Editor’s selections: Prehistoric ballistics, prehistoric food delivery, a big boom and chemophobia
January 18th, 2010 Editor's Selections No Comments
“Dr. SkySkull” selects several notable posts each week from a miscellany of ResearchBlogging.org categories. He blogs at Skulls in the Stars.
- 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!
