“Dr. SkySkull” selects several notable posts each week from a miscellany of ResearchBlogging.org categories. He blogs at Skulls in the Stars.

It’s the day after Halloween, but I can’t resist sharing a few posts that are of a more creepy nature!

• Friday Weird Science: SLIME MOLD TAKES TOKYO.  The ever-entertaining Scicurious of Neurotic Physiology takes on fascinating slime molds, which have been shown to rampage very efficiently through Tokyo! (Not as scary as it sounds!)
• Of Fossil Ghosts and Hippos Past.  We know a lot about living hippos, but we know relatively little about where hippos came from — their more recent ancestors are still missing, and are “fossil ghosts”.  Brian Switek of Laelaps explains the details.
• The Vampire in the Plague Pit.   Vampires stories today are a source of cheap thrills and even titillation, but in days long past vampires were a widely believed and frightening threat.  At Contagions, Michelle Ziegler describes a skeleton excavated in a 15th century Venice plague pit that highlights that belief.
• Meteorite tea, and the failures of genius.  Just because a theory is ugly doesn’t mean that it is wrong, and just because a theory is clever or beautiful doesn’t make it right!  Lab Lemming at The Lounge of the Lab Lemming describes a very clever theory that didn’t pan out regarding Jupiter’s moon Io.

Check back next week for more (miscellaneous but probably not spooky) selections!