News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
A crescent-shaped crater in Northeast China holds the record as the largest impact crater on Earth that formed in the last 100,000 years. Prior to 2020, the only other impact crater ever discovered in China was found in Xiuyan county of the coastal province of Liaoning, according to a statement from the NASA Earth Observatory. Then, … Read more
A crescent-shaped crater in Northeast China holds the record as the largest impact crater on Earth that formed in the last 100,000 years. Prior to 2020, the only other impact crater ever discovered in China was found in Xiuyan county of the coastal province of Liaoning, according to a statement from the NASA Earth Observatory. … Read more
Rising global temperatures bring dire threats, such as floods, heat-related injuries, water scarcity, and hunger, making up to 3.6 billion people – nearly half of the world’s population – highly vulnerable to climate change. That’s according to a major report, released Monday, from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – a UN body that … Read more
An ancient skull uncovered at a 6,000-year-old megalithic monument in Spain still holds signs of what would have been a brutal ear surgery. Archaeologists suspect the patient probably had a double-sided acute middle ear infection, which can cause earaches and fevers. Without treatment, fluid can gather behind the eardrum, possibly causing a visible lump … Read more
A dance of death is taking place at the heart of a galaxy in the distant Universe. Some 10 billion light-years away, two supermassive black holes are locked in an orbit so tight that they will collide with each other and form one much larger black hole in the relatively short time of just 10,000 … Read more
A version of this story appeared in Science, Vol 375, Issue 6583. After passing through a security gate, the van descends into a tunnel that burrows under the forests of Olkiluoto, an island off Finland’s west coast. The wheels crunch on crushed stone as a gray, wet October day gives way to darkness. “Welcome to … Read more
Rising demands in the global cephalopod trade have encouraged the Spanish aquaculture company Nueva Pescanova to push forward with their plans to open the world’s first octopus farm sometime next year. Proponents of the venture claim the breeding programs will ease pressure on overtaxed fisheries and provide local jobs. But ethicists, zoologists, and environmentalists … Read more
When it comes to longevity and surviving extended amounts of time without food, the Argas brumpti species of African tick is hard to beat, newly published research shows. Observed close-up in the lab over the course of 45 years by entomologist Julian Shepherd from Binghamton University in New York, some of these ticks have survived as … Read more
A meteor that exploded in the sky over Chelyabinsk, Russia in 2013 could have also been somehow involved in the giant impact that formed the Moon. This tantalizing finding comes thanks to a new way of dating collisions between rocks in space, based on microscopic analysis of minerals within meteorites. Although further investigation is warranted, … Read more
The recipe for a great scientific dance video is a lot like that for a delicious loaf of bread. It takes a lot of planning, some pulling and stretching, and a heaping of yeast. That was the formula for Povilas Šimonis, at least. The Lithuanian scientist’s colorful and clever interpretation of the electric stimulation of … Read more