• Replication. teofilo at Gambler’s House talks about an interesting proposal for preserving delicate historical sites: build exact replicas of them!  Replicas of smaller artifacts could also be used to resolve disputes of ownership amongst various countries.
• Universe lets age clue slip. Greg Laden, at the eponymous Greg Laden’s blog, describes recent astronomical observation that extends the known age of the  universe.  He manages to explain the discovery in a very terrestrial context!
• Blood and brains — can vampires survive a zombie apocalypse? We all know that the odds of humans surviving a zombie apocalypse are pretty bleak, but what about vampires?  Southern Fried Scientist over at Southern Fried Science describes some mathematical modeling that was done to look at the survivability of the #1 undead predator during an outbreak of the #2 predator.
• Werewolves of London, Ontario. Neurocritic over at The Neurocritic talks a bit about another classic monster — the werewolf — and the psychological basis of lycanthropy.  Stories of people believing that they’re animals go back a long way…

Finally, as long as we’re on the subject of monsters, and Halloween is so recently behind us, let me point to my own contribution: Boo! The optics behind “ghost” imaging.

Check back next Monday for more “miscellaneous” highlights!