News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
We’re about to get another progress report on SpaceX’s huge Starship Mars rocket. SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk announced last week that he’ll give a big Starship update on Thursday (Feb. 10) at 9 p.m. EST (0200 GMT on Feb. 11). The presentation will presumably be webcast live; if so, you can watch it … Read more
Higher temperatures with climate change will push up demand for air conditioning significantly in some states, potentially taxing electric grids, a new analysis said. Demand in some parts of the United States could rise more than 13 percent, according to the studypublished in Earth’s Future, the American Geophysical Union’s journal. “We know that when it … Read more
It will soon be time to bid a fond adieu to an object that has been a fixture in our evening sky since late last summer: the planet Jupiter. Jupiter is leaving our skies after many months of an impressive display. Currently it’s setting just under two hours after the sun and you can still … Read more
In the spring of 2017 I was serendipitously invited to what initially seemed to be the wrong scientific meeting. The invitation came thirdhand, and the details were murky but intriguing. I took a car to a train to a downtown hotel where I wound my way through a series of conference rooms before a sign … Read more
A new SpaceX video has captured a striking view of two critical moments in any rocket launch: stage separation for its booster and nose cone jettison. The video, which SpaceX released on YouTube Saturday (Feb. 5), shows the company’s Jan. 31 launch of a Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Italian Earth-observation satellite Cosmo-SkyMed Second Generation … Read more
In 2019, Alessandra Mascaro, a volunteer and budding evolutionary biologist for The Loango Chimpanzee Project, noticed something no other primatologist in Africa had reported before. In the forests of Gabon, while following and filming a female chimpanzee Suzee and her son Sia, Mascaro noticed Suzee clamp something tiny between her lips, before applying the … Read more
Three men paralyzed in motorcycle accidents have become the first success stories for a new spinal stimulation device that could enable faster and easier recoveries than its predecessors. The men, who had no sensation or control over their legs, were able to take supported steps within 1 day of turning on the electrical stimulation, and … Read more
The trillions of bacteria in and on our bodies can bolster our health and contribute to disease, but just which microbes are the key actors has been elusive. Now, a study involving thousands of people in Finland has identified a potential microbial culprit in some cases of depression. The finding, which emerged from a study … Read more
Remember when your mother said you might choke if you crammed too much food into your mouth? In the weeks to come, Democrats in the U.S. Congress will find out whether that warning also applies to their ability to finalize sweeping legislation that promises to double the budgets of the National Science Foundation (NSF) and … Read more
Another showdown in the seemingly endless patent battle over who invented CRISPR, the genome editor that has revolutionized biology, took place today at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). This latest hearing saw charges that one party improperly obtained early CRISPR information, as well as a detailed scientific discussion of a crucial question: Who … Read more