Wes Phillips

Partch was a musical iconoclast who created his own theory of music, a 64-tone scale, and instruments that could play the sounds he imagined. Performances of his music incorporate drama, which is heightened by the beauty of his instruments.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Sashimi Tabernacle Choir! Over 250 computer controlled lobsters, bass, trout, catfish, and sharks perform your musical favorites.

The Drumometer finally gives us an instrument capable of measuring the world's fastest drummer. What a relief.

No, not the disease, the band. Jon Iverson introduced me to them on Friday and I can't stop listening to Escape From Dragon House. What do they sound like? Sort of Asian/African fusion, mixed with a heavy dose of Farfisa irony, and a splash of spaghetti-Western surrealism. In other words, probably the next Quentin Tarantino soundtrack.

Camus was a scorpio.

In 1987, one out of every 10,000 children was diagnosed with autism; in 2003, it was one out of every 166. How well has the press handled the story of a vaccine's potential involvement? Not so well, argues CJR.

A lot depends on how you define "diagnose." A new study in Nature reveals that relatives of the autistic exhibit many of the same brain abnormalities without having the disorder.