News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
During the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Jay Van Bavel, a psychologist at New York University, wanted to identify the social factors that best predict a person’s support for public-health measures, such as physical distancing or closing restaurants. He had a handful of collaborators ready to collect survey data. But because the pandemic was … Read more
NASA just got a $10 billion space telescope for Christmas. An Ariane 5 rocket launched today (Dec. 25) from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, at 7:20 a.m. EST (1220 GMT; 9:20 a.m. local time in Kourou), carrying the highly anticipated, long-delayed James Webb Space Telescope — and the hopes and dreams of countless astronomers, … Read more
For millennia, populations in Greenland enjoyed a relatively sugar-free diet. Without the need to rapidly process certain carbohydrates, many lost the function of a key sucrose-processing enzyme. To learn what this loss means for the health of today’s populations, a team of researchers led by scientists from the University of Copenhagen analyzed the health … Read more
A sea monster that lived during the early dinosaur age is so unexpectedly colossal, it reveals that its kind grew to gigantic sizes extremely quickly, evolutionarily speaking at least. The discovery suggests that such ichthyosaurs – a group of fish-shaped marine reptiles that inhabited the dinosaur-era seas – grew to enormous sizes in a span of only 2.5 … Read more
Two studies from Britain published Wednesday showed COVID infections with Omicron are less likely to result in hospitalization compared to the Delta variant, the latest research confirming a trend first identified in South Africa. The preliminary studies – one paper from Scotland and the other from England – were cautiously welcomed by experts, who nonetheless … Read more
Motes of weathered plastic increasingly dust every corner of our planet, permeating our food, our air, and our water. From the moment we’re born – if not long before – we’re exposed to its effects, and we don’t fully know what that’s doing to our health and wellbeing. A recent investigation by a team of researchers … Read more
When it comes to exercise for heart health, you don’t want to peak too early in life. Recent research suggests that if you want to protect yourself against high blood pressure as you age, you need to play the long game and keep your exercise levels up through middle age. But social factors can … Read more
A new scientific study published Monday has identified the brain region linked to genital touch in women, and found that it was more developed in volunteers who reported having more sex. The research involved stimulating the clitorises of 20 adult females while their brains were scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The researchers … Read more
Famed for their swift longboats and bloody incursions, Vikings have long been associated with brutal, over-the-top violence. Between the eighth and 11th centuries, these groups left their Nordic homelands to make their fortunes by trading and raiding across Europe. Particularly infamous is the so-called “blood eagle”, a gory ritual these warriors are said to … Read more
Billions of birds die each year from collisions with tall glass buildings, communication towers and power lines – a gobsmacking toll that’s expected to increase as cities grow outwards and upwards. A recent study suggests there could be a way to fix our deadly mistakes – by installing ‘acoustic lighthouses’ that blast white noise … Read more