Deborah Bloomfield

A new study has finally nailed down what links Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) – a pathogen that over 95 percent of adults worldwide have been infected with – to lupus, solving a long-standing mystery. Lupus, also called systemic lupus erythematosus or SLE, is a chronic autoimmune disease in which the immune system attacks the body’s own […]

How much do you need to eat to stay alive and healthy? It’s an interesting question and one that is crucial to protecting a lot of Earth’s species. For short-finned pilot whales, the answer is somewhere between 82 and 202 squid per day, which scales up to as many as 73,730 squid per year, and […]

North America is far more than just the US, Canada, and Mexico. In total, the continent includes 23 countries, embracing a rich diversity of cultures, climates, and natural environments. This is because Central America and the Caribbean can be considered to be “subregions” of North America. When containing these landmasses, the continent totals 23 independent […]

Astronomers have attempted to explain the non-gravitational acceleration of comet 3I/ATLAS, our third confirmed interstellar visitor, in a way that removes the need for “non-natural hypotheses for 3I/ATLAS”. You probably are aware of our celestial visitor by now, but for those who are just joining the story, here’s what we know so far. On July […]

Sweat. It’s a beautiful thing. It cools, it hydrates, and even keeps microbes in check. Still, there are times you could do without it being quite so visible through your pale blue shirt, and for that, we invented antiperspirant. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access […]

Pugs, Mastiffs, Chihuahuas, and Greyhounds didn’t splinter off from wolf-like wild dogs in a matter of generations – the story runs far deeper. The forms we recognize in our canine companions today began to appear surprisingly early, at a time when the Ice Age was ending and agriculture was just beginning to take root around […]

Among the hilly forests of southern China, scientists have discovered the largest modern meteorite impact crater on Earth. Dubbed the Jinlin crater, the giant pitted scar could become an invaluable tool for learning how and when extraterrestrial objects crash into our planet. Located in a remote, hilly region in the northwest of Guangdong Province, not […]

Physicists agree that an awful lot went on in the first few seconds after the Big Bang, a lot of it in incomprehensibly tiny units of time. The exact nature of that activity is far more debated, but a new model proposes not only near instantaneous black hole formation, but exotic boson and cannibal stars. […]

Astronomers looking at data from the European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) Euclid mission have concluded that the universe is only going to get “colder and deader” from here on out. The Euclid telescope launched in 2023, hitching a ride on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 to study the cosmos from the Sun-Earth Lagrange point 2, 1.5 million kilometers […]

We recently reported on a new discovery about those zigzags you see in spider webs. Silken decorations like these are known as stabilimenta, and they can serve all kinds of purposes.  In the case of the zigzags, it’s thought they may act like extra doorbells, letting you know when food has arrived to a broader […]

Being intimate with your partner might help physical wounds heal faster, according to the results of a new study. And if you’re not in the mood for sex, then you might be able to achieve a similar effect simply by exchanging compliments with your other half. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. […]

Sometimes, the hardest battles are the simplest ones. Chess may have its drama, Magic can enchant, but few things compare to the pure, raw warfare of rock, paper, scissors. It’s a game that dates back potentially more than two millennia – and yet, even today, people argue about how best to play it. Is it […]

The Pleiades star cluster is 20 times larger than it looks at first sight, astronomers have learned. The cluster celebrated in cultures around the world, often under the name the “Seven Sisters”, is the remnant of something much greater, with hundreds of the original stars having escaped each other’s gravitational grip. Stars are usually formed […]

For the first time ever, scientists have captured underwater footage of humpback whale calves nursing from their moms. Recorded in Quandamooka Sea Country, Australia, the footage highlights just how important the area is as a nursing and resting site to the humpbacks. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or […]

The idea that you can smell snow might sound like whimsical baloney dreamed up by romantics or a winter advertising campaign. However, there’s strong evidence that some people can sniff out a thunderstorm or rain, so the idea of snowfall having a scent is not too much of a stretch. The rest of this article […]

If you’ve ever been stung by a bee, you could be forgiven for shouting that the infernal beast must have been sent by the devil himself. Now, the discovery of a new species of the pied insect has added more evidence of their demonic nature, being as it is named Megachile (Hackeriapis) lucifer. The rest […]

The bear family is no stranger to being sizeable, standing firm at the top of the world’s largest land-dwelling carnivorans. Still, even the biggest groups have their smaller members, and the title for the smallest bear of all goes to a unique, freakishly long-tongued, and weirdly human-like animal: the sun bear (Helarctos malayanus). The world’s […]

You might’ve heard we’re trying to talk to whales. It sounds crazy, but it’s not so far-fetched, as in recent years we’ve been getting closer and closer to cracking the code of their remarkably complex communications. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content. […]

Sea urchins look like an inanimate bundle of needles, but a closer look at these alien-like creatures reveals a surprisingly complex “all-body brain” that challenges our assumptions about nervous systems, evolution, and the nature of intelligence. Echinoderms – the phylum of animals that includes starfish, sea cucumbers, sea urchins, and others – are easy to […]

Astronomers have detected the radio burst from a massive eruption known as a coronal mass ejection (CME) on an M-type star 133 light-years away. CMEs have been suspected to occur on other stars based on activity that frequently accompanies them on the Sun, but this is the first direct evidence. Unfortunately, the major advance for […]