Deborah Bloomfield

In case you hadn’t noticed, fall is in full swing – and what could be more autumnal than a story about a really big pumpkin? The stupendous squash in question is named Rudy, and has just scooped the grand prize at Half Moon Bay’s 51st Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off – a contest we’re ashamed […]

Scientists have long suspected a link between COVID-19 and diabetes, but it’s been unclear whether this association exists in children as well as adults. New research suggests that it does, by finding that kids who had COVID were consistently more likely to develop type 2 diabetes within the following six months than those who had […]

Microwaves are a pretty difficult topic to get your head around, at least compared to traditional “fire hot” methods of cooking. It turns out people still have questions about them, such as why if you put ice in a microwave with rice, the rice gets hot and the ice cube doesn’t seem to. Let’s start […]

An asteroid discovered in 2019’s orbit has been mapped, revealing it as a Trojan of Saturn, meaning an object with the same orbit, but traveling ahead or behind. The spacecraft Lucy has been sent to study the Trojan asteroids of Jupiter – bodies that follow the same orbit, but in the Lagrangian points 60 degrees […]

NASA has launched a new competition with an associated $3 million in prizes for help dealing with an old problem, as humans begin exploring the Moon again and, for the first time, Mars. On the Moon, as well as several robots, some tardigrades, a family photograph, and maybe even some dinosaur remains, you will find […]

With some species reaching 1.8 meters (5.9 feet) in height, the majestic and ancient crane family look like they belong well and truly on the ground. But these gangly creatures are actually surprisingly nimble fliers, and some species cross entire continents, high mountain ranges, and oceans while migrating thousands of miles to reach their breeding […]

For the first time, scientists have discovered animal life under the seafloor around deep hydrothermal vent systems. The new discovery challenges the old idea that only microbes inhabit the subseafloor region and suggests that much more of Earth’s crust might harbor complex lifeforms. Researchers onboard the Schmidt Ocean Institute research vessel Falkor (too) used remotely […]

Take a look at the first column of the periodic table. The elements in this group include some of the most common and useful ones on the planet – and they probably all wish they weren’t associated with francium. Sitting at the bottom of this row of chemical workhorses, this spectacularly radioactive element would be […]

The Red Deer Cave People might have been some of the most unusual and mysterious humans to walk the Earth in the past 20,000 years. Despite being around 14,000 years old – exceptionally recent in terms of human evolution – their fossils show they possessed many “archaic” human features associated with more distant relatives in […]

The European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) Mars Express has sent back new images of the south polar region of Mars, capturing features known as “cryptic terrain” emerging from beneath the Martian frost. The terrain at the Martian poles is covered in a mixture comprising mainly carbon dioxide ice, with some water ice mixed in there. In […]

Going trekking into the rainforests of Madagascar sounds like a grand adventure – but for one team of researchers, it has also provided a bountiful discovery. Seven new species of tree frogs have been revealed, and their new names pay tribute to Star Trek.  The seven newly discovered frogs don’t croak. In fact, their rather […]

A 5,000-year-old Neolithic site has been unearthed on a Danish island that holds an unusual secret: a stone-paved cellar associated with the Beaker Culture. The site, known as Nygårdsvej 3, is located near the Danish village of Eskilstrup on the island of Falster. It was discovered during the extension and electrification of a railway line […]

Zimbabwe is the latest country to report cases of mpox, the first in its history. Two people, an 11-year-old boy and a 24-year-old man, are known to have been infected, both with recent travel history to other countries. The variant of the virus has not been specified. South Africa’s SABC news broadcast an announcement from […]

When it comes to tall birds, your mind probably jumps to the ostrich – or maybe the magnificent chonk that is Pesto the king penguin – but many of the planet’s largest birds are flightless. So, what is the tallest bird that can actually take to the skies? This title belongs to a species of […]

Global demand for lithium is skyrocketing, and many countries are vying for dominance in the ballooning market. Fortunately for the US, it looks like a super-salty (and very smelly) lake in California is brimming with the coveted metal. However, obtaining it might be easier said than done.  The lake in question is the Salton Sea, […]

Waves breaking at the mouth of Brazil’s Doce River, where it meets the Atlantic, have become the first-ever waves and part of the ocean to be given legal personhood, in a decision made by the municipal council of the nearby city of Linhares. The new law, which was first approved as a bill in June […]

A chance encounter with a deeply mysterious cephalopod known as the whip-lash squid has been captured on camera some 1,000 meters (3,281 feet) below the sea’s surface in the Tonga Trench. The video was shot last month by researchers from Minderoo-UWA Deep-Sea Research Centre and Inkfish as part of the Tonga Trench Expedition 2024. Between […]

Some species need more conservation help than others and while this can come in many forms, some species at least have the decency to look grateful in the photo ops. The spotted handfish, however, is not one of them. Despite having its genome sequenced for the very first time, in a bid to improve conservation […]

Scientists watched as a population of sea snails evolved within just a few years. Along with documenting a vivid example of “rapid evolution,” the researchers were able to successfully predict how the snails would change at the start of the 30-year experiment, suggesting that evolutionary change is not always as unpredictable as it may seem. […]

The Sahara Desert might normally be one of the driest places on Earth, but September saw the northwest of the region flood for the first time in decades, after an extratropical cyclone brought with it rare heavy rainfall. According to NASA Earth Observatory, preliminary estimates suggest parts of the Sahara in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and […]