News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
A huge amount of money, skill and organizational complexity goes into testing a single new therapy in a randomized controlled trial—the “gold standard” type of study that forms the bedrock of modern medicine. Among the steps: devising a valid statistical design, determining dosages and measures of efficacy, passing ethical reviews, training collaborators in the study’s … Read more
The capacity to engage with and comprehend music spans nearly every human society. While other creatures also display musical behaviors (think bird song, humpback whale calls, or bonobo vocalizations), our musical cognition appears to be evolutionary distinct within the animal kingdom. A new study has given us more insight into the brain’s relationship with music, finding that … Read more
What happens inside a black hole — and how does whatever goes on inside relate to the universe outside it? It’s a mystery that has evaded scientists for decades. It’s also a mystery that could also redefine how we think about the nature of the universe. In a paper published in the journal PRX Quantum … Read more
Earth’s last major ice age locked up gargantuan amounts of water in vast glaciers. Once they melted, it was a spectacle to behold as tremendous floods gouged channels into the face of the planet. The remnants of one of the largest of these ancient deluges are still visible in eastern Washington, in an area … Read more
Our brains change as we age and grow here on Earth. But what happens to the human brain after being in space for a long time? In a new study, a collaborative effort between the European Space Agency and Russia’s space agency Roscosmos, researchers have explored how cosmonauts’ brains change after traveling to space and … Read more
An asteroid discovered in the 19th century has just been identified as the most crowded we’ve ever found. It’s called 130 Elektra, or just Elektra for short, and astronomers have just discovered that it has not one, nor two, but three smaller satellite companions, or moons. That not only makes it the most numerous asteroid … Read more
An unusual pair of stars may have been formed in a rare type of stellar merger when a helium star eats another one made of carbon and oxygen Space 15 February 2022 By Leah Crane Artist’s impression of a merger between two white dwarf stars Nicole Reindl, University of Potsdam Two strange stars that researchers … Read more
Previous research has shown that we are attracted to the body odour of people with better health, and now it seems the strength of your immune system is reflected in your face Health 16 February 2022 By Christa Lesté-Lasserre An attractive pair plainpicture/Daniel K Schweitzer Men and women are more physically attracted to the faces … Read more
When TikTok videos emerged in 2021 that seemed to show “Tom Cruise” making a coin disappear and enjoying a lollipop, the account name was the only obvious clue that this wasn’t the real deal. The creator of the “deeptomcruise” account on the social media platform was using “deepfake” technology to show a machine-generated version of … Read more
The mysterious source of a globe-spanning tsunami that spread as far as 6,000 miles (10,000 kilometers) from its epicenter was an “invisible” earthquake, a new study has found. In August 2021, an enormous tsunami rippled out into the North Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. It was the first time a tsunami had been recorded in … Read more