News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
When South African scientists first alerted the world to the rapid spread of a new SARS-CoV-2 variant, some speculated it might not take off in other countries. After all, an earlier variant named Beta, which dominated in South Africa between November 2020 and May, did not spread much beyond its borders and has since petered … Read more
How Earth changed from a lifeless ball of rock, water, and gases to a blue planet teeming with organisms is one of science’s greatest puzzles. Life had to assemble out of chemical building blocks about 4 billion years ago. Some scientists have invoked spectacular sources of energy for life’s spark, such as a comet impact … Read more
The mystery of how some species colonised new continents is as old as the theory of evolution itself. Now, with fresh clues surfacing, the rafting hypothesis might finally sink or swim Life 15 December 2021 By Graham Lawton Brett Ryder IN DECEMBER 2016, Uwe Fritz at the Museum of Zoology in Dresden, Germany, was doing … Read more
While holding a medical license, Mehmet Oz, widely known as Dr. Oz, has long pushed misleading, science-free and unproven alternative therapies such as homeopathy, as well as fad diets, detoxes and cleanses. Some of these things have been potentially harmful, including hydroxychloroquine, which he once touted would be beneficial in the treatment or prevention of … Read more
A long-awaited, 16-year study of an orbiting pair of spinning neutron stars has yielded the most wide-ranging tests yet of Albert Einstein’s theory of gravity. Unsurprisingly, the general theory of relativity, as it’s called, passed all the tests—a sign of its soundness, but also a null result that leaves physicists looking for clues to develop … Read more
The glow of the firefly is as mysterious as it is alluring. Scientists have long argued over why the trait evolved in these adult beetles: Was it to deter predators—or identify mates? A new study argues for the latter, finding the ability arose more than 130 million years ago, tens of millions of years before … Read more
There’s a lot of out-of-this-world sci-fi content on Disney Plus these days, and we’ve picked out some of the best movies and TV shows so that you don’t have to. From “Star Wars” to “Futurama,” from Marvel to documentaries, Disney Plus has something for everyone — hundreds if not thousands of hours of galactic content … Read more
Mercury pollution is a global problem. Emissions from gold mining, coal burning, and other industrial processes travel through the atmosphere, eventually falling to Earth as rain or snow. The poison can make its way to fish and the humans who eat them, where it can damage the developing nervous system, causing problems with memory and … Read more
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JSWT) is scheduled to launch on Dec 24, 2021, from ESA’s launch site at Kourou in French Guiana on board an Arianespace Ariane 5 rocket. The $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope — NASA’s largest and most powerful space science telescope — will probe the cosmos to uncover the history … Read more
Flushing trillions of tiny oxygen bubbles through the rectum increases blood oxygen in pigs and could be an alternative to ventilation for people with damaged lungs Health 15 December 2021 By Michael Le Page Pigs recover from low blood oxygen levels after bubbles are injected into their rectum Tyler Stableford Photography/Getty Images The injection of … Read more