ResearchBlogging editor’s selections: Prehistoric ballistics, prehistoric food delivery, a big boom and chemophobia

  • Prehistoric ballistics, or Mythbusters meets archaeology. The Mythbusters have been amazing promoters of science, but who knew that they actually do peer-reviewed science?  Julien Riel-Salvatore of A Very Remote Period Indeed describes a collaboration between archaeologists and Mythbusters to answer the question: is there an advantage to stone arrows over wooden ones?
  • Importing food. In modern times, we have grown accustomed to eating food that has been brought to us from a great distance.  Teofilo of Gambler’s House describes fascinating research that suggests that early Native American dwellers of Chaco Canyon had their corn brought to them from a significant distance!
  • A new, bigger kind of boom. Though there’s one word that is used to describe a star going kablooie (“supernova”), there’s more than one way that such a kablooie can occur!  Niall at we are all in the gutter describes recent evidence for a rare and unusual type of boom.
  • Chemophobia and risk. Finally, David Bradley at Sciencebase describes a proposal to perform a more comprehensive type of chemical risk assessment, and provides some personal reflections on the subject.

Check back again next week for more “miscellaneous” highlights!

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