Deborah Bloomfield

According to the original Artemis plan, we should have already put people on the Moon. Artemis III should have gone and come back by now. Instead, it is currently tentatively scheduled for no earlier than mid-2027. However, the mission is almost certain to be delayed again. The reason for the delay lies with SpaceX’s Starship […]

Female geladas, an African baboon, will pretend to be fertile and have sex with males to prevent attacks on their young. The deception is not just behavioral – the mothers experience estrogen surges that change their bodies to make the males think they are ready to bear new young. There is an energy price to […]

On the Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal, scientists have discovered a new species of wolf snake. This latest member of the gang is a shiny, dark black, and has been named in honor of Australian TV personality, zookeeper, and conservationist Steve Irwin. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign […]

The use of wild beasts in gladiatorial contests is well-documented in ancient Roman texts, yet until now it was thought that these animal adversaries were only deployed in the Colosseum in Rome. However, the discovery of a leopard bone at a Roman arena in Serbia rewrites this script, indicating that fierce felines were transported throughout […]

According to the standard model of cosmology, the universe should be the same everywhere and look the same in every direction. A little caveat on this last part is that it’s the same in every direction if the observer is not moving, but the Solar System is. This creates an effect, known as a dipole, […]

Of all the psychedelic drugs, such as lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and psilocybin (the active ingredient in “magic mushrooms“, with all the odd experiences they can induce in the user, one drug has a reputation amongst “psychonauts” who take them for causing particularly odd experiences. N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT), sometimes referred to as the “spirit molecule,” has […]

One of the most famous symptoms of Alzheimer’s – and definitely one of the most devastating – is when patients start to forget their friends, family, and loved ones. Thanks to a new study from researchers at the University of Virginia, though, we may now know why that happens – and perhaps one day, we’ll […]

Evolutionary biologists have been investigating the evolutionarily origins of kissing by taking a broad look at behaviour in Afro-Eurasian primates, a family tree that includes chimps, bonobos, and us, Homo sapiens, and our ancient ancestors. They found that lip-touching displays of affection are found in most of the large apes, suggesting it emerged in an […]

Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS is still the talk of the town, and we might finally get a flurry of new images and data. This extraordinary celestial body, the third known interstellar object, has been monitored since its discovery on July 1. NASA has several telescopes and missions that have looked at 3I/ATLAS, and is at long […]

Renaissance paintings have a few traits characteristic of them. That’s why we can recognize the perfect Renaissance composition in modern-day moments (who could forget that festive scene in Manchester a few years back?). Those traits include realism, symbolism, and – in a few hair-raising portraits – really big foreheads. The rest of this article is […]

On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong stepped out of the Apollo 11 Lunar Module “Eagle” and delivered one of the most iconic speeches of the 20th century. The speech and subsequent Moon walk were broadcast around the world to an estimated 650 million people. The quality of the video was somewhat lacking, giving you a […]

It’s a thought that may have crossed your mind at some point: what would be the practicalities of firing your enemies into the Sun? Fortunately, an associate professor of astronomy, who hopefully doesn’t have access to a rocket ship, has the answers. Apart from the obvious moral difficulties, physics is not working in your favor. […]

Colors are not a static entity, but are subjective both personally and culturally. So it’s no surprise that people continue to be fascinated by an online quiz based on the arbitrary boundary between blue and green. Sure, navy and forest are very different shades. So are emerald and sapphire. But where do you place turquoise? […]

Astronomers have been able to catch the earliest phases of supernova explosions with one of the most powerful observatories on Earth. These incredible observations have provided our first look at what the shape of a supernova is. It turns out, they are not really spherical. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please […]

Earth’s atmosphere is opaque to X-rays, which is probably good news for life on this planet. It is not good news for astronomers, however, because that means the best way for them to see high-energy events like black holes and neutron stars is to send a telescope into space. A bit easier than that is […]

In the deserts of Nevada, a US startup has achieved cold criticality, a bold step in the development of a functional commercial nuclear reactor. It’s the first time a venture-backed startup has ever done this, and the company argues that its success marks “the dawn of a new era” in the US’s efforts to spark […]

The kodkod (Leopardus guigna), also known as the guiña, is the smallest cat in the Americas. Typically found in Chile, this shy species is nocturnal, hunting under the cover of vegetation.   The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content. What does a kodkod […]

Incredible footage from British Columbia shows what may be the first ever instance of tool use by wild wolves. In the recordings, two wolves can be seen pulling on crab trap lines in order to access tasty bait, and while this behavior clearly shows a sophisticated level of cognition, there is some debate over whether […]

Something’s up with raccoons. Scientists have recently reported that those living in US cities have evolved much shorter snouts than their rural counterparts, a sure sign that urban “trash pandas” have self-domesticated in response to human presence. Biologists from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock studied thousands of images of North American raccoons (Procyon […]

Everything we see in the universe and everything we interact with is made of matter. At a fundamental level, though, the particles that make us have twins of the same mass but with opposite charge. This is antimatter. We do not know why the universe is made of matter and not antimatter, but there must […]