Deborah Bloomfield

Snow is beautiful, but also powerful and destructive – and, if we’re honest, a bit confusing. For something made entirely of water, it can come in many forms: light and fluffy, sticky and heavy, shaped like a perfect snowflake, or falling in needle-like flecks. Its consistency changes a lot, but so does its color, which […]

An unprecedented die-off has been declared in Alaska, where as many as four million murres are estimated to be missing from colonies across the state. According to a new study, it’s the worst single species die-off in modern history and was triggered by “The Blob“, a mass of warm water in the north Pacific Ocean […]

Hands up if you’ve heard this one before: “I can’t drink tonight, I’m on antibiotics.” We’ll be the first to tell you that if you’re dealing with an infection that requires antibiotic treatment, a night on the sauce is not going to benefit your recovery. But not all of these drugs are the same, and […]

Surviving in harsh climates is part and parcel of life in the animal world and coming up with adaptations to make life easier in very dry habitats can lead to some pretty remarkable features. Now, researchers have taken a closer look at the behavior of rattlesnakes to work out not just how their bodies are […]

Meet SGC-250 – known as “Big Carl” to his friends – the biggest land-based crane in the world.  Fully upright, Big Carl can reach heights of up to 250 meters (820 feet), according to Sarens, the Belgian construction company that owns the crane. The heavy lifter is able to hoist up an impressive 5,000 tonnes […]

The 2020s are certainly roaring when it comes to astronomy. The launches of JWST and eROSITA have brought incredible new insights into infrared and X-ray astronomy respectively. More revolutionary observatories are coming online soon, such as the Extremely Large Telescope in 2028 and the Square Kilometer Array Observatory (SKAO) in just two years. SKAO will […]

Picture the scene: a disheveled man stumbles through the Forum, his wine-stained toga bundled haphazardly around his torso. At his feet, a smattering of empty amphorae lie strewn across the floor, their contents greedily imbibed by the convivium’s attendees. Saturnalia has been wild this year, but the December festivities are drawing to a close and […]

If you’re out wandering in the woods one day and you spot what looks like a little yellow brain splatted onto a branch, you might have just stumbled across witch’s butter. The curious fungus was once said to be a sign that a witch had placed a curse on a family if it appeared on […]

In a little over two weeks, more than 3,000 billion liters of water recently flooded out of an ice-dammed lake in East Greenland. It’s the first time scientists have closely documented such an event and their insights could help to uncover how outburst flooding could wreak havoc elsewhere in the world. The incident unfolded earlier […]

Delicate whorls of ice are blossoming on rotten wood in parts of the planet experiencing freezing temperatures this month. The unusual structures, known as hair ice and frost flowers, are the result of how wacky water can get when frozen in just the right way, and if you keep your eyes peeled we know just […]

A group of flat Earthers has ventured to the southernmost land of Antarctica in an attempt to “end the debate over the shape of the Earth” – although we’re pretty sure that was already achieved by astronomers from Ancient Greece, the Islamic Golden Age, the Renaissance, etc, etc. The trip was part of a project […]

Lasers are one of those things you imagine have been around for a long time, perhaps since the invention of electricity. But they are only 60 years old, and green lasers far younger than that, with the first “true” green laser being demonstrated for the first time in 2009. So, what exactly is a laser? […]

In case you’ve missed it, the Sun has been particularly active over the past year, unleashing powerful solar flares and causing radio blackouts on Earth. This is all part of an 11-year cycle of solar activity that also sees the Sun’s poles gradually reverse around its peak.  The Earth’s poles too can flip over the […]

Say you have a truckful of birds, happily sitting on the floor of your truck (or lorry, if you prefer). The doors and windows are closed for convenience, and to prevent bird escape. If these birds were to begin flying around in the back of your truck, would the overall weight of the truck go […]

An astronomer based in Japan has captured the moment when an unknown object – believed to be a meteor, and possibly one of the Geminids – struck part of the Moon. The Geminids – first observed lighting up our skies annually in the mid-1800s – are an unusual meteor shower, coming from an asteroid that […]

In Trinidad, there’s a fish that can breathe through its tail. It’s a nifty trick, and one that comes in handy when it starts leaping around on land, marking one of nature’s most epic adventures that features in the new Apple TV+ series, The Secret Lives Of Animals. Most killifish will hatch, live, and die […]

Computers found their voice in the early 1960s with the IBM 7094, the first computer that was used to program and produce a computer-synthesized voice. The pioneering ditty has recently gained a reputation for being oddly ominous, although many forget it did manage to capture the attention of the esteemed sci-fi writer Arthur C. Clarke […]

Hate the whine of buzzing mosquitos? Well, the slingshot spider (Theridiosoma gemmosum) has found a way to make it useful by listening out for the sound to cue its attack. These spiders pull the center of their webs back so that it’s primed to fire like a slingshot when a mosquito is in range, and […]

Snowflake obsidian is a form of volcanic glass that features white or grayish “snowflake” shapes made of embedded cristobalite. These pretty patterns are not artificially added as a cheap holiday gimmick – they’re a natural consequence of the unique geological forces that create the material. Like other igneous rocks, the glossy glass originates from molten […]

New research has found that the gap between lifespan and “healthspan” – the years of life lived in good health – in the USA is the widest in the world. Using data from the World Health Organization (WHO), the study authors found that the average American will live 12.4 years with disability and/or illness, up […]