Deborah Bloomfield

What can we say – the political environment is pretty wild at the moment, and it does seem like we are hearing more about politician’s personal opinions, rather than facts, these days. But is this really a change from the past? Is the rise in “alternative facts” being spouted by high-profile individuals any more prevalent […]

La Niña didn’t stick around for long. After just a few months, La Niña conditions have subsided and the eastern tropical Pacific has entered an ENSO-neutral phase that’s expected to continue in the Northern Hemisphere until summer. That might be a lot of buzzwords, so what does it actually mean? La Niña and El Niño […]

A Reddit user has sparked confusion on the “mildly interesting” subreddit, after discovering that their shotgun shells contain shot (predictable) and a whole load of flax seed (not so much). “These shells were made specifically for waterfowl hunting,” Reddit user Benbablin explained, after posting an image of the shells. “The BBs themselves are steel as […]

One of the driest places on Earth – the Saharo-Arabian Desert – may not have always been the arid landscape it is today. A new study, which examined the hydroclimate of the area over the course of 8 million years, has found that it has had much more pleasant and humid conditions in the past. […]

An ancient human jawbone dredged from the bottom of the Taiwan Strait has been confirmed as a Denisovan fossil, proving that this enigmatic extinct human species once lived all over Asia. Recovered from a depth of between 60 and 120 meters (197 to 394 feet) in the Penghu Channel, the prehistoric mandible was initially retrieved […]

Measles is having a resurgence. Once among the most feared diseases of childhood, the development of safe and effective vaccines meant that a run-in with the illness no longer needed to be a rite of passage. But now, decreasing vaccination coverage has seen outbreaks springing up in countries that had previously eliminated the disease.  As […]

The confirmation hearing for the next head of NASA took place yesterday, April 9, with Trump’s nominee, billionaire and private astronaut Jared Isaacman, answering questions from the senators in the committee. The general feeling post-hearing is that Isaacman has bold aspirations for the agency, although he was not willing to share details about plans and […]

Tectonically, Greenland sits on the North American Plate. But when it comes to history, politics, society, and culture, whether it truly “belongs” to North America is a much more complex question. The North American Plate is a tectonic plate containing most of the US, Canada, and Mexico, as well as Cuba, the Bahamas, the extreme […]

Researchers have created an H5N1 avian influenza, or bird flu, vaccine that can be administered as a nasal spray. The influenza virus vector-based nasal spray vaccine platform was first developed during the COVID-19 pandemic but now may be valuable in the fight against bird flu, which is on the rise across the globe. H5N1 was […]

Cats are no strangers to weird anatomical features. They have an odd little pocket on the sides of their ears that belongs to “Henry” for some reason, and big flappy pouches that hang off their bellies – but are these pouches adorned with a belly button? The belly button, or navel, is a scar that […]

Being able to be mobile is a crucial aspect of personal independence. This is why it is important to make sure that the world is accessible to all. For many of us, it’s but a matter of time before our mobility is affected, because time catches up with everyone. There’s an easy way to see […]

Look carefully enough, and there are ghosts to be found in the forests of New Caledonia. Well, kinda – they’re actually kagus. Known by those native to the island territory as the “ghost of the forest”, these flightless birds are not only an emblem of the archipelago, but also bear a curious feature found in […]

NASA’s Perseverance rover has captured unexpected footage of one dust devil consuming another during an imaging experiment. While exploring the Witch Hazel Hill area of the Jezero Crater, the Perseverance science team took an opportunity to conduct an imaging experiment aimed at getting a better understanding of the Martian atmosphere. When it did, its cameras […]

Jared Isaacman, CEO of Shift4 Payments and an occasional commercial astronaut, has answered questions on his plans for the USA’s space program during a confirmation hearing for the role of NASA chief. In the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, the 42-year-old billionaire was questioned on a wide range of topics, from the Artemis […]

A major storm might not necessarily be good news, but for a group of researchers in New Zealand, bad weather has uncovered a set of 1-million-year-old footprints on a beach. Thought to have been left by a moa, an ancient, now extinct, flightless bird, the footprints have helped scientists learn more about their ecology, behavior, […]

An antiviral drug that attacks a SARS-CoV-2 virus protein protects mice against many of the most severe effects of the disease, including some that can linger on. Trials on humans are yet to begin, but the work raises hopes for progress against the ongoing legacy of the pandemic. Most countries have stopped reporting deaths from […]

Earth’s ice sheets and glaciers are melting at such a rate it’s changing the way the Earth spins, causing it to wobble off its usual axis. The effect is so severe that the rotational pole might wander up to the length of a basketball court in the coming century.  Earth’s rotational pole is the point […]

Two sightseers at Yellowstone National Park were recently jailed after breaking the law during their visit, having strayed from designated routes into some of the park’s thermal areas. According to a statement from the US Attorney’s Office, District of Wyoming, 44-year-old Angela Flaherty of Seattle, Washington, pled guilty to leaving the designated boardwalk and viewing […]

As Albert Einstein(’s secretary) used to say: “When you sit with a nice girl for two hours you think it’s only a minute, but when you sit on a hot stove for a minute you think it’s two hours. That’s relativity.” It’s pithy, and not really all that accurate, but it does get across an […]

Until the 1960s, the Aral Sea was one of the largest inland reservoirs of water in the world. Over seven decades, the lake first split into smaller lakes, until most of its original surface had completely evaporated, leaving behind a desert. The Aral Sea used to cover an area of 68,000 square kilometers (26,300 square […]