News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
Humans’ sense of smell may indeed be gradually fading, according to a study that has found people carry different versions of two scent receptors for musk and body odor. Olfactory receptors detect airborne chemicals that waft into our noses, but smell receptors vary immensely from one person to the next. Any two people, on … Read more
Beijing National Stadium and Blue Cube (Image credit: MAXAR) The Winter Olympics of 2022 are here and Maxar Technologies has released satellite images revealing what many of the venues in Beijing and around China look like from space. The winter games are taking place in Beijing, the same host city as the 2008 Summer Olympics. … Read more
Do you love spending time in nature? Or are you a city slicker, happier in the concrete jungle than the great outdoors? Back in 1986, the US biologist EO Wilson proposed that humans have an innate connection with the natural world, an idea known as biophilia. Almost every aspect of our lives depends on … Read more
The parachute system on SpaceX’s Dragon capsule hasn’t behaved exactly as expected recently, and NASA and SpaceX want to know why. The Dragon named Endeavour returned to Earth with four astronauts on Nov. 8, 2021, wrapping up SpaceX’s Crew-2 mission to the International Space Station for NASA. During its descent that day, one of Endeavour’s … Read more
The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. The U.S. Internal Revenue Service is planning to require citizens to create accounts with a private facial recognition company in order to file taxes online. The IRS is joining a growing number of federal and state agencies that have contracted … Read more
The International Space Station has orbited Earth for more than two decades, but one day, its time will come. And the space station’s death will be grizzly: Like all of the most massive spacecraft, it will burn up in Earth’s atmosphere. The massive orbiting laboratory has been a home to astronauts for a fully 20 … Read more
NASA and SpaceX will hold press conference to provide an update on the agency’s next astronaut launch from Florida today (Feb. 4) and you can follow it live online. The teleconference, which NASA announced Thursday afternoon (Feb. 3) comes as NASA and SpaceX are investigating parachute inflation delays during recent Dragon capsule landings. It will … Read more
Many of us are familiar with crowdfunding: donating money to people and their projects using one of many platforms on the internet. During the pandemic, people have sought help through crowdfunding in record numbers, making the activity seem like a de facto part of the American safety net. Some of these campaigns are truly transformative. … Read more
NASA is preparing for the day its astronauts explore the south pole of the moon by heading underwater with the lights out. NASA has long used a vast swimming pool dubbed the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory to prepare for spacewalks, since the underwater work experience is the closest they can get to reduced-gravity environments before blasting … Read more
From how food is grown to how we generate power, Vaclav Smil’s new book outlines the basic technologies that keep society going and commands us to know them better Humans 2 February 2022 By Simon Ings IN SUCH a complex world, no one can be expected to understand everything. But for energy expert Vaclav Smil, … Read more