News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
SpaceX’s Starlink internet is now active in Ukraine. But will the company be able to keep it online? Russia’s attacks on Ukraine continue to take lives and destroy infrastructure as the country invades. This infrastructure damage has disrupted internet access in Ukraine, leading a government official to publicly request Starlink satellite internet access for the … Read more
As U.S. forces withdrew from Afghanistan, the Taliban immediately rushed in, and it recently took over the country’s major cities in just a few days. The end of the two-decade American occupation has not only produced a fraught political situation; it has also created an environmental one. Some of the military bases the U.S. handed … Read more
Ukraine has a mighty space industry whose Zenit rocket is Elon Musk’s favorite. But the country’s potential might soon lie in ruins together with its dreams as Russia continues its bloody siege. However, the country’s former space boss told Space.com that he still has hopes for the future and believes the underdog Ukraine could help … Read more
A new Hubble image shows two deceivingly close galaxies located in the constellation Virgo. The Hubble Space Telescope captured the barred spiral galaxy NGC 4496A and the spiral galaxy NGC 4496B. The two galaxies only appear to overlap due to a chance alignment — in reality, they are actually located incredibly far apart. NGC 4496A … Read more
What happens when two of the largest objects in the universe collide? Simple, says a new study: They create one of the largest shock waves in the universe. Located about 730 million light-years from Earth, Abell 3667 is a galaxy cluster in chaos. Actually composed of two clusters (or groups) of galaxies colliding into one another, Abell 3667 … Read more
Roscosmos will not launch three dozen OneWeb internet satellites as planned on Friday (March 4) unless the company meets new demands, the Russian space agency announced today (March 2). This morning, Roscosmos rolled a Soyuz rocket out to the launch pad at the Russia-operated Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan carrying 36 satellites for the London-based company … Read more
Stonehenge may have been used as a solar calendar, with each of the stones representing a day and sections of the circle of stones possibly corresponding to weeks, an archaeologist now says. An accurate solar calendar consists of about 365.25 days and is important for preventing the seasons from falling out of place (such as … Read more
A crescent-shaped crater in Northeast China holds the record as the largest impact crater on Earth that formed in the last 100,000 years. Prior to 2020, the only other impact crater ever discovered in China was found in Xiuyan county of the coastal province of Liaoning, according to a statement from the NASA Earth Observatory. Then, … Read more
If a pregnant woman catches COVID, it’s very rare for the virus to be passed through the placenta to the fetus. But it’s long been known that a mother’s antibodies can cross the placental barrier to the baby and can also be transferred via breast milk after the baby is born. This is why it’s … Read more
Ever since it was approved in 2000 as an abortion pill, mifepristone has been regulated as if it were a dangerous substance. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration required doctors to be specially certified to prescribe it. Patients had to sign an agreement confirming that they had been counseled on its risks. Most onerously, the … Read more