On the radar

News from the world of science

Women and stars shine

The Blackrock Castle Observatory (bco.ie) in Cork has a free evening planned tomorrow, including a talk by Mary Mulvihill to celebrate pioneering female astronomers in Ireland. It also hosts Cork Science Café tomorrow evening, which asks if gender is an issue in science. There will be stargazing too, weather permitting. Speaking of which, get your registration in now for the conference on weather and climate being held in Maynooth on March 26th. It will feature talks on forecasting, earthquakes, the atmosphere and the challenges of adapting to climate change in Ireland. See irishmetsociety.org

What old bones know

The bones of people who died as much as a century ago are being examined as part of a project that analyses new treatments for back pain.

Data from spines of up to 40 skeletons in museums and anatomy collections are being fed into computer models that can be used to evaluate the potential impact of new treatments and materials before they are used.

“The wider the pool of spinal data at our disposal, the more effective the computer models will be in terms of demonstrating the impact of treatments on different back conditions and back types,” said Dr Kate Robson Brown from the University of Bristol.

Filling space vacuum

Nasa’s Discovery space shuttle was all over the news this week as it is on its last mission to the International Space Station (ISS) bearing equipment that includes a humanoid robot, no less. Astronauts worked on, among other things, collecting “space vacuum” in an autographed metal bottle that will go on display later.

After an astronaut took a high-res photo from the ISS and posted it on the web for all to see, one blogger wrote: “You can keep your flying cars: we do live in the future.”