News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
A superhabitable planet is a world that might have an even better chance at hosting life than our own home, Earth. Because Earth is the only known inhabited planet and its life depends on liquid water, efforts to identify exoplanets that could host life focus on Earth-like worlds. But some researchers think there are other … Read more
Iesha White is so fed up with the U.S. response to covid-19 that she’s seriously considering moving to Europe. “I’m that disgusted. The lack of care for each other, to me, it’s too much,” said White, 30, of Los Angeles. She has multiple sclerosis and takes a medicine that suppresses her immune system. “As a … Read more
Spring is a time for budding flowers, tender green leaves and baby animals. But 66 million years ago, that gentle season instead brought mass death and carnage from Earth’s catastrophic impact with a massive space rock. Earth was forever changed after an enormous asteroid smashed into our planet at the end of the Cretaceous period (145 million … Read more
China has had a bumper few years in space exploration, and its ambitions are about to get bolder. The China National Space Administration has released an overview of its plans for the next five years, which include launching a robotic craft to an asteroid, building a space telescope to rival the Hubble and laying the … Read more
As the well-known story in the Gospel of Matthew goes, the Star of Bethlehem guided three Magi, or wise men, to Jerusalem some 2,000 years ago. And after consulting with King Herod of Judea, the men found newborn baby Jesus in the little town of Bethlehem. Whether such an event really happened in history is … Read more
“Is data objective or subjective?” In my last year at Rice University, I enrolled in a data science ethics course. It was my first engineering course focused on the societal impacts of emerging technologies. Until this point, my work in social justice was largely separate from my technical work as a student of materials science … Read more
The World Health Organization (WHO) yesterday declared that a more contagious version of Omicron, the SARS-CoV-2 variant that has already swept the globe in recent months, makes people no sicker than the original Omicron. The subvariant does not merit a separate designation with its own Greek letter, WHO said. The statement from the international organization … Read more
By definition, microbes are supposed to be so small they can only be seen with a microscope. But a newly described bacterium living in Caribbean mangroves never got that memo (see video, above). Its threadlike single cell is visible to the naked eye, growing up to 2 centimeters—as long as a peanut—and 5000 times bigger … Read more
The recipe for a great scientific dance video is a lot like that for a delicious loaf of bread. It takes a lot of planning, some pulling and stretching, and a heaping of yeast. That was the formula for Povilas Šimonis, at least. The Lithuanian scientist’s colorful and clever interpretation of the electric stimulation of … Read more
What happens inside a black hole — and how does whatever goes on inside relate to the universe outside it? It’s a mystery that has evaded scientists for decades. It’s also a mystery that could also redefine how we think about the nature of the universe. In a paper published in the journal PRX Quantum … Read more