Deborah Bloomfield

Some good news from the Palmyra Atoll: following its successful release back into the wild in 2024, the sihek – also known as the Guam kingfisher – has laid its first eggs in the wild in almost 40 years. These endangered birds went extinct from the wild back in 1988, but a few birds under […]

Narwhals are up there with the most fascinating creatures on the planet. These curious cetaceans have been compared by some to unicorns of the sea for the famous (and somewhat mysterious) tusk that sticks out from the center of their heads like a giant horn. Thing is, sometimes narwhals sprout two of them. Double-tusked narwhals […]

As red-hot volcanic rocks rained down on the ancient city of Pompeii in 79 CE, the inhabitants of one house made the fatal decision to barricade themselves inside a bedroom. Two millennia later, the remains of these four sorry individuals have been discovered, along with a series of other items which help to tell the […]

In the ultimate case of “don’t try this at home” the efforts of a man who exposed himself to the venom of some of the world’s most dangerous snakes has led to a broad-spectrum antivenom. So far, the antivenom has only been tested in mice (most human subjects being more risk-averse than the original donor). […]

Have you ever heard of a baculum? No? What about the penis bone? It’s okay if all of this is sounding made up to you, because even the most celebrated houses of the natural world seem to have a strange habit of skipping over this particular part of mammalian anatomy. The penis bone is found […]

Human wounds heal around three times slower than those sustained by other primates, which may be a result of our specific evolutionary history that traded our fur for sweat glands. The research that determined this was initiated by Akiko Matsumoto-Oda, a professor at the University of the Ryukyus in Japan, who observed Kenyan baboons as […]

Anyone who has watched the dazzling displays produced by lightning in a thunderstorm can appreciate why it has inspired awe and fear across our history. Even in our modern world, lightning strikes represent one of the most destructive natural phenomena impacting human society. Knowing where and when lightning may strike is a significant challenge, and […]

A team of scientists have measured electrical activity in a spruce forest during a partial solar eclipse. They report that signals within and between trees appear to synchronize in the course of the eclipse, indicating communication and probably cooperation under these unusual circumstances. If true, this would force a complete re-evaluation of how we see […]

This week on Break It Down: a new kind of leather is borrowing its foundations from fossil T. rex collagen, we’ve just discovered an enormous glow-in-the-dark gas cloud surprisingly close to Earth, a musical sea lion has shown it can keep beat better than some humans, a new-to-science embalming technique has been discovered in Austria, […]

The political divide between the left and the right in the US has become particularly stark in recent years, and it seems this gap is even apparent in how the two major political parties use science in their policies. According to a new analysis of a massive database of policy documents, there are systematic differences […]

Researchers have discovered a brand-new species of electricity-conducting bacteria, and not only might it help them figure out more about how this unique branch of life evolved, but it could also set us on a new path in bioelectronics and environmental cleanup. The new species was discovered from an intertidal mudflat in Yaquina Bay, Oregon, […]

Face blindness – perhaps, like one participant in a new study, you “didn’t know it was a thing”. But prosopagnosia, to use its medical designation, is a real condition that affects someone’s ability to recognize faces, even those most familiar to them. To try to understand its impact, researchers have now surveyed 29 UK adults […]

It’s a theorem proven time and time again: there ain’t no party like a mathematicians’ party. The latest demonstration of the lemma that math is the subject for those who like to party hearty is an interactive map – definitely not produced as a last-second excuse for charging a pub crawl to the university account, we […]

When we think about mummies, I’m willing to bet the first images that come to mind relate to Ancient Egypt. However, mummification has been practiced by many cultures across the world, and as you can imagine, each has developed their own embalming methods for this purpose. But not all of these various methods receive the […]

Holograms in science fiction range from a simple 3D display to the fully interactive experience of Star Trek’s holodeck. The tech for the first one is here, more or less, but the latter might be truly sci-fi. Still, it is possible to create holograms that can be manipulated using your hands, as if you were […]

If you’ve been paying attention to tech bros and dubious artificial intelligence (AI) startups over the past few years, you may be under the impression that AI is coming to replace your job in the near future. So, how worried should you be? Is it time to down tools and search the wastelands for jobs […]

Was the Garden of Eden based on a real place? And if so, where exactly might it have been? These questions have puzzled biblical scholars for centuries. Now, a new study using computational analysis enters the ring with a sensational claim that the Garden of Eden was in Egypt and the Great Pyramid of Giza […]

If asked to name countries with the most camels, most people would probably go for somewhere in the Middle East or North Africa. Australia is unlikely to get a mention, but not only does it have more camels than many places where they are a big part of the culture, but it may soon challenge […]

Scientists have been able to observe human brain activity in the final moments before death, revealing rhythmic activity comparable to those seen during dreaming. The observation could support reports from near-death experiences of life flashing before your eyes in what’s known as “life recall”. The discovery came about during the management of an 87-year-old man’s […]

A new study looking at decades-old NASA and European Space Agency (ESA) data may have gone some way to explaining an enduring puzzle about where the heavier elements of the universe are created. As well as being a delightful shiny metal we all love to gawp at, gold provides scientists with the kind of mystery […]