News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
Although the name millipede comes from Latin for “thousand feet”, before now no species has been found with more than 750 legs. After the discovery of a new millipede with 1,306 legs however, this arthropod is finally living up to its name. The new species is Eumillipes persephone – emillipes translating as “true-thousand-foot”, with … Read more
We have a lot to thank meteorites for. Had they not instigated several mass extinction events, including wiping out non-avian dinosaurs, we probably wouldn’t be here today. But some things still don’t add up about the massive scale of decimation they can cause. “For decades scientists have puzzled over why some meteorites cause mass … Read more
In the search for “potentially-habitable” extrasolar planets, one of the main things scientists look at is stellar activity. Whereas stars like our own, a G-type (G2V) yellow dwarf, are considered stable over time, other classes are variable and prone to flare-ups – particularly M-type red dwarf stars. Even if a star has multiple planets … Read more
A vast system of canyons that dramatically scars the face of Mars could be harboring reserves of hidden water. An unusually high quantity of hydrogen has been detected in the heart of the 4,000 kilometers (2,485 miles) of canyons known as Valles Marineris, nicknamed the Grand Canyon of Mars. We know this thanks to new … Read more
Copper is well known for being able to kill off bacteria that it comes into contact with – the metal releases ions that are toxic to bacterial cells, punching through their outer membranes. However, this process usually takes several hours. A newly developed copper surface does the job in just a couple of minutes, … Read more
Remnants of industrial chemicals in the air can potentially transform into new substances more toxic and persistent than the original pollution, according to a global study published on Wednesday. Using samples gathered around the world, the study published in Nature found that these previously unidentified products are present in the atmospheres of 18 big … Read more
The line between art and science is sometimes a swirly one. Researchers studying a social bacterium that moves and feeds in coordinated swarms have unintentionally recreated something that looks a lot like a familiar masterpiece. When a certain gene is overexpressed in a bacterium known as Myxococcus xanthus, the individual organisms self-organize into tiny circular … Read more
In an incredible historic first, a human-made spacecraft has swooped in and made contact with the Sun. On 28 April 2021, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe actually flew into and through the solar corona, the upper atmosphere of the Sun. Not only did it live to tell the tale – proving the efficacy of Parker’s high-tech … Read more
The UN on Tuesday officially recognized the 38 degrees Celsius measured in Siberia last year as a new record high for the Arctic, sounding “alarm bells” over climate change. The sweltering heat – equivalent to 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit– was seen on June 20, 2020 in the Russian town of Verkhoyansk, marking the highest temperature ever … Read more
A three-week archaeological dig in the English Channel took a bizarre, inexplicable turn, after researchers chanced upon a carefully cut grave hidden in the soil – the contents of which were definitely not human. The discovery, made on the small island of Chapelle Dom Hue off the coast of Guernsey in September 2017, revealed … Read more