News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
Life is complicated. Even the smallest cells contain a mind-blowing assortment of chemical reactions that allow them to thrive in a chaotic landscape. If we want to know where to draw the line between life and bubbles of stale old organic soup, it helps to strip away the non-essential extras to expose the core components, … Read more
Astronomers have long suspected that merging black holes can give the resulting larger black hole a massive boost of speed, and have finally spotted this happening Space 11 January 2022 By Leah Crane When a pair of black holes merge, the resulting larger black hole can be sent hurtling away at extraordinary speeds – and … Read more
Bacterial biofilms, slimy collections of microbes, can develop concentric rings containing cells with different biological features Life 6 January 2022 By Alex Wilkins Bacillus subtilis, a soil bacterium, can create concentric rings when it forms a biofilm Kwang-Tao Chou Bacterial biofilms contain a level of structural organisation that we thought was unique to plants and … Read more
Astronomers have long thought it takes millions of years for the seeds of stars like the Sun to come together. Clouds of mostly hydrogen gas coalesce under gravity into prestellar cores dense enough to collapse and spark nuclear fusion, while magnetic forces hold matter in place and slow down the process. But observations using the … Read more
The movement of seawater in a tsunami generates a magnetic field that travels ahead of changes in sea level, which could help us predict and prepare for it Earth 24 December 2021 By Leah Crane The aftermath of a 2010 tsunami in Chile, which was analysed in the new study International Federation of Red Cross … Read more
A vast system of canyons that dramatically scars the face of Mars could be harboring reserves of hidden water. An unusually high quantity of hydrogen has been detected in the heart of the 4,000 kilometers (2,485 miles) of canyons known as Valles Marineris, nicknamed the Grand Canyon of Mars. We know this thanks to new … Read more
Physicists have shown that ‘splitting’ particles of light into so-called Majorana bosons, a feat long thought to be mathematically impossible, may be achievable Physics 15 December 2021 By Leah Crane Artistic illustration of a photon split in two Trustees of Dartmouth College A type of light that was previously thought to be impossible may be … Read more
Solar system formation began approximately 4.5 billion years ago, when gravity pulled a cloud of dust and gas together to form our solar system. Scientists can’t directly study how our own solar system formed, but combining observations of young stellar systems in a range of wavelengths with computer simulations has led to models of what … Read more
Computer modelling supports the idea that nascent stars brighten dramatically during growth spurts, which could explain an astrophysical mystery Space 2 December 2021 By Will Gater Newborn stars appear as pink and red specks in the centre of this image from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope NASA/JPL-Caltech/P.S. Teixeira (Center for Astrophysics) Powerful outbursts of energy from … Read more
The beautiful birth of a star has produced an exquisitely ethereal structure in interstellar space. It’s called the Chamaeleon Infrared Nebula, located about 520 light-years away, and in a new image from the NSF NOIRLab’s International Gemini Observatory in Chile, it appears in the sky like a pale gossamer butterfly wing. At its core, … Read more