News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
Have you ever wanted to eat breakfast sitting across from a dire wolf or watch a saber-toothed cat roar from the comfort of your living room? These ice age animals have been extinct for more than 10,000 years, but scientists are bringing them back to life—virtually. The team developed three-dimensional, animated models of some of … Read more
The Chicxulub asteroid that ended the reign of the dinosaurs is one of the most momentous impact disasters in Earth’s history, and scientists have now identified the time of year when this deadly event took place. New evidence suggests the asteroid hit in the spring for the Northern Hemisphere, which would be fall (or autumn) … 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
Species can actually go extinct more than once. In a biological sense, species become extinct when the last animal of a species stops breathing. But they can also become extinct a second time, researchers say. When a species disappears from our collective memory and cultural knowledge, it becomes extinct in a different way. That second … Read more
Australia officially listed koalas across a swathe of its eastern coast as “endangered” on Friday, with the marsupials fighting to survive the impact of bushfires, land-clearing, drought and disease. Conservationists said koala populations had crashed in much of eastern Australia over the past two decades, warning that they were now sliding towards extinction. Environment … Read more
A new book by ecologist Rebecca Nesbit argues that it’s time to stop being romantic about nature and make some rational decisions about what to save Humans 9 February 2022 By Simon Ings Would cutting down the last oak tree on Earth make you a bad person? Vandervelden/Getty Images Tickets for the Ark Rebecca Nesbit … Read more
The signs of death are everywhere, if you look. For years, scientists have rung the alarm bell, warning that grave declines in animal biodiversity around the globe herald the onset of what will be Earth’s sixth mass extinction. Despite the looming weight of evidence to suggest this grim phenomenon is unfolding all around us, … Read more
Declines in bird and mammal species are making plant seed dispersal more difficult, which means plants can’t adapt as effectively to climate change Environment 13 January 2022 By Adam Vaughan An American robin eats a winterberry Paul Vitucci Losses in the number of birds and mammals are limiting the capacity of plants worldwide to adapt … Read more
Dominik Hülse, an Earth system modeler based at University of California Riverside, worked on a November 2021 study that explored how ancient microbes may have prolonged the Permian extinction by producing a toxic gas. Here, Hülse poses with a finger to his nose to highlight the toxic “rotten egg” scent of hydrogen sulfide. (Image credit: … Read more
On a recent morning, in Lower Manhattan, 20 scientists, including me, gathered for a private screening of the new film Don’t Look Up, followed by lunch with the film’s director, Adam McKay. The film’s plot is simple. An astronomy graduate student, Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence), and her professor, Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio), discover a new … Read more