Deborah Bloomfield

It was a paranoid time. The use of nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki a few years previously in 1945 had ushered in a new age of uncertainty. Sure, the devastating bombs had demonstrated America’s military power, but for those who understood the situation, it was only a matter of time before the US’s enemies […]

The hoots and whistles of bonobos may seem like simple, wild calls, but a closer listen reveals that their communication shares more structural similarities with human language than once thought. Bonobos are the most vocal of the great apes, using a variety of high-pitched calls to communicate with other members of the species. Some of […]

Cratonic thinning, a phenomenon geologists think happened hundreds of millions of years ago, appears to be taking place far beneath researchers’ feet. Earth’s continents have regions of very old and stable rocks, known as cratons, surrounded by regions whose age is measured in tens or hundreds of millions of years, rather than billions like the […]

The history of the Great Blue Hole in the Caribbean is being revealed by a 30-meter (98-foot) sediment core taken from the depths of the marine sinkhole. Chronicling 5,700 years of natural history, the sample shows hurricanes are becoming increasingly common in this part of the southwestern Caribbean and a stormy future may lie ahead.  […]

The Sun is constantly spewing solar wind, a stream of charged particles, into interplanetary space. Occasionally, it bursts through in waves that can slam into planets. Geomagnetic storms happen when they hit Earth, for example. Observations of Jupiter from 2017 have now revealed some major changes around the largest planet in the Solar System. Jupiter’s […]

Researchers have found that Americans have lower survival rates than Europeans. This result was consistent across all wealth levels, even among the wealthiest Americans who still lived longer than their poorer counterparts, but not as long as Europeans. Over the last six decades, America has witnessed a significant transfer of wealth from the middle classes […]

It is time to journey back through Earth’s geological history. Wind back the clock around 4 billion years and take a look at some of the oldest rocks that can still be found on Earth today, and even what we might learn from looking inside them. We know relatively little about the earliest parts of […]

A poll once found that just over 40 percent of Americans believe humans and dinosaurs co-existed, living alongside each other like Fred Flintstone and Dino. And no, most of them probably weren’t making a clever point about modern birds technically being avian dinosaurs. The 2015 poll by YouGov found that 27 percent of Americans thought […]

A stalled atmospheric river is likely to result in multiple rounds of extreme rainfall being dumped on parts of the central US over the coming days, with forecasters warning of unprecedented flash floods. The greatest danger is expected over an area stretching from Arkansas to Kentucky, though deluges are likely all the way up to […]

When you think about the bottom of the ocean what do you think of – shipwrecks, sharks, or seabed sediments secretly tackling the climate crisis? Did that last point make your list? Well, it’s not surprising if it didn’t as scientists are just starting to understand it themselves. It is part of a relatively new […]

Unlike Christmas, Easter curiously falls on a different date each year. While Easter is always on a Sunday, it can sometimes spring up in March and the next year in late April. For Western Christians, Easter 2024 was celebrated on March 31, but Easter 2025 is on April 20. It will then jump back to […]

Almost 400 million barrels of oil are currently sitting in dozens of deep underground caverns in the Deep South of the US. It’s known as the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), and it serves as a big fat pawn in the high-stakes game of geopolitics. Scattered across 61 caverns in Texas and Louisiana along the Gulf […]

Researchers have identified a lifeform that could survive the harsh conditions on Mars, potentially helping future humans to colonize it. If humans ever want to set up a home elsewhere in the Solar System, Mars seems like the most viable bet, beating off the competition by not being a hell world, having a surface we […]

On Monday, SpaceX made space history, as four astronauts were launched into a pole-to-pole orbit not traveled by any human before them. But why is this orbit so unusual, and why has nobody done it before? Though the Fram2 mission is a private one on behalf of cryptocurrency billionaire Chun Wang, the crew has a […]

Researchers at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have created a high-energy, ultrashort, ultrahigh current petawatt peak power electron beam in a particle accelerator. This will allow them to study the behavior of physical systems and chemical reactions with higher precision than ever before. The beam is in the cutting-edge femtosecond (10-15 seconds) range of duration, […]

Barnard’s Star is located just 6 light-years away from us. It is the closest single star to the Sun and the fourth closest star overall, after the three stars in the Alpha Centauri system. Just a few months ago, it was discovered that it had a little planet around it. Now three more have been […]

Scientists have developed a blood test for Alzheimer’s disease that can help diagnose the neurodegenerative disease while also indicating how far it has progressed. The results could help doctors decide which medications to prescribe depending on how long they’ve had the condition. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of dementia, a disorder that slowly […]

Pretty, pink petals are scattered around the Tidal Basin of Washington DC where cherry blossom season has reached peak bloom. But have you ever wondered why the US capital becomes adorned with these iconic blossoms each spring? In 2025, Washington DC’s cherry blossoms reached peak bloom on March 28, according to the National Park Service. […]

Seeing a white light, feeling yourself leave your body, and sensing the presence of some sort of supernatural entity are all hallmarks of near-death experiences (NDEs), and scientists think they may now be able to explain these strange conscious phenomena. Often reported by cardiac arrest sufferers after resuscitation, these stereotypical visions and sensations may actually […]

Rivers start in mountains, join other streams as they flow downhill, then channel into an open ocean or lake. Right? Well, not always. In a new study, scientists have reviewed nine rivers and lakes in the Americas that appear at first to break away from the conventional rules of hydrology. These include the Casiquiare River […]