Deborah Bloomfield

Palaeontologists have uncovered the world’s oldest known cerapodan dinosaur at a fossil site in Morocco, identified by a distinctive femur. We know this dinosaur group would eventually spread across the globe, but the early stages of cerapodan evolution have remained a mystery due to the scarcity of Middle Jurassic rocks worldwide. That makes this latest […]

Humankind has driven many animals to extinction, from mammoths and thylacines to passenger pigeons. However, some species have only gone locally extinct and can re-emerge in other areas if conditions change. Now, for the first time in 100 years, cougar cubs have been spotted roaming wild in Michigan.  ADVERTISEMENT Two cubs were spotted on private […]

A virus that most adults on Earth have been exposed to has a sneaky route into the brain, and a world-first study has now demonstrated that it can cause behavioral changes. While this form of infection thankfully appears to be rare, the authors do believe it merits more attention.  ADVERTISEMENT Herpes simplex virus type 1 […]

The arrival of iguanas in the South Pacific can only be explained, a team of biologists have argued, if they caught a lift on a natural raft from the Americas. That’s a journey of 8,000 kilometers (5,000 miles), even if there was no backsliding or getting caught in ocean gyres – a fifth of the […]

Big earthquakes remain unpredictable and often devastating, but new technology is paving the way for a groundbreaking way to monitor seismic tremors beneath the Pacific Ocean. ADVERTISEMENT Scientists from the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in the UK and the Measurement Standards Laboratory (MSL) in New Zealand have transformed a section of the telecommunications cable on […]

In the hyperarid desert bridging Angola and Namibia lives a plant known by the Afrikaans tweeblaarkannidood, meaning “two leaves that cannot die”. It’s a fitting title for Welwitschia mirabilis, an alien-like plant whose astonishing biology and extreme longevity has been studied extensively. The upper estimates for maximum age stretch as far as 3,000 years, not […]

Blue Ghost has eyed-up all the must-see sights on the Moon. After capturing some dazzling footage of a total solar eclipse from the lunar surface, the private lander also caught imagery of a beautiful lunar sunset, marking a beautiful end to its historic mission. ADVERTISEMENT Blue Ghost, a spacecraft operated by Texas-based company Firefly Aerospace […]

The genetic hardware that gave rise to humanity’s unique language capabilities first emerged at least 135,000 years ago, when all Homo sapiens still lived in one unbroken tribe. As this original group later split into a multitude of regional populations, the shared capacity for verbal and symbolic communication may have facilitated the development of modern […]

Monkeys infected with the deadly Ebola virus have been successfully cured by a 10-day regimen of pills, leading scientists to hope the treatment could be adapted for use in humans. The drug, obeldesivir, offers a substantial advantage over the two other FDA-approved treatments for Ebola as they have to be delivered via an IV drip, […]

If pure math can teach us anything, it’s this: occasionally, your special interest might just change the world. ADVERTISEMENT For Joshua Zahl and Hong Wang, that special interest was the Kakeya conjecture. “I read a book in undergrad called A Panorama of Harmonic Analysis,” says Zahl, an associate professor in the University of British Columbia’s […]

Two of Earth’s five confirmed mass extinction events could have been caused by nearby supernova explosions stripping the planet’s ozone layer, a new study argues. Although the explanation has been proposed before, this work provides more rigorous evidence that the idea is plausible. ADVERTISEMENT The rate of animal and plant extinction has jumped well above […]

This week, scientists have put a human “language gene” into mice and found it has a profound impact on the rodents’ ability to squeak, research has found that reading science articles (like these ones) can help you stay mentally strong, and in a global mission to explore Earth’s oceans, over 850 new marine species have […]

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Ultra-processed food: it’s one of the health buzzwords of the 2020s. Lots of us are becoming more aware of the foods and ingredients that we’re putting into our bodies, and the slew of books, papers, podcasts, and TV documentaries on the topic of so-called UPFs has attracted huge attention. It’s true that a large proportion […]

One-horned rhinoceroses are the subject of a new study of the differences in appearance, behavior, and evolutionary history of the Indian rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicornis) and the Sundaic rhinoceros (Rhinoceros sondaicus) – and in doing so, has renamed one of the world’s rarest mammals. ADVERTISEMENT The Sundaic rhino, also called the Javan rhino, is one of […]

Finding detailed fossils of soft-bodied organisms is exceptionally rare, making each discovery a unique opportunity to fill in gaps in both the fossil record and our understanding of evolution. That’s why the 1982 description of Proteroctopus ribeti – a 165-million-year-old fossil cephalopod – was such a big day for octopus science. Over the decades that […]

Two newly discovered prehistoric pollen fossils have become the stars of a new study that explores the origins of the biodiversity seen in one of the most species-rich places on Earth – the Asian tropical rainforests. Spanning 8,000 kilometers (4,971 miles) with over 20,000 islands that are home to 50,000 plant species and 7,000 vertebrate […]

Every now and then, Kew Gardens is transformed as one of its leafy residents unfurls a great flower and fills the air with an unimaginable stench. Last year we enjoyed the remarkable bloom of Titan arum, a rare flowering event that happens only every seven years or so and smells like corpses. Now, the air […]

Quantum computing company D-Wave has claimed to have achieved “quantum supremacy” by solving a “useful, real-world problem” more efficiently with their quantum computer than a traditional one for the first time. However, not everyone is convinced by this declaration.  ADVERTISEMENT Outlining their work in a new study, the North American tech company argues their quantum […]

Once upon a time, the Grand Canyon was forged by the rushing waters of the Colorado River over millions upon millions of years. The river still snakes through the canyon, but its beauty now lies in the jaw-dropping vastness and breathtaking openness of the landscape. What if, though, we were to imagine a Grand Canyon […]