News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
In late 2020, Brianne Dressen began to spend hours in online communities for people with Long Covid, a chronic, disabling syndrome that can follow a bout with the virus. “For months, I just lurked there,” says Dressen, a former preschool teacher in Saratoga Springs, Utah, “reviewing post after post of symptoms that were just like … Read more
When you think of the word “ephemeral”, many people will immediately conjure up the image of a soap bubble: delicate, gorgeous, and gone in a blink (or maybe a few). Now a team of physicists led by Aymeric Roux of the University of Lille in France has defied this cliché, creating a bubble that maintained … Read more
If you wanted to travel to Mars, how long would it take? The answer depends on several factors, ranging from the position of the planets to the technology that would propel you there. According to NASA, a one-way trip to Mars would take about nine months. If you wanted to make it a round-trip, all … Read more
The moon’s crust might have formed from an unevenly layered “slush” of magma that once covered the entire body, a new study reports. It’s the latest turn of the wheel on scientists’ picture of how the moon and its features formed, a picture that’s been continually changing ever since Apollo astronauts brought moon rocks back … Read more
A mesmerizing new video shows a “once-in-a-lifetime encounter” with a bizarre, bright red octopus swimming above the Great Barrier Reef in northeastern Australia. The encounter, first reported by local Australian news website Bundaberg Now, was a rare sighting of a blanket octopus, named after the blanket-like fleshy cape between its arms. Jacinta Shackleton, a marine biologist and reef guide, filmed and photographed … Read more
Women have a variety of methods for contraception, but only two methods are commonly available to men: condoms and vasectomies. Both methods have their drawbacks. Condoms can break, and some men are allergic to the latex in standard condoms. Vasectomies are surgical procedures that can be painful and difficult to reverse. So the search … 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
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is three days into the deployment of its massive sunshield — and it still has about three days to go. The $10 billion Webb launched on Christmas Day (Dec. 25) to seek out heat signals from the early universe. To pick up these faint signals, the observatory’s optics and instruments must … Read more
Until recently, one of the biggest myths in science was that all dinosaurs have been extinct for the past 65 million years. But thanks to new fossil discoveries that filled in our knowledge about avian dinosaurs, we now know that only some dinosaurs went extinct following an asteroid collision with Earth – others survived and gave … Read more
We sort of take for granted the depictions of prehistoric beasties illustrated in the books of our childhood. But piecing together Earth’s murky past is a lot harder than it sounds. Scientists have to rely on fragmentary bones, weathered footprints, impressions in rock – these don’t always capture the fine details of the complex, … Read more