News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
The mummy of ancient Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep I was so exquisitely wrapped – decorated with flower garlands and buried with a lifelike face mask – scientists have been hesitant to open up the remains. That is, until now. Some 3,000 years after Amenhotep’s burial, a team of researchers used CT scans to digitally unwrap his body for the first … Read more
Last week, Harvard University chemist Charles Lieber became the first academic scientist targeted by the U.S. government’s controversial 3-year-old China Initiative to be found guilty by a jury. He may also be one of the last, says Andrew Lelling, the former U.S. attorney who charged Lieber nearly 2 years ago with lying about his research … Read more
China launched the Ziyuan 1 (02E) Earth resources observation satellite and a small amateur radio satellite on Saturday, marking the country’s 53rd orbital launch of the year. The China National Space Administration mission’s Long March 4C rocket lifted off from Taiyuan, north China, at 10:11 p.m. Dec. 25 (0311 GMT, 11:11 a.m. local time Dec. … Read more
This weekend saw the deaths of two of the world’s strongest advocates of protecting the world’s flora and fauna. Edward O. Wilson, 92, an ant researcher at Harvard University who also introduced controversial theories about how societies evolve and function, became a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and, later in life, a powerful conservation advocate, died on … Read more
A summary of decades of research on a rather ‘out-there’ idea involving viruses from space raises questions on just how scientific we can be when it comes to speculating on the history of life on Earth. It’s easy to throw around words like crackpot, rogue, and maverick in describing the scientific fringe, but then … Read more
Finding the right work-life balance is by no means a new issue in our society. But the tension between the two has been heightened by the pandemic, with workers increasingly dwelling over the nature of their work, its meaning and purpose, and how these affect their quality of life. Studies suggest people are leaving … Read more
The phrase “It’s not rocket science” is commonly used to describe tasks that aren’t difficult or complicated. But are rocket scientists really smarter than everyone else? That was a vital question that researchers sought to answer in a new study published in the annual light-hearted Christmas issue of the high-profile medical journal BMJ; the study … Read more
Science is often thought of as a serious subject. But even though it tackles hugely important issues—many with life-or-death consequences—it also has a fun side. This year Scientific American has covered some stories that ranged from “Huh, that’s weird” to “Ew, gross” to “So. Cool.” Below, we’ve rounded up a few of our favorites (seriously, … Read more
When a 56-year-old farm worker from just outside Kansas City in Missouri, US, began noticing a rash on his waist and arms within hours of chowing down on a hamburger seven years ago, he wasn’t sure what to make of it. Like so many with alpha-gal syndrome (AGS), the path from tick bite to … Read more
COVID-19 COVID-19 looms large over the next year in science Any look at the immediate future of science must start with the pandemic coronavirus. As the world enters the third year of COVID-19, researchers are striving for a handle on what the latest variant of concern, Omicron, may mean for the pandemic’s trajectory. Given the … Read more