News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
A new SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch a classified spy satellite for the United States today (Feb. 2) and you’ll be able to watch it all live online. The Falcon 9 rocket will launch the secret NROL-87 payload for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office from Space Launch Complex 4E at California’s Vandenberg Space Force … Read more
My girlfriend, “Emily,” often tells me her dreams, and I, less often, tell her mine, which are usually too murky and disjointed to share. We try to make sense of our dreams, to find meaning in them. What do they reveal about our fears and desires? Interpreting dreams is an imperfect, highly subjective art, as … Read more
“Top Gun” star Tom Cruise and NASA astronaut Victor Glover bonded virtually over fast planes and SpaceX spaceships in a wide-ranging conversation about astronaut training. NASA’s Johnson Space Flight Center posted the hour-long conversation on YouTube on Friday (Jan. 28), rebroadcasting a November 2021 conversation during the World Extreme Medicine conference. Cruise is the one … Read more
NASA astronaut Victor Glover will join other agency representatives Wednesday (Feb. 2) to talk about the International Space Station‘s research activities. You can watch the whole event live at the Destination Station NASA website at 1 p.m. EST (1800 GMT). You must register to join the webinar on Zoom; registration is free. Along with Glover, … Read more
The International Space Station’s final nine years are going to be busy. NASA just released a report outlining the big-picture goals for the rest of the orbiting lab’s operational life, which is expected to end with a controlled deorbit in January 2031. These goals are: enabling deep-space exploration, conducting research to benefit humanity, inspiring our … Read more
When Adriaan Schutte took up his job as a chief power engineer at the Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO), he had a clear goal in mind: to build the world’s most sustainable research facility. It was an ambitious goal. SKAO is set to become the world’s largest radio telescope, an astronomical observatory that uses tens … Read more
The Marvel TV shows of today are, in terms of production values, almost indistinguishable from the movies. But, which are the best? Never fear, Space.com is here, laying out the Marvel TV shows ranked, worst to best, for you to plan your viewing by. The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has taken us all on a … Read more
Nuclear fusion could potentially provide abundant, safe energy without the significant production of greenhouse gas emissions or nuclear waste. But it has remained frustratingly elusive as a practical technology for decades. An important milestone toward that goal has now been passed: a fusion reaction that derives most of its heat from its nuclear reactions themselves … Read more
For centuries, British flowers have been blooming like clockwork. A few months into spring, sometime around May or June, the nation bursts into color. Since the early 1980s, however, hundreds of plants have grown out of sync with the seasons, which means they’re also unraveling from the complicated tapestry of interactions that keep ecosystems sustainably … Read more
The skeletal remains of a man buried 1,400 years ago near a headless horse have been discovered at an ancient cemetery in the town of Knittlingen in southern Germany. He likely was the horse’s owner/rider when he was alive. The man was buried at a time when the Merovingian dynasty (476–750 CE) flourished in … Read more