News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
Six mummified children thought to have been sacrificed hundreds of years ago, apparently to accompany a dead nobleman to the afterlife, have been unearthed in a tomb near Lima, archaeologists reported. The tiny skeletons, wrapped tightly in cloth, were found in the grave of an important man, possibly a political figure, discovered last November … Read more
Decaying isotopes of hydrogen have just given us the smallest measurement yet of the mass of a neutrino. By measuring the energy distribution of electrons released during the beta decay of tritium, physicists have determined that the upper limit for the mass of the electron antineutrino is just 0.8 electronvolts. That’s 1.6 × 10–36 kilograms … Read more
A Stonehenge-era chalk drum is the “most important piece of prehistoric art to be found in Britain in the last 100 years,” according to the British Museum. The 5,000-year-old drum, discovered within an ancient children’s burial site, is to go on display for the first time next week, per CNN. It will be unveiled, six … Read more
Deep below the crust of Earth, past the thick mantle and liquid outer core, lies a 1,220-kilometer (760 mile) ball of solid inner core. But a new study has suggested that the inner core is not solid at all, instead forming a ‘superionic state’ with hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon, making it unlike either a liquid … Read more
On any given day, about one in three adult Americans eats fast food. There are some problems associated with this. Lots of research suggests fast food isn’t good for you, and it’s been linked to the obesity epidemic affecting millions in the US, among a host of other issues related to health. But according … Read more
In November of 2020, a freak wave came out of the blue, lifting a lonesome buoy off the coast of British Columbia 17.6 meters high (58 feet). The four-story wall of water has now been confirmed as the most extreme rogue wave ever recorded. Such an exceptional event is thought to occur only once … Read more
A piece of space debris due to crash into the Moon in early March may not be a SpaceX rocket after all. According to an update posted by astronomer Bill Gray, who wrote the Project Pluto software used to track near-Earth objects, the object on a collision course is not a discarded SpaceX Falcon 9 … Read more
In the chart-topping Netflix documentary The Tinder Swindler, three women describe how they were defrauded by convicted conman Simon Leviev (who was born Shimon Hayut) after meeting him on the dating app. The film gives a detailed and deeply personal account of how Leviev used Tinder to connect with his victims and ultimately swindle … Read more
A new museum exhibit hopes to uncover the secrets behind the doodles, in-jokes and coded messages on a blackboard that legendary physicist Stephen Hawking kept untouched for more than 35 years. The blackboard dates from 1980, when Hawking joined fellow physicists at a conference on superspace and supergravity at the University of Cambridge in … Read more
It took nature decades of photosynthesis, followed by eons of intense heat and pressure from geological activity to bake atmospheric carbon dioxide into the long chains of hydrocarbon that make up fossil fuels. We don’t have the luxury of millions of years to mop up the excess carbon from our atmosphere, but advances in … Read more