Deborah Bloomfield

From ‘beige flags’ to the five love languages, social media is a vast wellspring of dating advice, not all of which holds under scientific scrutiny. One should always be wary of taking strangers’ advice at face value. Saying that, there may be some wisdom to be gleaned from the 2-2-2 rule that has been circulating […]

A family returned from a vacation in Costa Rica with more than just memories after contracting histoplasmosis, a potentially lethal lung infection caused by inhaling fungal spores found in bat droppings. The incident has been subject to an investigation by the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) with medical practitioners now linking the infections […]

Turkeys often find themselves at the center of our plates, much like many other domesticated birds classified as poultry. We rely on these animals for a range of products, from bedding and clothing to, most commonly, food. Eggs, in particular, are a staple in many diets. But it got us thinking: why don’t we eat […]

If vegetables had personalities, then onions would probably be one of the more ambiguous examples in your kitchens. Sure, mushrooms may be social climbers, while carrots and peas are just a bit basic, but nothing compares to onions’ potential for treachery. It’s so versatile, goes well with so many meals, but preparing it can lead […]

Many areas of physics seem counterintuitive, with well-known examples like wave-particle duality and time dilation. But you may feel like you have a pretty intuitive understanding of fairly simple macro objects, for instance, a pole. So here’s a question; when you take a long metal pole and push it at one end, how long does […]

The volcanic activity and tectonic splitting of the East African Rift Valley is probably driven by activity deep within the Earth, a new study reveals, starting where the core meets the mantle. The work contradicts the hypothesis that the rift is the result of smaller distinct plumes with shallower origins. The first humans didn’t know […]

If you pay any attention to the world around you, you are likely aware of how deciduous trees shed leaves, pollen, seeds, fruits, and yet more pollen into the world around them. Nature, and the process of evolution, has come up with ingenious ways for trees to spread their seeds around far and wide. These […]

KSI vs. Fury? Tyson vs. Paul? Forget about those – we’ve got a much more exciting tussle to show you, where the fighting ring is the bush floor of one of New Zealand’s oldest island sanctuaries and the competitors are two of its most iconic, but vulnerable species. In the blue corner, we have the […]

It’s not unusual to see elk in Estes Park, a Colorado town shadowed by the Rocky Mountains. As of late, however, there’s one elk in particular that’s been catching people’s eyes, thanks to its rare – and very pretty – coloring. The female elk (also known as a cow – yes, really) in question doesn’t […]

Where does the Sun end and the Solar System begin? The answer is not clear-cut. The Sun’s atmosphere – the corona – extends far into space, and its processes shape the solar wind that streams in interplanetary space, affecting planets, moons, and more. To better study these interactions, NASA launched a mission made up of […]

Erect-crested penguins (Eudyptes sclateri) might be a little under the radar when it comes to the penguin world. However, they have one pretty cool and unusual trick up their little penguin sleeves. These birds lay essentially one and half eggs each year in a bizarre breeding strategy.  The least studied of all the penguin species, […]

The weather likes to throw some pretty spectacular curveballs every once in a while, from impressive thunder and lightning to blood rain and pancake ice. Now, mesmerizing footage has been recorded of a “fog tsunami” rolling over Lake Michigan.  The time-lapse video was recorded by South Haven-based photographer Scott Johnson, who suggested that a nearby […]

The results are in, and we finally know what happens to human cells exposed to 5G signals. In a sealed experiment at Constructor University in Germany, scientists bombarded human skin cells with electromagnetic waves that were ten times stronger than the recommended exposure limit, way above those produced by 5G towers, for up to 48 […]

It is obviously unfair that while we wait for Betelgeuse to go supernova (it won’t anytime soon), the good people living during the Early Modern Period had not just one, but two supernovae visible in the night sky: one in 1572 and one in 1604. The explosive death of a star, from a safe distance, […]

Our planet is a water world. Around 71 percent of Earth’s surface is covered by sea – and this view of the world really hits that home.  The image from Google Earth shows the middle of the Pacific Ocean, the largest and deepest ocean on Earth with a total area of over 155 million square kilometers […]

There’s been a murder most foul – or, should we say, most marine-mammalian – in North Carolina: a bottlenose dolphin, found dead and decapitated last month on the state’s Lea-Hutaff Island. Worse still? It was sick – and whoever took the head may be at risk.  A headless dolphin, lying dead on the shore, makes […]

Solar storms can be scary. They have the ability to disrupt our tech, cause blackouts, and even impact us directly. Still, nothing directly observed nor in living memory might quite compare with new findings from researchers – a peak of radiation, consistent with an extreme solar particle event (ESPE) more intense than anything previously known […]

The photograph of the Earth taken from lunar orbit, sometimes known as “Earthrise”, is one of the most famous ever taken. However, while its beauty is widely agreed on, it gives little sense of scale, let alone brightness. So how bright did the Moon look to the Apollo astronauts? Is there anything useful future lunar […]

Humans are desperately in need of new antibiotics, so you can imagine the surprise when a team of scientists uncovered a new molecule wielding formidable antibiotic power against superbugs inside a Chinese mine. The star of the story is saarvienin A, a brand-new glycopeptide antibiotic produced by an unusual strain of Amycolatopsis, a genus of […]

An infant with a life-threatening and incurable genetic disease has become the first human to successfully receive a personalized gene editing therapy. This is a massive achievement and could represent a platform for the rapid development of treatments for other genetic diseases. The child was diagnosed with carbamoyl phosphate synthetase 1 (CPS1) deficiency shortly after […]