Deborah Bloomfield

Light is something in our world that we are very familiar with, and yet it can still throw some incredible curveballs when you look at it in detail. One such curveball comes from a pretty well-established phenomenon: what happens when light passes through an interface? That could be glass, water, or something completely different. The […]

Communication is key. That’s true on Earth and it’s true in space. But in space, you need to contend with a crucial fact of life. The speed of light is finite and distances between worlds are pretty big; between star systems they are enormous. A recent analysis envisions what it would be like to communicate […]

USA! USA! We’re number one! We’re number one! No, not in freedom. Nope, not in democracy either. No, no, not in public education, and definitely not in public health. But in likelihood to be exposed to poison in the very air itself? Top of the charts baby!! “Air pollution can harm anyone’s health, but some […]

Swedish artist Mikael Genberg is just a few months away from having an artistic dream fulfilled. His 25-year-long project, called Moonhouse, will soon move from canvas to reality, as he and his team’s model of a traditional red Swedish house is now on its way to the Moon. Advertisement It launched on a SpaceX Falcon […]

Keys, phones, headphones, socks, thermonuclear weapons – some things just always seem to go missing. Believe it or not, there were at least six instances when the US lost atomic bombs or weapons-grade nuclear material during the Cold War. Not only that, but the US is responsible for at least 32 documented instances of a […]

The seventh test flight of SpaceX’s Starship, which ocurred yesterday, January 16 at 7:37pm ET, is a setback for Elon Musk’s private space company. The rocket, which is a crucial component of the plans for humanity’s return to the Moon, exploded after just 8.5 minutes of flight with debris captured falling over the Turks and […]

Scientists are pushing the boundaries of what can be achieved with brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) by using brain stimulation to evoke a sense of touch in users of a bionic arm. The device, which attaches to a chair or wheelchair, is designed to help people with paralysis experience the feel of objects in a way that […]

There are two kinds of people on the internet: those who have heard of Spiders Georg, and those who have not. If you are in the latter category, you can go ahead and close this article right now. It contains nothing of value for you. Advertisement Are they gone? Fantastic. Guys, gals, and non-binary pals, […]

The world is a dangerous place – but what, precisely, is making it so perilous? A new report from the World Economic Forum has answers, and we gotta say, it ain’t pretty. Advertisement What’s the report? The World Economic Forum – the international think tank behind the annual meeting in Davos and countless other projects […]

There will be four eclipses this year, two solar and two lunar, but only the lunar eclipses will be total. Moreover, there will be 12 full moons this year, when lunar eclipses can occur, and 12 new moons, which can coincide with solar eclipses. Why are we getting ripped off? For either type of eclipse […]

Since multiple wildfires began to rip through Southern California earlier this month, firefighters have been working around the clock in order to contain the blaze. Some have taken to the skies, with planes dropping entire tankfuls of bright pink and red powder onto the flames, which has had people asking – what exactly is that […]

This week on Break It Down: lasers revealed 1,200-year-old mummies’ sweet tats, the mission to de-extinct the thylacine takes a leap forward, video footage of a meteorite hitting someone’s garden might be a world first, China announces plans to build the solar power station equivalent of “Three Gorges Dam” in space, researchers discover an Iron […]

Radio waves have been detected from what appears to be a pulsar, with just one problem – it‘s spinning thousands of times more slowly than most such objects, and hundreds of times slower than theory says is possible. Several similar signals have been found recently, but this is the most extreme yet, and also presents […]

Fancy a game of pin the ears on a bird? Alright then, big shot, where are they? Birds use sound as one of their key senses for navigating the environment, but most of them are a bit secretive about where they’re storing them. Working out the positioning can depend on the species, and some have […]

A brand new species of cat has been found in a fossil from a cave in China. Reportedly small enough to have fit in the palm of your hand, the cat – named Prionailurus kurteni – is thought to have coexisted alongside ancient people. Advertisement Prionailurus kurteni was discovered from a fragment of jaw bone in […]

Just like smoking on planes and people dressing smartly for their flights, “airplane mode” has been consigned to aviation history in the European Union (EU). So why is it still a thing in the US and many other parts of the world? Advertisement In 2022, the European Commission issued new rules that said carriers can […]

Have you ever forgotten what you were doing as you moved from one room to another? Maybe you’re in one room and remember you need to do something or fetch an item from another room. However, by the time you arrive in the other room, the thought has completely gone and you no longer recall […]

Using a non-invasive method of analysis, researchers have discovered that the pieces making up the famous Pompeii mosaic of Alexander the Great came from a network of quarries across Europe. Advertisement Alexander the Great is remembered today for his military conquests and empire-expanding activities (and perhaps for being the main character in that 2004 movie […]

Andromeda is the closest large galaxy to the Milky Way. And it is getting closer, as the two will merge in several billion years. It has been an object of study for centuries, but we have never seen it like this. The Hubble Space Telescope has just finished a campaign of observations that lasted for […]

For the first time, researchers have found evidence that people were using red ochre in West Africa during the Middle Stone Age. Dated to between 30,000 and 40,000 years ago, the rust-colored artifacts appear to have been crushed into powder and used as “crayons”. Advertisement According to the study authors, the presence or absence of […]