News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
The Bernardinelli-Bernstein comet, identified in 2021, is officially the biggest comet ever observed. The new record, reported on the preprint website arXiv and now accepted for publication in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics Letters, bumps the Hale-Bopp comet from the top spot. Hale-Bopp was discovered in 1995 and became visible to the naked eye in 1996; it … Read more
Feeling dizzy or light-headed when standing is a common experience caused by a drop in blood pressure. When this blood pressure dip is very brief and rapid, and not tied to any other health problems, it’s referred to as initial orthostatic hypotension or IOH. New research suggests some simple muscle exercises before or after standing … Read more
Two patients with long COVID in California have almost completely alleviated their symptoms by taking daily antihistamines, according to a newly published case report. While the evidence is anecdotal, the remarkable results aren’t without precedent, and the authors hope the stories they have detailed can give patients hope and point researchers in the right direction … Read more
As basic science teaches us, changes in temperature can result in phase transitions in materials – like when water solidifies as ice in the freezing cold. However, in some cases the temperature that triggers the change is different depending on whether the material is cooling down or warming up. This is known as a hysteresis … Read more
Everyone wants to live longer. And we’re often told that the key to doing this is making healthier lifestyle choices, such as exercising, avoiding smoking, and not drinking too much alcohol. Studies have also shown that diet can increase lifespan. A new study has found that eating healthier could extend lifespan by six to … Read more
Israeli scientists said they found “striking” differences in the chances of getting seriously ill from COVID-19 when they compared patients who had sufficient vitamin D levels prior to contracting the disease, with those who didn’t. A study published Thursday in research journal PLOS One found that about half of people who were vitamin D deficient before getting COVID-19 … Read more
COVID-19 has infected every part of our lives over the last two years. The ways we work, engage with our surroundings, and see family and friends have all been drastically altered during the ongoing pandemic. By far the worst have been the deaths of all the loved ones the disease has taken from us. … Read more
The human gut is the host of a rampant microscopic orgy. To survive, the microbes in our digestive tract are having ‘sex’ with each other on a regular basis, all in the name of swapping secrets on how to survive deadly doses of antibiotics. A team of researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign … Read more
Uranus and Neptune are the most twin-like of all the planets in the Solar System. They are almost the same size and mass, have similar compositions and structures, even similar rotation rates. Which makes one glaring difference quite perplexing. Neptune is a fetching shade of azure, with visible swirling storms. Uranus is more of … Read more
It’s fun sometimes when your eyes play tricks on you, and you see a face that isn’t really there, staring back at you from a power plug or a potato. This phenomenon is called face pareidolia, and it’s something that humans, and even chimps, naturally do. But it looks like facial features aren’t the … Read more