News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
In The Cartographers, Peng Shepherd’s latest work of magical realist speculative fiction, the characters have a habit of asking “what makes a map?”. The answer, it becomes clear, is its purpose, finds Sally Adee Humans 9 March 2022 By Sally Adee MAPS can seem such dry, factual objects: blueprints of reality that are useful to … Read more
Admit it. We all have our favorite world map, where the place we call home sits right at the center. When that world map is flipped upside down or shifted to the left or right, everything feels… unbalanced. More than just a classroom squabble, it’s a reflection of how maps can shape how we … Read more
Northern elephant seals seem to know how far they have travelled and when they need to head back towards the beaches where they breed Life 28 February 2022 By Chen Ly An adult female elephant seal on a beach at Año Nuevo State Park in California Dan Costa Northern elephant seals (Mirounga angustirostris) return to … Read more
The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. Climate change is raising flood risks in neighborhoods across the U.S. much faster than many people realize. Over the next three decades, the cost of flood damage is on pace to rise 26% due to climate change alone, an … Read more
See what’s up in the night sky for January 2022, including stargazing events and the moon’s phases, in this Space.com gallery courtesy of Starry Night Software. Related: Space calendar 2022: Rocket launches, sky events, missions & more Saturday, Jan. 1 — The inner planets dance (after sunset) (Image credit: Starry Night) To kick off 2022, … Read more
A clear night sky offers an ever-changing display of fascinating objects to see — stars, constellations, and bright planets, often the moon, and sometimes special events like meteor showers. Observing the night sky can be done with no special equipment, although a sky map can be very useful. Binoculars or one of the best telescopes … Read more
Every geography schoolbook has them: maps that look like today’s Earth, but not quite, since all continents are merged into a single supercontinent. Those maps were used to explain why dinosaurs in South America and Africa, or North America and Europe looked so alike. Paleogeographic reconstructions like these provide context to study the processes … Read more