News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
A new telescope taking on the task of staring at the Sun has delivered incredible new images of solar activity. The US National Science Foundation’s Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope commenced science operations for the first time on Wednesday 23 February 2022. It’s the largest solar telescope in the world, and its high-resolution observations of … Read more
Gazing at the night sky can evoke a sense of wonder regarding humanity’s place in the Universe. But that’s not all it can evoke. If you’re knowledgeable about asteroid strikes like the one that wiped out the dinosaurs, then even a fleeting meteorite can nudge aside your enjoyable sense of wonder. What if? Luckily, … Read more
After analysing the teeth and thigh bones of 38 T. rex fossils, some researchers propose reclassifying them as three different species, but others are unconvinced Life 1 March 2022 By Colin Barras Sue, the Tyrannosaurus skeleton at the Field Museum in Chicago EQRoy / Alamy The “tyrant lizard king” – Tyrannosaurus rex – might have … Read more
A chequerboard pattern based on kirigami, the Japanese art of paper cutting, enables thin and light structures to support much heavier loads Technology 1 March 2022 By Alex Wilkins A metamaterial inspired by kirigami, the Japanese art of paper cutting, can support nearly 3000 times its own weight. Metamaterials have structures not found in nature, … Read more
By Michael Le Page, Clare Wilson, Jessica Hamzelou, Sam Wong, Graham Lawton, Adam Vaughan, Conrad Quilty-Harper, Jason Arunn Murugesu, Layal Liverpool, Carissa Wong and Alex Wilkins A child receives a dose of Pfizer/BioNTech covid-19 vaccine Alexandre Schneider/Getty Images Latest coronavirus news as of 12pm on 1 March Study suggests that protection from two doses of … Read more
Thermobaric weapons, sometimes called vacuum bombs, use powdered metal to create a rapidly expanding fireball. Under international law, they must only be used against military targets, not civilians. Technology 1 March 2022 By David Hambling TOS-1 Buratino rocket launchers on display in Moscow, Russia Shutterstock / Shujaa_77 The Russian invasion of Ukraine seems to be … Read more
We stick calendars on the wall or load them up on our phones, but the people of the third millennium BCE used giant rocks, new research suggests. A new study explains how Stonehenge may have originally been used to keep track of a solar year (aka tropical year) of 365 and a quarter days, which … Read more
The system uses day-night temperature differences to extract water from the air while slightly increasing electricity generation by cooling solar panels Environment 1 March 2022 By Michael Le Page A prototype of the water-harvesting device Renyuan Li A three-month trial in Saudi Arabia has shown that a solar panel add-on system can harvest water without … Read more
Nanorobots propelled by magnets can be used repeatedly without fuel, offering a sustainable and cost-effective way to clean up industrial wastewater Technology 1 March 2022 By Chen Ly Polluted water sam barnhart/Getty Images Chemists have created nanorobots propelled by magnets that remove pollutants from water. The invention could be scaled up to provide a sustainable … Read more
When aquatic plants first transitioned onto land, their success may have been due to genes they got from bacteria and fungi that let them take up nutrients from soil Life 1 March 2022 By Jake Buehler Plants may have taken root on land thanks to genes from bacteria Shutterstock/daniilphotos Around 500 million years ago, aquatic … Read more