News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
We know about the devastating effect that Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia can have on people – but what’s less clear is how they get started in the brain and what can be done to cure them or prevent them from happening in the first place. Some clues could be found amongst indigenous … Read more
The human body might not cope with nearly as much heat and humidity as theory predicts. One of the first studies to directly assess humid heat stress among young people has found that when humidity is at an absolute max, the upper limit of human adaptability is just 31°C (87 °F). That’s four degrees … Read more
Older adults who own a dog have a much lower risk of cognitive and physical disabilities, but those who own a cat don’t have the same benefit Health 23 February 2022 By Carissa Wong A couple walking their dog Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock People who own a dog have a much lower risk of disability in … Read more
More humans are alive today than ever before, and yet around the world, people are still feeling alone a lot of the time. Even before the global pandemic hit, a sweeping meta analysis has found chronic or severe loneliness was a common and overlooked experience in numerous nations. Past studies in the industrialized world … Read more
There is perhaps no better way to see the absolute pinnacle of human athletic abilities than by watching the Olympics. But at the Winter Games this year – and at almost all professional sporting events – you rarely see a competitor over 40 years old and almost never see a single athlete over 50. … Read more
The course of human evolution never did run smooth. The emergence of hominins on the continent of Africa is full of twists, turns, gaps, and dead ends, which makes it all the more difficult to retrace the rise of our own species. Today, we still don’t really know when or where the first Homo … Read more
Young male elephants will sometimes attack humans or other animals, but seem less likely to do so if they are in the company of older males Life 22 December 2021 By Christa Lesté-Lasserre A male elephant acting aggressively Connie Allen Young male elephants appear to manage their aggression towards anything that isn’t an elephant by … Read more
The joke about “needing longer arms” when you grow older and try to read small print is common enough. The cause – a natural decline in our eyes’ ability to focus on nearby objects, or presbyopia – is the reason so many people end up getting reading glasses in older age. Now, for the first … Read more
Cataract surgery is often undertaken to reverse the natural decline in vision as we get older. Now, a new association study underscores the wider benefits such a procedure can have on one’s health – especially when it comes to reducing dementia risk. Cataracts are cloudy areas that develop in the lens of the eye … Read more