cell Biology Here's a song for every researcher who's ever wondered where his buffer disappeared to, or why his cells have transformed into yeast. |
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| Bad Project Hui Zheng Lab at BCM This Lady GaGa parody gives new lyrical meaning to every postdoc's worst fear. |
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| Blame It on the DNA Mr. Cortez and Tom McFadden at Hogan High School No need to beat yourself up over things like height, weight, eye color, or gender; just blame it on the DNA. |
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| Evolution Made Us All Ben Hillman Performed to the dulcet tones of a small child, this song has something for the Darwinist and Creationist in all of us. |
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| I'm Bringin' Stickleback Nathaniel Krefman, University of California Department of Molecular and Cell Biology These researchers are bringing “stickleback” in this Justin Timberlake parody. |
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And the Grammy goes to...
After tallying the votes from our editorial staff, the Science Grammy goes Hui Zheng Lab at BCM for their song "Bad Project," which captures the heartache of every postdoc that is handed down a dead-end project. And here they are performing their award-winning number.
