News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
Europe’s ExoMars rover, built to search for traces of life on the Red Planet, is unlikely to launch as planned in September aboard a Russian rocket as a result of sanctions rolled out by European countries in response to Russian aggression in Ukraine. The ExoMars mission, which comprises the Trace Gas Orbiter (in orbit around … Read more
Satellites have captured images of a massive convoy of Russian military vehicles 40 miles long (65 kilometers) nearing the besieged Ukrainian capital Kyiv as the country continued its resistance against Russia on the sixth day of that country’s invasion. The images, captured Monday (Feb. 28), show the convoy stretching from the town of Prybirsk, in … Read more
In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. government is revisiting its oversight of experiments that involve modifying pathogens in ways that might make them more harmful to people. Yesterday, White House officials and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) asked an expert advisory board to undertake a swift, broad review of the agency’s … Read more
China’s aggressive “zero COVID” strategy has served it remarkably well. The country has reported fewer than 154,000 cases and 5200 deaths from COVID-19 so far, a tiny fraction of the figures in the United States. But as the highly transmissible Omicron variant seeps into the country and the social and economic costs of the zero … Read more
This story is part of a special package being published this week about the barriers Black physicists face and potential models for change. Read more C. Smith/Science Apriel Hodari has spent many years studying how to improve training and reduce inequity in the scientific workforce. That research has brought her face to face with “the … Read more
The first team to disable a disease gene directly in a person through an infusion of the genome editor CRISPR reported yesterday that levels of the toxic protein made by the gene dropped as much as 93% for up to 1 year. The researchers hope the long-term reduction means patients in the clinical trial will … Read more
This story is part of a special package about the barriers Black physicists face and potential models for change. Read more C. Smith/Science In the 1990s, physics departments at U.S. universities faced an existential crisis. The number of undergraduate physics majors had plummeted by 25% over 10 years, prompting fears that many departments might disappear … Read more
A Maxar satellite image shows Russian airborne forces in Zdvyzhivka, Ukraine, on Feb. 28, 2022. (Image credit: Maxar Technologies) Private Earth observation companies have been sharing satellite images of Ukraine and its bordering countries amid Russia’s military invasion, but these efforts are not actually helping resistance fighters on the ground, Ukrainian entrepreneur Max Polyakov said … Read more
The coronavirus exposed and exacerbated the fragility and inequity of the global economic system. Many countries, including the U.S., proved unable to manufacture simple products such as face masks, let alone more complicated ones such as ventilators. Multiple supply chains broke. The resulting ordeal will almost surely lead to the creation of more onshore production … Read more
NASA is continuing to operate the International Space Station (ISS) as usual alongside Russia and the agency’s other partners, but is weighing its options for the future amid Russia’s ongoing invasion in Ukraine, the agency’s top space operations official said Monday (Feb. 28). “We understand this the global situation where it is, but as a … Read more