News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
The bottlenose dolphin (Tersiops truncatus) appears to have a very large and well-developed clitoris, potentially better placed for coital pleasure than the clitoris of humans, according to new research. The visible tip of the human clitoris is but the size of a pea and located slightly north of the vagina and urethra (although much … Read more
Rapid COVID-19 tests that use nose swabs alone might not pick up Omicron in the early days of infection, a new study suggests – but experts don’t agree on whether you should also swab your throat. A small study from a group of US researchers, published Tuesday, found that rapid tests with nasal swabs didn’t detect Omicron … Read more
An evolutionary battle between fungi and bacteria on hedgehogs’ skin gave rise to a type of antibiotic-resistant bacteria long before humans started using the antibiotics that were thought to lead to such superbugs, a new study reveals. Researchers traced some lineages of the superbug MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, to a parasitic fungus found … Read more
Nature is an unstoppable force, and a beautiful one at that. Everywhere you look, the natural world is laced with stunning patterns that can be described with mathematics. From bees to blood vessels, ferns to fangs, math can explain how such beauty emerges. Math is often described this way, as a language or a … Read more
E. O. Wilson was an extraordinary scholar in every sense of the word. Back in the 1980s, Milton Stetson, the chair of the biology department at the University of Delaware, told me that a scientist who makes a single seminal contribution to his or her field has been a success. By the time I … Read more
Astronomers have captured a breathtaking radio wave image, showing our closest radio active black hole spewing out massive jets of plasma that span more than 16 times the size of the full moon in our sky. The supermassive black hole in question is located in the center of the galaxy Centaurus A around 12 … Read more
Back in 2018, researchers were able to study the moment brain death becomes irreversible in the human body for the first time, observing the phenomenon in several Do Not Resuscitate patients as they died in hospital. For years, scientists have researched what happens to your brain when you die, but despite everything we’ve found … Read more
The science community is getting a very long-awaited Christmas gift this year – the much-delayed launch of the James Webb Space Telescope! The successor to the much-loved Hubble, the James Webb Space Telescope, or JWST, was originally scheduled to be launched in 2007. Now, 14 years later, all systems seem to finally be ready to … Read more
Some 60,000 years ago, in what is now western France, a Neanderthal picked up a chunk of hyena femur and a stone tool and began to work. When the task was complete, the bone bore nine notches that were strikingly similar and approximately parallel, as if they were meant to signify something. Francesco d’Errico, an … Read more
NASA is tracking two explorers on a 2,268-mile (3,650 kilometers) journey across Antarctica to learn more about humanity’s ability to survive on Mars. British explorers Justin Packshaw and Jamie Facer Childs are on the 32nd day of an 80-day trek across the southernmost continent as part of the Chasing the Light mission — a grueling … Read more