News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
Wherever there is sand and an atmosphere, prevailing winds may whip the grains into undulating shapes, pleasing to the eye with their calming repetition. Certain sand waves, with wavelengths between 30 centimeters (almost 12 inches) and several meters (around 30 feet), are known as megaripples: they’re between ordinary beach ripples and full dunes in size, … Read more
Located in the Okanagan Valley outside of Penticton, British Columbia, there is a massive radio observatory dedicated to observing cosmic radio phenomena. It’s called the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME), a cylindrical parabolic radio telescope that looks like what snowboarders would call a “half-pipe”. This array is part of the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory … Read more
Goldfish may have short memories but, according to an Israeli university study, they might be able to drive. Researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev found that a goldfish’s innate navigational abilities allowed it to steer a robotic vehicle towards a terrestrial target if given a food reward. To conduct their unusual experiment, the … Read more
Thawing Arctic permafrost laden with billions of tonnes of greenhouse gases not only threatens the region’s critical infrastructure but life across the planet, according to a comprehensive scientific review. Nearly 70 percent of the roads, pipelines, cities, and industry – mostly in Russia – built on the region’s softening ground are highly vulnerable to … Read more
The Solar System floats in the middle of a peculiarly empty region of space. This region of low-density, high-temperature plasma, about 1,000 light-years across, is surrounded by a shell of cooler, denser neutral gas and dust. It’s called the Local Bubble, and precisely how and why it came to exist, with the Solar System floating … Read more
A rare script from a language in Liberia has provided some new insights into how written languages evolve. “The Vai script of Liberia was created from scratch in about 1834 by eight completely illiterate men who wrote in ink made from crushed berries,” says linguistic anthropologist Piers Kelly, now at the University of New England, Australia. … Read more
Ocean temperatures the world over are building at a relentless rate as humans continue to alter the atmosphere around them. In 2021, according to a new summary of two international datasets, the wave of warmth in our oceans hit a new peak, eclipsing the influence of cooler regional episodes. While last year’s ocean warming … Read more
An infusion of the widely-used anesthetic ketamine could represent “new hope” in the treatment of millions of people with alcohol problems, scientists studying the drug said. People with severe alcohol problems who were given ketamine infusions alongside psychological therapy quit drinking for longer than those who received a standard treatment for alcoholism, according to the … Read more
Scientists have built the tiniest antenna ever made – just five nanometers in length. Unlike its much larger counterparts we’re all familiar with, this minuscule thing isn’t made to transmit radio waves, but to glean the secrets of ever-changing proteins. The nanoantenna is made from DNA, the molecules carrying genetic instructions that are around … Read more
Pyroptosis, a type of programmed cell death related to infection and an inflammation response, can actually be stopped and managed, according to new research – whereas it was previously thought that the process was irreversible once it gets going. Killing off cells with pyroptosis is something the body uses to stay healthy, though such … Read more