News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
Scientists have been doing some great work when it comes to peering back through billions of years to figure out what ancient Earth would have looked like, and a new study reveals that the earliest conditions on our planet were probably even more hostile than originally imagined. In particular, researchers now think that we’ve … Read more
The pioneering work of physicist Stephen Hawking is honored in a Google Doodle today (Jan. 8), including a video with Hawking’s quotes concerning everything from cosmology to disability. On what would have been Hawking’s 80th birthday, the cosmologist was cited not only with his work in probing the fate of the universe and the nature … Read more
Following the time of the dinosaurs, it might well be that the evolution of flowering plants drove the explosion in the diversity of life on Earth, according to a 2021 paper. Most of the plants we now eat, drink, wear, and build with are of the flowering variety. They’re called angiosperms, which roughly translates from … Read more
The arid heart of Australia may not easily support life now, but once, many aeons ago, it was lush and teeming. What is now arid desert and dry shrub- and grasslands was once thick with dense forests, alive with life. In one of these grasslands, in the Central Tablelands of NSW, paleontologists have found … Read more
A US study of older women finds that those who perform well on physical tests have the best chances of living longer, while weight loss may not be beneficial Health 6 January 2022 By Jessica Hamzelou A woman exercising Tatsiana Plotilova / Alamy Stock Photo Weight loss isn’t always beneficial in later life. Older women … Read more
The scientific evidence is crystal clear: Early experiences literally shape the architecture of the developing brain. This widespread understanding is driving increased public support for universal pre-K to enhance school readiness for all children and level the playing field for kids who face adversity. But here’s something that’s less well-known by the public: Since the brain is … 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
The years following the asteroid impact that wiped out non-avian dinosaurs were dark times — literally. Soot from raging wildfires filled the sky and blocked the sun, directly contributing to the wave of extinctions that followed, new research has found. After the asteroid struck, around 66 million years ago, the cataclysm extinguished many forms of … Read more
A summary of decades of research on a rather ‘out-there’ idea involving viruses from space raises questions on just how scientific we can be when it comes to speculating on the history of life on Earth. It’s easy to throw around words like crackpot, rogue, and maverick in describing the scientific fringe, but then … Read more
Finding the right work-life balance is by no means a new issue in our society. But the tension between the two has been heightened by the pandemic, with workers increasingly dwelling over the nature of their work, its meaning and purpose, and how these affect their quality of life. Studies suggest people are leaving … Read more