Skulls in the Stars

This is your monthly reminder that there’s 10 days left until the deadline for The Giant’s Shoulders #22!  It will be hosted by The Lay Scientist.  Entries can be submitted through blogcarnival.com or directly to the host blog, as usual!

Let me follow up again by saying we still desperately need hosts to fill in over the next few months; if you’re interested in hosting, please leave a comment or send me an email.  You don’t have to be a historian of science to host — just someone with a passion for science and its roots.

• Ocean Conveyor running AMOC. Life on our planet owes a lot to the global ocean currents, but there is concern that global warming may shut this current down.  Is there any indication this is happening yet?  Alistair at Deep Type Flow discusses the theory and the evidence.
• UV, You See? Black Light Reveals Secrets in Fossils. GrrlScientist at Living the Scientific Life talks about an underutilized technique in paleontology — using UV light to study fossils — and the awesome scientific dividends it has already paid.
• Climate change and philosophy of science: Does climate science aim at truth? There was a recent tiff in The Guardian, in the context of climate science, about the question of whether science aims at “truth”.  Michael at Good, Bad and Bogus does a great job of dissecting the arguments.
• What causes scientific misconduct? We know that scientists are tempted to “cheat” at their work much too often, but why?  Janet at Adventures in Ethics and Science looks at research relating to the motivations of those who have been caught as such misconduct.

Check back next Monday for more “miscellaneous” highlights!

• Shaping a stem cell’s future. Most of us are familiar with the idea of stem cells (and the political controversies associated with them): cells which can be chemically manipulated into different types of functionality.  Rob Mitchum at ScienceLife describes research that has shown that this functionality can be controlled by manipulating the shape of the cell!
• On the phenomena of lightning. How much do you know about lightning?  In the course of his radio astronomy work, Alexander at The Astronomist did some investigating and discusses some interesting facts about lightning and its generation.
• Is My Dog Playing or Fighting With That Other Dog? Ever wonder how to tell the difference between rough dog play and a dog fight?  Jason at The Thoughtful Animal describes how dogs work it out.
• Preserving a culture in wild honey. Finally, Alun at AlunSalt provides a thoughtful look at the disappearance of an Aboriginal tribes’ honey-gathering heritage.

As a bonus, if you were intrigued by last week’s description of macroscopic quantum-mechanical objects, Chad at Uncertain Principles provides more details on the experiment and what it actually demonstrated.

Check back next week for more “miscellaneous” suggestions!

• The Irish Diaspora: Why Even Trinidadians Are a Little Irish. On the heels of St. Patrick’s Day, Krystal at Anthropology in Practice tells the fascinating and little-known tale of why there is an Irish influence in the British Caribbean.
• Earth’s forgotten youth – and beyond. Though we know some things about Earth’s early history, geological data from that period is extraordinarily rare.  Chris at Highly Allochthonous looks at and explains a recent attempt to develop a better timeline of events before and after the Earth’s formation.
• Nest making, oxytocin, and social bonding. At her eponymously-titled blog, The Dog Zombie looks at an intriguing paper connecting wound healing, nest building, and oxytocin in rats — and gives some strong criticism of the results.
• Rethinking quantum states and computers. Finally, Greg Fish at weird things discusses an experiment that has put an object large enough to be seen with the naked eye into a quantum-mechanical state!

That’s it for this week — check back next Monday for more “miscellaneous” selections!