News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
So, why in the name of the cosmos am I LARP-ing Albert Einstein as a 1950s-stye doo-wop group?! Well, I wanted to make you smile in these very tense times. The spark: It began as a COVID-19 fever hallucination. I had the bug for seven weeks, back in the pre-vaccine days. Lying medicated on the … Read more
Quantum entanglement is a bizarre, counterintuitive phenomenon that explains how two subatomic particles can be intimately linked to each other even if separated by billions of light-years of space. Despite their vast separation, a change induced in one will affect the other. Related: How quantum entanglement works (infographic) In 1964, physicist John Bell posited that … Read more
As scientists continue to discover more about the brain and how it works, it can help to know just how much brain matter is required to perform certain functions – and to be able to make complex decisions, it turns out just 302 neurons may be required. That’s based on a new study looking … Read more
Training artificial intelligences to identify faces or digitise text involves thousands or millions of iterations of a two-stage process known as back-propagation, but a new approach could save time, energy and computing power Technology 10 March 2022 By Matthew Sparkes Cutting training time for AI could make face recognition systems more efficient iStockphoto Artificial intelligence … 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
When it comes to killing and eating other creatures, chimpanzees—our closest relatives—have nothing on us. Animal flesh makes up much more of the average human’s diet than a chimp’s. Many scientists have long suggested our blood lust ramped up about 2 million years ago, based on the number of butchery marks found at ancient archaeological … Read more
An inky, tentacled squid stuck in a net can be a messy problem for a fisher. And for a loggerhead turtle or a diamond stingray, getting tangled in a net often means death. Now, new research offers hope: It shows that affixing green light-emitting diode (LED) lights to fishing nets significantly reduces the catch of … Read more
Bacterial colonies can organize themselves into complex ring-like patterns which have an “intriguing similarity” to developing embryos and were thought to be unique to plants and animals, new research suggests. Bacterial cells band together in clumps to form tightly packed colonies called biofilms that have a growing reputation for acting strangely like multicellular organisms. … Read more
Up to 8% of pregnant people develop high blood pressure that can damage their organs or even kill their babies. Often there’s no sign of the condition, known as preeclampsia, until late in pregnancy. Now, by analyzing patterns of gene activity through RNA markers in a pregnant woman’s blood, researchers have come up with a … Read more