Deborah Bloomfield

A new species of plant has been discovered in eastern Peninsular Malaysia and researchers believe it is already critically endangered. The new plant has been named Thismia aliasii and is part of the Thismia genus, which contains plants that do not photosynthesize. Instead, these unusual-looking plants rely on fungi for their nutrients and are known […]

The most common lithium-ion batteries suffer a previously unknown form of degradation when they run very low on charge, making it a good idea to give them a little extra juice before they run out entirely. People under 40 might not believe it, but there was a time before lithium-ion batteries dominated the market. Back […]

A new study may have helped explain part of the enduring mystery of how animals evolved our buttholes.  We take our own anuses for granted. While they may not be able to fire out our guts as a defense like some animals we could mention, or disappear and reappear when needed like the sea walnut, […]

You wake suddenly in the night and find yourself facing a shadowy figure. It looms over you, the eery silhouette topped with what looks like a fedora. You feel as though your arms have been tethered to your body and you can’t move. Your eyes scan the room, it’s 3 am (there’s a reason why […]

Since January 20, Trump, Musk, and the other members of the administration have been constantly attacking scientific knowledge, scientific methods, and scientific institutions. A group of over 1,900 researchers is now appealing directly to the American public to stop these relentless attacks – because everyone is in danger. ADVERTISEMENT The signatories are members of the […]

If you’ve ever transported helium balloons in your car, perhaps courtesy of a small child who won’t let you store them in the trunk, you may have seen something odd. ADVERTISEMENT When you accelerate in a car, the seat you are sat in pushes you forwards, with the result that you feel like you are […]

When futurists of the past envisioned 21st-century healthcare, it often came with some loss of humanity. The Six-Million-Dollar Man, for example; Robocop; Victor Stone – all their recoveries came thanks to cybernetic implants and technological upgrades, rather than a healing of their original body. ADVERTISEMENT Turns out, we can do better. At least, in two […]

We like to think of ourselves as living in a rational, enlightened time – but when it comes to death, all bets are off. Superstitions run rampant, even if we don’t think of them as such: we “don’t speak ill of the dead”; we imagine our loved ones lingering presence in our lives even years […]

Scuba divers have supplied scientists with 13 film clips and three detailed descriptions of coral reef fish using rocks as anvils to break open hard-shelled sea creatures. The authors of a study analyzing these clips have already learned a lot about fish intelligence in the process, but plenty of questions remain unanswered, and they’d welcome […]

When a comet starts to approach the Sun or a planet is newly discovered orbiting another star, one of astronomers’ most important questions is how eccentric the orbit is. Since most non-scientists don’t know what this means, there’s always a question of whether to explain what is meant in articles about the discovery, or to […]

There are, Mark Twain was famously fond of declaring, three types of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics. It’s a succinct summation of something we’re all kind of aware of in our bones, even if we don’t know the precise explanation for it: that statistics can’t entirely be trusted – they’re simply too easy to […]

Off the coast of Brazil, just over 96 kilometers (90 miles) from São Paulo, sits an island that could be considered heaven to some, but hell to most. Teeming with some of the deadliest snakes in the world, Ilha da Queimada Grande, or Snake Island, is strictly off-limits for visitors – and with good reason. […]

Quantum computers have the potential to do things that not even the most powerful supercomputer can do, but the road to get there is far from easy. Still, the first applications of quantum computing are being investigated, and the first practical one might have just been performed. Researchers have recently generated random numbers in a […]

Sediments at the bottom of the Baltic Sea cut anything buried in them off from sunlight and oxygen. That’s fatal to many lifeforms, but others slip into dormancy, waiting for conditions to improve. Some scientists decided to give some of them a helping hand, exposing microorganisms from the sediments to light and air. Their work […]

Space is hard is a recurring maxim, and it is particularly true of human bodies. Prolonged time in microgravity has a whole array of physiological effects, from losing blood cells to getting weaker bones. But where exactly that bone loss happens has remained unclear. Experiments on mice have provided some concrete evidence of the how […]

Spring may have technically sprung in the Northern Hemisphere, but the lingering impact of the collapsing polar vortex could ensure that chilly weather will stick around for a while longer across North America.  ADVERTISEMENT April’s weather is set for a cold spell as an abrupt change in pressure patterns sweeps across North America. This atmospheric […]

A new study on Ancient Egyptian dynasties has proposed an intriguing explanation for the mystery of Shepseskaf’s tomb, relating it to a total solar eclipse in 2471 BCE. ADVERTISEMENT During the fourth dynasty of Egypt, the Great Pyramids of Giza were built for pharaohs Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure. The Sun god Ra – thought by […]

Dazzling octopuses, creepy deep-sea anglerfish, cusk eels, and crustaceans are just some of the deep-sea creatures that have been documented by a recent expedition off the Chilean coast. Dozens of these otherworldly creatures may be entirely new to science, never before documented by humans. ADVERTISEMENT The images and video come from an expedition by the […]

An ugly, misshapen blob of glassified soil could rewrite the story of humanity’s technological heritage, suggesting that we began experimenting with copper smelting while we were still hunter-gatherers. Dated to around 10,800 years ago, the greenish-yellow lump was discovered at a Pre-Pottery Neolithic site in Türkiye and shows signs of deliberate exposure to extremely high […]

For the first time, a giant helical structure spanning millions of kilometers has been captured on camera as it emerged from the Sun. ADVERTISEMENT In 2020, the European Space Agency (ESA), with help from NASA, launched the Solar Orbiter on a mission to get the closest images of the Sun ever taken, as well as […]