News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
It will soon be time to bid a fond adieu to an object that has been a fixture in our evening sky since late last summer: the planet Jupiter. Jupiter is leaving our skies after many months of an impressive display. Currently it’s setting just under two hours after the sun and you can still … Read more
In the spring of 2017 I was serendipitously invited to what initially seemed to be the wrong scientific meeting. The invitation came thirdhand, and the details were murky but intriguing. I took a car to a train to a downtown hotel where I wound my way through a series of conference rooms before a sign … Read more
A new SpaceX video has captured a striking view of two critical moments in any rocket launch: stage separation for its booster and nose cone jettison. The video, which SpaceX released on YouTube Saturday (Feb. 5), shows the company’s Jan. 31 launch of a Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Italian Earth-observation satellite Cosmo-SkyMed Second Generation … Read more
In 2019, Alessandra Mascaro, a volunteer and budding evolutionary biologist for The Loango Chimpanzee Project, noticed something no other primatologist in Africa had reported before. In the forests of Gabon, while following and filming a female chimpanzee Suzee and her son Sia, Mascaro noticed Suzee clamp something tiny between her lips, before applying the … Read more
Three men paralyzed in motorcycle accidents have become the first success stories for a new spinal stimulation device that could enable faster and easier recoveries than its predecessors. The men, who had no sensation or control over their legs, were able to take supported steps within 1 day of turning on the electrical stimulation, and … Read more
The trillions of bacteria in and on our bodies can bolster our health and contribute to disease, but just which microbes are the key actors has been elusive. Now, a study involving thousands of people in Finland has identified a potential microbial culprit in some cases of depression. The finding, which emerged from a study … Read more
Remember when your mother said you might choke if you crammed too much food into your mouth? In the weeks to come, Democrats in the U.S. Congress will find out whether that warning also applies to their ability to finalize sweeping legislation that promises to double the budgets of the National Science Foundation (NSF) and … Read more
Another showdown in the seemingly endless patent battle over who invented CRISPR, the genome editor that has revolutionized biology, took place today at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). This latest hearing saw charges that one party improperly obtained early CRISPR information, as well as a detailed scientific discussion of a crucial question: Who … Read more
This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Space.com’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. David Rothery, Professor of Planetary Geosciences, The Open University Research has shown that the Earth trails an asteroid barely a kilometer across in its orbit about the sun — only the second such body to have ever been … Read more
For decades doctors and researchers have dabbled with using electrical stimulation of the spinal cord to help restore movement in people with paralysis. The technique, when combined with physical therapy, has even allowed some patients with complete paralysis to walk again. Yet it has not worked for all paralyzed people. And researchers still have had … Read more