News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
Human waste has become so ubiquitous in the ocean, it’s becoming easier for octopuses to shelter in our trash than in seashells or coral. A systematic review of underwater photographs and videos from around the world has tallied 24 cephalopod species making their homes in marine litter. For years, divers and scientists have observed … Read more
Centuries before first contact with Europeans, new research suggests a strain of tuberculosis was already circulating from the South American coasts to the mountains. Deadly European diseases, like tuberculosis (TB), whooping cough, and smallpox, were spread around the world with colonization, but recent evidence indicates this wasn’t the first time TB arrived in South America. … Read more
Many people have experienced chronic stress since the pandemic lockdowns. Added to this are the climate crisis, the increasing cost of living and most recently threats to European and global security due to the conflict in Ukraine. To some, it may seem that there is never any good news anymore. This is of course … Read more
Western sanctions against Russia could cause the International Space Station (ISS) to crash, the head of Russian space agency Roscosmos warned Saturday, calling for the punitive measures to be lifted. According to Dmitry Rogozin, the sanctions, some of which predate Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, could disrupt the operation of Russian spacecraft servicing the ISS. … Read more
The Sun is blanketed by spiking, ultra-hot jets of plasma created from electrically charged particles, and now scientists have figured out more about how these jets (or spicules) are created and driven up into the star’s atmosphere. Via a series of laboratory experiments and models, a new study describes the spicules as being like … Read more
Prehistoric sites are full of stone tools that appear to have two life cycles: They’ve been crafted, used, and discarded before being picked up a second time and used again. A new study puts forward an interesting hypothesis as to why this is. The research suggests that the recycling of these tools is about … Read more
As scientists continue to discover more about the brain and how it works, it can help to know just how much brain matter is required to perform certain functions – and to be able to make complex decisions, it turns out just 302 neurons may be required. That’s based on a new study looking … Read more
The Apollo missions to the Moon brought a total of 2,196 rock samples to Earth. But NASA has only just started opening one of the last ones, collected 50 years ago. For all that time, some tubes were kept sealed so that they could be studied years later, with the help of the latest technical … Read more
After throwing 129 volunteers into the stressful situation of a sudden group math test, researchers found that people using a huggable ‘breathing’ cushion were more relaxed in the lead up to the questions than those without one. “We were excited to find that holding the breathing cushion, without any guidance, produced a similar effect … Read more
Across the world, girls are more likely than boys to blame academic failure on a lack of talent, according to a large study on gender stereotypes published Wednesday. Paradoxically, the idea that males are inherently more brilliant was most entrenched in countries that are more egalitarian. Such stereotypes have been explored in the past, … Read more