News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
Cells are continually cranking out new proteins, but like car factories, they produce some lemons. A study of mice now suggests these defective proteins speed aging, bolstering an idea first proposed 60 years ago. The new paper “fills a critical gap” and “allows us to say that protein damage is an accelerant of aging,” says … Read more
COVID-19 CDC relaxes guidance on wearing masks in public The often-acrimonious U.S. debate over wearing masks entered a new phase last week when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) loosened its guidance and suggested about 70% of the population could jettison them. The turnabout comes as the Omicron wave ebbs and scientists consider … Read more
Papers are a key currency for academic careers—which is why publication disparities among various groups, such as men versus women, are often a focal point for efforts to increase equity and diversity. Now, a new study quantifies another of these gaps: LGBTQ academic scientists who don’t disclose their sexual orientation in the workplace publish fewer … Read more
A version of this story appeared in Science, Vol 375, Issue 6584. This story is part of a special package being published this week about the barriers Black physicists face and potential models for change. Read more C. Smith/Science Historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in the United States have had outsize success in launching … Read more
Older adults make up a hefty proportion of cancer patients but a much smaller slice of clinical trial participants—a long-standing and vexing problem the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) wants drug companies to tackle. The agency yesterday released recommendations urging companies to boost representation of people over 65 years old, and especially over 75. … Read more
Physicists in Australia have programmed a quantum computer half a world away to make, or at least simulate, a record-size time crystal—a system of quantum particles that locks into a perpetual cycle in time, somewhat akin to the repeating spatial pattern of atoms in an actual crystal. The new time crystal comprises 57 quantum particles, … Read more
Baricitinib, an oral drug that dampens an overactive immune system and is commonly used by people with rheumatoid arthritis, reduced hospitalized COVID-19 patients’ risk of dying by 13%, investigators of the world’s largest trial of coronavirus treatments announced today. Patients in the study also took other drugs, such as the steroid dexamethasone, that act on … Read more
This story is part of a special package being published this week about the barriers Black physicists face and potential models for change. Read more For years, Maritza Tavarez-Brown couldn’t talk about the end of her astronomy career without tears. She’d wanted to be an astronomer since high school. But she struggled in her introductory … Read more
A troubled €300 million nuclear physics research facility in Romania may now have to do without one of its main components, a gamma ray beam designed to probe the heart of atoms. That’s because the U.S. company contracted to supply the gamma ray source may be on the verge of bankruptcy, according to sources familiar … Read more
This story is part of a special package being published this week about the barriers Black physicists face and potential models for change. Read more C. Smith/Science Physicist Mary James was a sophomore at Hampshire College in Massachusetts in 1974 when a professor encouraged her to apply for a prestigious internship at a world-class laboratory. … Read more