Skulls in the Stars

“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!

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

(I’m out of town at a meeting this week, and didn’t have as much time to read all the posts in my area. I didn’t want to leave people hanging, however, so here’s a few of the posts that jumped out at me this week; next week I’ll catch up on all of my reading!)

• Anatomy of a Superstition: When Your Eye “Jumps”. Superstitions can be strange things, and their origins are usually lost to history. Investigations of such beliefs, however, can lead to insights of how a people lived. Krystal of Anthropology in Practice discusses the Trinidadian view of “eye jumping”, and the possible origins and purpose of the idea.
• Mesa Verde Water Control. Natives of the Southwestern United States lived in areas of extreme aridity, but still managed to build significant population centers. In a detailed post, teofilo of Gambler’s House discusses the elaborate techniques that cliff-dwelling Americans used to collect and use scarce water resources.
• Earthquakes and Volcanoes in Saudi Arabia! Have you ever heard of such a thing? Likely not, because the volcanoes in Saudi haven’t erupted for a long time! Nevertheless, geophilo of Traversing the Razor discusses how recent earthquakes in the region have raised the possibility of eruptions — or at least more earthquakes — in the near future.

Check back next week for more “miscellaneous” suggestions!

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

Sorry for a late batch of selections this week!

• There are more things in heaven and earth, cobber, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. There’s more to studying the history of astronomy than awarding marks for scientific achievements! Alun at AlunSalt discusses this idea in the context of how Australian Aboriginal people viewed and view astronomy.
• CO2 is the biggest climate control knob. Recent research suggests that CO2 plays a bigger role in climate change than previously thought, producing even more dramatic effects — especially on the colder end of the scale! Phil Camill of Global Change: Intersection of Nature and Culture gives the details.
• The @#$% 2010 Ig Nobel Peace Prize: Pain files 1. The IgNobels have been a great source of fascinating research this year! Greg Downey of Neuroanthropology describes research that suggests that swearing really does make the pain feel better!

Finally, just when you couldn’t imagine that Tyrannosaurus rex couldn’t get any more intimidating, comes strong evidence that the creature was also a cannibal when it needed to be! We look at two different accounts of the research: Tyrannosaurus the Cannibal, by Brian Switek at Dinosaur Tracking, and When Tyrannosauraus rex had for breakfast… another Tyrannosaurus rex by Rogue at Into Oblivion.

Check back next Monday for more miscellaneous selections!