News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
In popular imagination, the Black Death is the most devastating pandemic to have ever hit Europe. Between 1346 and 1353, plague is believed to have reached nearly, if not every, corner of the continent, killing 30-50 percent of the population. This account is based on texts and documents written by state or church officials … Read more
The James Webb Space Telescope suffers from astigmatism, but that visual condition is a very good thing for astronomy, NASA assures us. A new explainer video the agency posted on YouTube talks about the huge telescope’s optics and how they will let astronomers peer deep into the universe’s history for future science work, ranging across … Read more
Since 2013, medical experts in West Africa have been playing whack-a-mole with what looks like the same strain of Ebola virus, and we don’t really know why it continues to pop back up. Even though we keep hammering away at the virus with effective antibody treatments and vaccines, this incredibly fatal infection keeps re-emerging … Read more
Hacking coughs, uncontrollable sneezing, high fevers and pounding headaches can make anyone miserable – even a dinosaur. Recently, researchers identified the first evidence of respiratory illness in a long-necked, herbivorous type of dinosaur known as a sauropod, which lived about 150 million years ago during the Jurassic period (201.3 million to 145 million years ago) in what is now … Read more
The principles of rocketry were first tested more than 2,000 years ago, but it’s only been within the past 70 years or so that we have built rockets to explore space. Today, rockets routinely loft spacecraft off Earth, sending satellites to low-Earth orbit or cargo to the International Space Station. And with the commercial space … Read more
Robust quarterly financials and greater-than-anticipated streaming subscribers weren’t the only major highlights of Disney’s earnings report and follow-up call on Wednesday (Feb. 9), as new details about the eagerly awaited live-action “Obi-Wan Kenobi” spinoff series on Disney Plus were revealed. Disney CEO Bob Chapek unveiled official news that the premiere date of May 25 is … Read more
A single, broken molar found buried within a windswept rock shelter in southeastern France could push back the first evidence of modern humans in Europe by nearly 10,000 years. According to an international team, the tooth and dozens of stone tools from the same sedimentary layer belonged to a member of Homo sapiens who lived … Read more
Kalpana Chawla became the first Indian-born woman to go to space in 1997. Six years later, on February 1, 2003, Chawla died when the space shuttle Columbia broke up on re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere, killing all seven astronauts on board. Chawla’s legacy has lived on, however. In particular, her talent and hard work have inspired … Read more
As chemists scramble to find ways to reclaim valuable metals from industrial waste and discarded electronics, one team has found a solution that sounds a little like magic: Zap the trash with flashes of electric heat. Rare earth elements (REEs) present an environmental paradox. On one hand, these dozen or so metals, such as yttrium … Read more
Astra failed to deliver four satellites to orbit as planned today (Feb. 10) in the company’s first-ever orbital launch from the contiguous United States. The California startup’s 43-foot-tall (13 meters) Launch Vehicle 0008 (LV0008) launched the ELaNa 41 mission from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station today, rising off the pad at 3 p.m. EST … Read more