Sarah Kendrew selects interesting and notable ResearchBlogging.org posts in the physical sciences, chemistry, engineering, computer science, geosciences and mathematics. She blogs about astronomy at One Small Step.

[Cross-posted from Researchblogging News]

Is astronomy the oldest profession? It certainly seems to go back an awful long time. I enjoyed archaeoastronomer Alun’s post on a recent paper about astronomy activities in the Paleolithic era – many, many thousands of years ago.

On Basal Science Clarified, Cath shows the latest design for a robotic hand, developed by engineers in Japan. With links to video of the bionic limb in action.

Want to find negative results? A new portal called BioNot uses clever machine learning algorithms to search PubMed and Elsevier publications for negative results. A great initiative, described here on Neurobonkers.

I’ll be back next Monday with more picks!

Sarah Kendrew selects interesting and notable ResearchBlogging.org posts in the physical sciences, chemistry, engineering, computer science, geosciences and mathematics. She blogs about astronomy at One Small Step.

[Cross-posted from ResearchBlogging News]

Welcome to a new week all. Here are some highlights from the past week on ResearchBlogging’s physical and geo-sciences feeds.

In Today’s Science, Charles Daney writes about a record-breaking pulsar discovery in astrophysics. Sexily named J1823−3021A is probably the youngest known of all millisecond pulsars, with the strongest magnetic field and emitting the strongest gamma ray signals. The Justin Bieber of pulsars, basically.

GrrlScientist posted a great video of a new robot developed by Canadian scientists, that climbs up walls in a gecko-inspired fashion. A very neat piece of engineering.

On Smells Like Science, Dan posted an interesting essay about humanity’s history with copper. It’s anthropology, archaeology, chemistry and DIY all in one post – well worth a read.

Have a great week, and I’ll be back next Monday with new picks.

Sarah Kendrew selects interesting and notable ResearchBlogging.org posts in the physical sciences, chemistry, engineering, computer science, geosciences and mathematics. She blogs about astronomy at One Small Step.

[Cross-posted from ResearchBlogging News]

Some extra-special selections today to mark Halloween!

On Basic Space, Kelly Oakes explains the nature of Blue Zombie¹ stars, and discusses some recent research on their origins in one particular cluster of stars.

In the Guardian, GrrlScientist writes about tropical fish and Zombies² operating in a vacuum, with an illustration in an episode of the awesome Periodic Videos series.

Why do Zombies³ not get headaches when they repeatedly ram their heads into a tree? Elizabeth Preston gives an insight into this fascinating research that can help prevent or manage head injuries in athletes.

Thanks for the great posts, and I’ll be back with more selections next Monday.

(¹stragglers, ²siphons, ³woodpeckers)

Sarah Kendrew selects interesting and notable ResearchBlogging.org posts in the physical sciences, chemistry, engineering, computer science, geosciences and mathematics. She blogs about astronomy at One Small Step.

[cross-posted from ResearchBlogging News]

Publication of the first (draft) Berkeley Earth climate change research results this week caused some cheers around the climate change community, as the skeptical analysis of land-based temperature records confirms previous results and reproduces the well-known hockey stick very nicely. Greg Laden explains all here.

Chemistry for the win! On Microfluidic Future, Hector describes how cell phone cameras can be calibrated to read results from lab-on-a-chip devices to diagnose ovarian cancer.

On The Soft Anonymous, James gets extra kudos for pop culture association with hard science. Find out here what Cyndi Lauper has in common with newly forming planetary systems.

Thanks for the great posts, and I’ll be back next week with more picks.