A new study released Thursday by the journal Science purports that living things “play significant role in the formation of rain and snow.” The story was headed by lead author Brent Christner of Louisiana State University.

Scientists have long known that the ice crystals in clouds which become rain or snow need to cling to some kind of particle, called ice nucleators, in order to form in temperatures above minus 40 degrees Celsius.

But they did not realize, until now, that the most active particles involved in this process are living ones, Christner said.

It isn’t clear how much rain these little micro-critters actually create, though a higher concentration of these nucleators were found in snow in France, Antarctica and Montana. Other than being a bit creepy, I’m not sure what to make of this. One thing to keep in mind, however, is that this means that rain/snow may not vegan, so plan accordingly.

So yeah, P.O.D. Those dude with dreadlocks and gangsta attire who pumped out some of the most disguised Christian rock this side U2 are back. I’ll let you go ahead and read about it [note the inclusion of no less than 7 headlines]:

BOOM!: P.O.D. IS BACK!

BAND REUNITES WITH GUITARIST MARCOS CURIEL AND INKS NEW DEAL WITH INO/COLUMBIA

NEW MUSIC FROM MULTI-PLATINUM GROUP  FEATURES GUEST APPEARANCES FROM: PAIGE HAMILTON OF HELMET, MIKE MUIR OF SUICIDAL TENDENCIES AND THE MARLEY SISTERS!

HARD ROCK CAFÉ TOUR DATES BEGIN MARCH 25

BAND CONFIRMED AS SPECIAL GUESTS ON ROCKLINE RADIO SHOW APRIL 7

PERFORMANCE ON TONIGHT SHOW WITH JAY LENO APRIL 8

NEW ALBUM
“WHEN ANGELS AND SERPENTS DANCE”
AVAILABLE APRIL 8TH!

Los Angeles, CA -  March 3, 2008 -  The lineup that took P.O.D. to multiple platinum success with The Fundamental Elements of Southtown and Satellite (featuring  “Youth of a Nation,” “Alive,” “Boom,” and “Satellite”) is back to reclaim their place atop the rock scene with their Columbia Records debut, When Angels and Serpents Dance on April 8, 2008!

“Our fans are excited and we’re having a lot of fun,” says vocalist Sonny Sandoval.  “After four years Marcos is back in the band and we’ve got new music.  Things are exciting again. When the four of us are in a room making music it’s definitely right and Marcos brings that passion for music into the band.”

The quartet’s renewed vigor is evident throughout When Angels and Serpents Dance.   From the searing guitar which kicks off the hard-rocking first single, “Addicted,”(which the band will perform live on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on April and the striking and poignant, “End Of The World” (complete with gospel choir!); to the album’s most ferocious track, the savage “Like Old Times.”   “Like Old Times” was the first song written by the reunited incarnation of the quartet. “I think that was the first riff Marcos showed us.” Sonny says of the song. “The working title was called ‘Seems Like Old Times’. He started writing a riff and the way we remembered it as our first riff together was to call it that!”

“It’s just great to get back to basics and give it another whirl & tap into our souls.” says an inspired Marcos.  “This band is a supernatural experience to me!  It has literally surpassed many of my vivid dreams…I’m blessed and excited to reconnect with family & friends.  I hope to pursue & establish the passion that began in 1992 with 4 brothers who just followed God, dreams & our music.”

Prior to the release of When Angels and Serpents Dance the band will take part in Hard Rock Café’s month long charity drive for Musicians on Call and perform at various Hard Rock Café’s throughout the country.  On Tuesday, March 18 there will be an album listening event at Hard Rock locations in Atlanta, Boston, Cleveland, Detroit, Houston, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, Orlando, Philadelphia and San Francisco.  These listening parties will have a voluntary $5 donation to the Musicians on Call charity and a register to win drawing for various P.O.D. items.  .

Beginning March 25, P.O.D. will  criss-cross the country to perform live in 8 markets at various Hard Rock Café venues including a special hometown show on April 7  in San Diego the night before the CD is released in-stores.  The Hard Rock shows will give P.O.D. fans a chance to be up close with the band in the intimate setting of the Hard Rock Café venues. The San Diego show will be broadcast live over the internet on ALL ACCESS Warrior Pass.  This will allow fans to have access to exclusive footage, witness the hometown performance and a chance to interact with the band and other fans.  P.O.D. will also be special guests on Rockline Radio show on Monday April, 7 before the Hard Rock performance that same evening.  Hard Rock Café Club shows:

March
25           Hollywood, CA @ Universal Studios
27          Orlando, FL - THQ Superslam Raw vs Smackdown
at House of Blues. Not part of Hard Rock tour!
28          Miami, FL - 401 Biscayne Blvd.
29         Washington DC - 999 E. Street N.W.
31         Chicago, IL -  63 W. Ontario

April
1          St. Louis, MO  -  450 St. Louis Union Station
2         Denver, CO -  500 16th Street Mall
3        Phoenix, AZ -  3 South 2nd Street
7        San Diego, CA  -  801 4th Avenue

As has always been the case with P.O.D. the band looked to those that inspired them rather than the hot artist of the moment for guests on the album. “That’s what we do on our records; we bring in people that influenced us.” Joining in the fun was Mike Muir of Suicidal Tendencies, who guests on the track “Kaliforn-Eye-A,” and The Marley Sisters (the daughters of Bob Marley), who lend their vocal prowess to what Sonny calls “Our reggae track (I’LL BE READY).”  Helmet’s Paige Hamilton sings on “God Forbid,” which Sonny calls “probably our heaviest song.”

When Angels and Serpents Dance (produced by Jay Baumgardner: Evanescence, etc.)  is ultimately a record of P.O.D. in 2008.   “As far as P.O.D. goes it’s always for the moment,” Sonny says.  “I just kind of go through it and whatever the song brings out in us that’s it. There’s a lot of passion on this record.”

Indeed, When Angels and Serpents Dance is the sound of a rejuvenated band: passionate, aggressive and with a message for our times.

This is P.O.D. in 2008

Wuv (Drums)
Sonny  (Vocals)
Traa (Bass)
Marcos (Guitar)

In an interview with the LA Times, freelance writer David Peisner claims that his controversial reviews of NAS and The Black Crowes in Maxim were assigned to him as previews, with the star-ratings and review context added after he had turned them in:

“I’m a freelance writer. I was assigned to write previews of the Black Crowes and Nas albums. I did that. When the issue came out, the previews were laid out as reviews complete with star ratings. I never at any point or to anyone claimed to have heard these albums in their entirety. Whatever decisions Maxim made after I turned in my work were beyond my control.”

Of course Black Crowes manager Peter Angelus had little sympathy for Peisner:

“There’s no accountability for Dave Peisner, editor James Kaminsky or Maxim magazine. They issued a partial apology to their readership, but no apology directly to the artist whose work they denigrated without having heard more than one song, while attempting to pass it off as an album review. I think Peisner’s claim is absurd. He wrote a review of music that he never heard, he disparaged both the band and the material. He said, ‘It hasn’t left Chris Robinson and the gang much room for growth,’ and yet now he’s going to attempt to pass off his actions on Maxim? Absurd.”

I’d like to congratulate both NAS and The Black Crowes for getting so much mileage out of what amounts to common knowledge. OMG A REVIEWER FROM MAXIM TALKS OUT OF HIS ASS!!??? Cue the crocodile tears is five, four…. Brings new meaning to the phrase, no press is bad press! Not to mention when was the last time Maxim was talked about by anyone beyond 18 year dudes who just got out of high school but don’t have enough balls to subscribe to Playboy? This is a win-win situation for everybody. Now excuse me while I write my scathing reviews of Guns ‘N’ Roses Chinese Democracy and Coldplay’s Prospekt. Coming soon to Synthesis.net

I didn’t really know that when you use the train toilets, that it just goes out on the tracks. At least that’s the case in India, where a premature baby girl was born when her mother decided to use the train bathroom. “My delivery was so sudden,” said Bhuri Kalbi, the mother of the infant, born two months prematurely. “I did not even realize that my child had slipped from the hole in the toilet.” Gross.

Kalbi, a 33-year-old woman from a village in Rajasthan, fainted on the toilet seat after the birth for a few minutes before waking up and alerting her family.

“They stopped the train and ran on the tracks to find the baby,” she said, speaking from her hospital bed in the western city of Ahmedabad.

Railway staff at a nearby station were alerted and soon found the newborn girl lying uninjured on pebbles by the track. She is now in intensive care because of her premature birth, doctors said.

Most toilets on Indian trains are filthy chutes emptying directly onto the tracks.

source.

Ok, everyone, stick out your tongue and say “I was born on a pirate ship”. Lol.

Remember that crazy rogue satellite that was threatening to fall back to earth and cause all sorts of lulz by spreading ultra-toxic hydrazine rocket fuel over populated areas? And remember that time the US Navy shot it down with a missile, as seen in the video above, allowing every one to live happily ever after in absolute safety from falling space junk? Well apparently, it’s not quite that cut and dry:

Last week’s Pentagon operation to bring down a falling spy satellite may have been widely termed a “shootdown” of precision accuracy — but the reality is more complex, and much messier.

The article goes on to explain “5 myths” surrounding the Satellite “shootdown,” the first of which is the idea that the satellite was shot down in the first place:

Myth No. 1: The Navy missile shot down the satellite.

Reality: Hitting a satellite with a missile is not at all like hitting a bird with a bullet and watching it plummet to the ground. An orbiting satellite stays in orbit not because of its power or guidance, but merely because of its forward speed. An attack that does not substantially change that orbital velocity cannot drive the satellite out of orbit, no matter how much physical damage it does.

The only practical way to remove such targets from orbit is by slowing them down. In practice, that occurs as a result of air drag, an effect that can take hours, weeks, or centuries depending on the thickness of the air at the satellite’s altitude. Breaking a big spacecraft into smaller pieces does increase the effects of air drag — as demonstrated dramatically last week — but it is the key role of air drag that makes the critical causal link between “shooting” and “downing” the target.

Worth checking out if, like me, you’re at all concerned about shit falling out of the sky on your fucking head.

Even if you don’t like metal (and who doesn’t, these days?) you still have to love Killswitch Engage. They write some of the heaviest riffs known to man and have some of the most pissed vocals anywhere, but they are still at heart, a bunch of nerds and pussycats. Last time I saw them live guitarist (and increasingly legendary producer)  Adam D was running around in a cape and his boxer shorts. Frontman Howard Jones may look like an NFL linebacker, but in person he’s the kind of guy you want to sit around and drink coffee with and talk about Star Trek. He seemed like he’d definitely have an opinion about Kirk vs. Picard (I’m gonna go with Picard). In an interview with Adam D a couple years back I asked him about the seemingly dichotomous nature of his band’s sound and demeanor and this is what he had to say:

I hate the whole thing within the metal community, where it’s like “Dude, since we’re so hard onstage, we’re gonna be awesome.” I think that whole mentality has kind of died away with all the stupid leather pants and longhair and the [assumes Viking of Death Metal tone] “Yahhhh we’re tough and blah, blah, blah.” I’m just so easygoing, I just don’t give a shit what anyone thinks.

Well there you have it.  I bring this up, not just for the fuck of it, but because the band annouced today a new string of tour dates this spring, with a couple other fairly badass bands, Poison the Well and Throwdown, that will be gracing the middle parts of America and Canada. If you’re a kid in Milwaukee and you don’t go to this show, you’re drinking too much Pabst bro! Here’s the press release:

Killswitch Engage continue to cement their reputation as road warriors. After wrapping up their successful, sold out winter tour, the Massachusetts band has just announced another spate of tour dates that will find the band hitting several Midwest locations as well as cutting a path all over Canada. The two-week tour, featuring Throwdown, Poison The Well and The End as support acts, kicks off on May 10 and runs through May 29.

Below are the tour dates and locations. Pre-sale for fan club members begins today. Pre-sale for all fans begins Monday, March 3rd at Noon EST. Regular on-sale tickets can be purchased beginning March 6.

May 10 – The Sound Academy – Toronto, ONT   (On Sale 3/6)
May 11 – Elements Night Club – Kitchener, ONT   (On Sale 3/7)
May 13 – Capitole du Quebec – Quebec City, QUE   (On Sale 3/6)
May 14 – The Metropolis – Montreal, QUE   (On Sale 3/6)
May 16 – The Orbit Room – Grand Rapids, MI   (On Sale 3/7)
May 17 – Rock On The Range Festival – Columbus, OH   (Radio show)
May 18 – Point Fest – St. Louis, MO   (Radio show)
May 19 – The Eagles Club – Milwaukee, WI   (On Sale 3/8)
May 20 – Val Air Ballroom – Des Moines, IA   (On Sale 3/7)
May 22 – Community Auditorium – Thunder Bay, ONT   (On Sale 3/8)
May 23 – Burton Cummings – Winnipeg, MAN   (On Sale, 3/7)
May 24 – Odeon Events Centre – Saskatoon, SAS   (On Sale, 3/8)
May 26 – Edmonton Events Center – Edmonton, AB   (On Sale, 3/8)
May 27 – MacEwan Hall Ballroom – Calgary, AB   (On Sale, 3/8)
May 29 – Croatian Cultural Center – Vancouver, BC   (On Sale, 3/7)