News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
For centuries, people have dreamed of being driven at speed across the vast oceans of space by winds of light. As whimsical as the idea sounds, nudging reflective sails slowly towards the speed of light using nothing more than the punch of photons might be our only plausible shot at reaching another star inside of … Read more
Cancer biologist Cyrus Ghajar was gearing up to study how the immune system can fight breast cancer when he hit a snag: The supposedly fast-spreading cancer cells he implanted in mice stayed put and sometimes even disappeared after about 11 days. Then postdoc Candice Grzelak identified the culprit: the green fluorescent protein (GFP) the researchers … Read more
A study published last month in the journal Frontiers in Nutrition made headlines around the world. Among a number of findings concerning alcoholic drinks and COVID, it reported drinking red wine was associated with a reduction in the risk of contracting COVID. Before you start inviting people over to celebrate, it’s important to be … Read more
Thousands of studies have linked the trillions of microbes living in and on our bodies to conditions from cancer to autism to depression. But most microbiome samples come from wealthy countries in North America and Europe, a new analysis finds, distorting our understanding of human-microbe interactions. “There are many ethnic groups and geographical locations that … Read more
Protein plaques associated with Alzheimer’s disease may build up in the brain if sleep is disrupted because this affects cells that normally destroy them, according to a study involving mouse immune cells Health 10 February 2022 By Alex Wilkins Artist’s impression of amyloid plaques forming between neurons nobeastsofierce Science / Alamy Stock Photo The immune … 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
Most people are familiar with the five senses (touch, sight, hearing, smell, and taste), but not everyone knows that we have an additional sense called interoception. This is the sense of our body’s internal state. It helps us feel and interpret internal signals that regulate vital functions in our body, like hunger, thirst, body temperature, … Read more
When China’s Chang’E-5 probe visited the Moon in December of 2020, it didn’t just collect a sample of lunar material to return to Earth. While it was there, the mission took observations of the surrounding lunar rock – data vital for contextualizing the sample in future studies. Those observations have turned out to be … Read more
In science, as in life, we all like to celebrate the big news. We confirmed the existence of black holes by the ripples they create in space time. We photographed the shadow of a black hole. We figured out how to edit DNA. We found the Higgs boson! What we don’t usually hear about is … Read more