News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
After spending 50,000 years on Earth, a meteorite got the chance to visit space again for almost three days, during the all-civilian Inspiration4 mission in September. Pilot Sian Proctor shared a video on Twitter Friday (Dec. 10) showing a fragment of the immense Canyon Diablo space rock that slammed into northern Arizona, forming Barringer Crater (better … Read more
By Adam Vaughan One of Atlantis Energy’s turbines being lowered into the water in Scotland Atlantis Energy Hello, and welcome to this week’s Fix the Planet, the weekly climate change newsletter that reminds you there are reasons for hope in science and technology around the world. To receive this free, monthly newsletter in your inbox, … Read more
With massive webs of probing black tentacles extending for miles below the ground, the Armillaria group of fungi includes some of the largest known organisms on our planet. An 8,500-year-old specimen of Armillaria ostoyae in Oregon covers 2,385 acres (3.7 square miles) with its mass of rhizomorph tentacles and is estimated to weigh roughly 7,500 … Read more
This has been quite the year for climate science. Extreme weather events made headlines year-round, including exceptional heatwaves, floods, and fires driven by droughts. Two leading climate scientists, Suki Manabe and Klaus Hasselmann, won the 2021 Nobel Prize for Physics. World leaders finally came together in Glasgow for the COP26 meeting. There is little doubt … Read more
When Thomas Edison hit a wall with his inventions, he would nap in an armchair while holding a steel ball. As he started to fall asleep and his muscles relaxed, the ball would strike the floor, waking him with insights into his problems. Or so the story goes. Now, more than 100 years later, scientists … Read more
A greenhouse in Antarctica testing technologies that could one day grow food for Mars colonists has produced an abundant harvest of greens, vegetables and spices completely without soil and natural light, showing promise for future space missions. The greenhouse, called EDEN ISS, is operated by the German Aerospace Center (known by its German acronym, DLR) … Read more
By Michael Le Page, Clare Wilson, Jessica Hamzelou, Sam Wong, Graham Lawton, Adam Vaughan, Conrad Quilty-Harper, Jason Arunn Murugesu and Layal Liverpool Commuters make their way across London Bridge on 9 December, 2021 in London, England Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images Latest coronavirus news as of 11am on 10 December Omicron variant may be spreading faster … Read more
A deepwater robot, humming through the twilight zone of Monterey Bay, has managed to capture incredibly rare video footage of a giant phantom jelly. In 34 years of conducting deep sea studies, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) has sent out remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) to the deep sea on thousands of occasions, and … Read more
Top news from around the world Credit: NASA Advertisement PANAMA While monitoring vampire bats in Panama, researchers discovered that the bloodthirsty fliers help one another find food by screeching after locating a juicy meal, despite departing their roosts alone. FRENCH POLYNESIA Scientists reconstructed historic Polynesian settlement routes by tracking rare gene variants in DNA from … Read more
Slacker mice don’t have to lift a paw to reap the brain benefits of exercise. All they need are injections of blood from their fellow rodents that have been working out, a new study reveals. The research suggests a molecule in the exercisers’ blood can replicate some perks of physical activity, including reducing the brain … Read more