News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
A new family tree of apes that lived in the Miocene between 23 and 5.3 million years ago reveals which are our close relatives and which are only distant cousins Humans 16 March 2022 By Michael Marshall Dryopithecus, an extinct ape from the Miocene JOHN SIBBICK/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY A huge study of fossil apes clarifies … Read more
Electrons are negatively charged subatomic particles found in the outermost regions of atoms. They are considered to be both partially particle-like and partially wave-like, depending on the scenario, according to West Texas A&M University. Electrons are essentially the reason atoms can interact with other atoms. The nucleus of an atom consists of protons and neutrons. … Read more
An exceptional fossil unearthed in Montana has given us the earliest known ancestor of vampire squids and octopuses. The cephalopod, belonging to the vampyropod or octopodiform superorder, pushes back the age of the group by about 82 million years. This challenges our understanding that octopuses evolved from a Triassic ancestor. Fascinatingly, it has not eight, … Read more
California is a land divided by a 1,287-kilometer-long (800 miles) rupture known as the San Andreas Fault. Running north to south through the state close to several major cities, it has been responsible for some of the US’s most devastating earthquakes. There are regions in the state’s heart that haven’t experienced the fault’s full … Read more
Grains of sand on a beach can tell us more than you might think about the history of the planet, new research reveals – something to think about the next time you’re heading to the coast for a swim or splash around. Scientists have developed a new metric to determine what they call the … Read more
Mars missions have been launching from Earth with regularity since the 1960s, bent on exploring our planetary neighbor. With its potential for liquid water — and therefore, life — Mars is an alluring target. But it’s a difficult journey, and only about half of all Mars missions successfully make it to the Red Planet, according … Read more
By Michael Marshall A visualisation of relationships between ancestors and descendants in the genealogy of modern and ancient genomes Wohns et al. (2022) Meet your relatives. A family tree of humanity has been constructed using genetic data from thousands of modern and prehistoric people. The tree gives a view of 2 million years of prehistory … Read more
Cosmology is a branch of astronomy that involves the origin and evolution of the universe, from the Big Bang to today and on into the future. According to NASA, the definition of cosmology is “the scientific study of the large scale properties of the universe as a whole.” Cosmologists puzzle over exotic concepts like string … Read more
The United States’ human spaceflight program got a much-needed shot in the arm 60 years ago today. On Feb. 20, 1962, NASA astronaut John Glenn launched from Florida’s Cape Canaveral inside a tiny capsule named Friendship 7. The Mercury spacecraft circled Earth three times, ultimately splashing down near the Turks and Caicos Islands four hours … Read more
Over the course of the history of the Universe, the Milky Way has not been serenely sailing through intergalactic space. Quite the contrary, actually. Over the last 13.6 billion years or so, it has collided with and consumed multiple other galaxies. Now, through painstaking work, astronomers led by Khyati Malhan of the Max Planck … Read more