Deborah Bloomfield

The Atlantic Ocean was formed by the dramatic break-up of the supercontinent Pangea, splintering our planet into drifting landmasses that would become the continents we know today. Now, the imprint of giant underwater mud waves found near West Africa is providing a key insight into how this world-making event unfolded. Scientists at Heriot-Watt University in […]

Many people across the world believe in karma or something like it. This is the idea that the universe contains some kind of justice mechanism that holds people accountable for their behavior, rewarding those who do good while punishing those who do bad. It’s a comforting belief, especially during difficult times, but new research has […]

Bonobos are what you’d call sexually dimorphic, meaning the females and the males are noticeably different. The males are larger and stronger compared to the females, and yet they’re the ones that will sit and wait in the trees while the females have their fill of a fresh kill. Females also decide who they mate […]

The call of nature for whales is very important to the rest of nature, with their urine allowing life to flourish in areas that would otherwise be liquid deserts. The importance of whale feces has been recognized for a long time, but now a study has demonstrated that migrating whales make an even larger contribution […]

US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has recently made a pretty bold – and misleading – claim about the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine, stating that it contains “a lot of aborted fetus debris and DNA particles.” Kennedy Jr made the claim on April 30 when speaking to News Nation about why some […]

People with celiac disease often have to adopt strict diets to avoid contact with gluten, but what happens if a person with this condition kisses someone else who has just eaten a gluten-filled snack? This question may seem trivial, but it causes anxiety among many people living with celiac disease. Thankfully, new research has challenged […]

Ah, math. Take an easy problem we all studied in our teens, scale it up by just a couple of steps, and suddenly you’re facing something that has stumped generations of the world’s best mathematicians. Ain’t it always the way? Well, according to a new paper from Norman Wildberger, an honorary professor in the University […]

What’s more annoying than tuning into an unidentifiable humming noise when you’re trying to sleep? You know what I’m talking about. A persistent low-frequency buzzing noise that just won’t stop. No matter how hard you try to ignore it, once you’re aware of its presence, you cannot escape it. For most of us, if we […]

Humans have been churning out art in different forms for millennia, demonstrating that creative self-expression is important for the species, but what does it do for our health? Turns out, dedicating a small window of your day to art making may have a positive influence on biomarkers of stress, and best of all? You don’t […]

The Trump administration’s continuous attack on science has been consolidated in the administration’s proposed Discretionary Budget Request, released Friday, May 2, which slashes budgets across many agencies and institutions, ranging from space, climate, education, and health, while increasing spending on defense. The approach the new administration has taken to halt and defund scientific research is […]

A new study has concluded that Earth’s mini-moons may not have come from the asteroid belt as we once thought, but a source far closer to home. Mini-moons are small asteroids or comets that can become captured by a planet’s gravity, temporarily orbiting around it until they are flung on their path around the Sun […]

The mystery of a giant “fracture” in our galaxy – the Milky Way – may have been solved after new observations from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and radio telescopes. Looking towards the center of the Milky Way, astronomers have previously spotted giant structures that are sometimes referred to as “bones”. “High-mass star formation in the […]

When we think about living fossils, most of us likely think about crocodiles, alligators, sharks or some other primeval creature that has roamed the world for millions of years. But what about trees? There is one tree, often referred to as the “dinosaur tree” that used to be nibbled on by the “terrible lizards” of […]

People over on Reddit are once again asking how we have photos of our own galaxy, the Milky Way, when we are inside of it.  “How did we [take] those fancy pictures of our own galaxy, Milky Way?” Redditor fourps asked on Friday, adding, “We cannot fly out of it to take a picture”. Fortunately, […]

In a world first, Chinese scientists have been able to find a satellite using an infrared laser during the daytime. The approach was able to find the Tiandu-1 satellite at a distance of about 130,000 kilometers (81,000 miles) from Earth, well beyond where most satellites are located. The satellite and its twin are, in fact, […]

A study of 724 ancient poems has revealed how far the Yangtze finless porpoise once roamed within the mighty river, allowing scientists to see how far its range has contracted and when that occurred. This may help identify how much threat the porpoise is under, and provide a stretch goal for restoring its ecosystem’s state. […]

Dolphins might be famous for their impressive jumps or even their whistles and clicks but did you know that they also call each other by name and even have accents? These sounds are known as name-like signature whistles and have been known to researchers for quite some time. Now, new research has looked into whether […]

The prospect of immortality may not be off the table for us humans, as life expectancies across the world continue to rise and defy all claims that they’ve already peaked. At least, that’s the conclusion of a new, not yet peer-reviewed study which suggests that our years may not be numbered by any natural limit. […]

If you’ve hankering to read the earliest-known English book on cheese, you’re in luck. The University of Leeds’ Cultural Collections have announced that they’ve transcribed the curious book’s contents, revealing some rules about cheese consumption that we didn’t see coming. Titled, “A pamflyt compiled of Cheese, contayninge the differences, nature, qualities, and goodnes, of the […]

This week, one of the closest large gas clouds ever was detected near Earth, just 300 light-years away, and it takes up as much sky as a typical constellation. An exceptionally well-preserved Austrian mummy has been embalmed using previously unknown methods, and a snake collector has inspired an antivenom previously thought impossible by letting himself […]