Thomas Beller meditates on the pleasures of taking an aural time out. At Tyll Hertsens' urging, I began doing this about 10 years ago—it's amazing how much it makes you hear what you normally tune out. Of course, that's not always a good thing, as Beller points out.

"Intelligent teenagers often listen to heavy metal music to cope with the pressures associated with being talented, according to research."

The Japanese orbiting solar observatory Hinode has captured startling images of the Sun's outer limb and giant magnetic field loops crashing down into its surface. "Where astronomers expected to see a calm region called the chromosphere, they saw a seething mass of swaying spikes."

It's a good thing for us that Jeremy Denk got restless at a concert recently. One thought led to another, he rushed home to check out a CD he thought linked to his thoughts, and the next thing we know, he's deep into an analysis of the chorale in Beethoven's "Spring" sonata (No. 5 in F, Op. 24).

"Nice blogging," says JA.

Especially when it comes to Nikola Tesla.