News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
Star light, star bright, the James Webb Space Telescope has seen its first star (though it wasn’t quite tonight) – and even taken a selfie, NASA announced Friday. The steps are part of the months-long process of aligning the observatory’s enormous golden mirror that astronomers hope will begin unraveling the mysteries of the early Universe … Read more
Two patients with long COVID in California have almost completely alleviated their symptoms by taking daily antihistamines, according to a newly published case report. While the evidence is anecdotal, the remarkable results aren’t without precedent, and the authors hope the stories they have detailed can give patients hope and point researchers in the right direction … Read more
New research has identified a possible way of shedding calories without closely monitoring diets or doing more exercise – simply by spending a little more time in bed, in fact. In an experiment with 80 overweight adults who usually slept fewer than 6.5 hours a night, adding an average of 1.2 hours of extra … Read more
Homo sapiens ventured into Neanderthal territory in Europe much earlier than previously thought, according to an archaeological study published in Science magazine on Wednesday. Up to now, archaeological discoveries had indicated that Neanderthals disappeared from the European continent about 40,000 years ago, shortly after the arrival of their “cousin” H. sapiens, barely 5,000 years … Read more
Peering back hundreds of millions of years into the past can turn up some astonishing findings – as it has with the discovery of a second species of opabiniid, a soft-bodied arthropod with a segmented exoskeleton that lived on the seafloor during the Miaolingian (509-497 million years ago). The original opadiniid, Opabinia regalis, was … Read more
A mountain-sized mass of igneous rock beneath the coast of southern Japan could be acting as a sort of magnet or lightning rod for huge earthquakes. According to a new 3D visualization of the feature, known as the Kumano Pluton, the tectonic energy from megaquakes seems to be diverted to several points along its side. … Read more
Domestic dogs are fertilizing the green spaces where they regularly poop and pee, and not in a good way. Even in nature reserves where dogs are supposed to be kept on leash, a new study in Belgium shows our pets’ droppings are a major disturbance to wildlife. Each year, researchers estimate the paths that run … Read more
In 2017, Michel Roccati was in a motorbike accident that left his lower body completely paralyzed. In 2020, he walked again, thanks to a breakthrough new spinal cord implant. The implant sends electrical pulses to his muscles, mimicking the action of the brain, and could one day help people with severe spinal injuries stand, walk, … Read more
In 2019, Alessandra Mascaro, a volunteer and budding evolutionary biologist for The Loango Chimpanzee Project, noticed something no other primatologist in Africa had reported before. In the forests of Gabon, while following and filming a female chimpanzee Suzee and her son Sia, Mascaro noticed Suzee clamp something tiny between her lips, before applying the … Read more
Archaeologists have uncovered the largest collection of ancient Egyptian ‘notepads’ found since the beginning of the 20th century. In the long-lost city of Athribis, in central Egypt, researchers have cataloged more than 18,000 inscribed pieces of pottery, some of which seem to have been written by students. The shards of inked pottery are known … Read more