Deborah Bloomfield

You should always wash your hands if you touch public surfaces, because they might be covered in dangerous pathogens. While one should wash hands regularly anyway, it would be so much easier if dangerous microbes simply did not stay on trays, seats, handles, and toilets. That dream could soon be a reality thanks to a […]

It’s no wonder deep-sea creatures are so strange. They survive against the odds in one of the most extreme environments on the planet, featuring near-zero temperatures, desperately low oxygen levels, constant darkness, and unbelievably high pressure. How on Earth do they do it? In a new study, scientists have taken a look at the genetics […]

The potential of quantum computers is astounding, with the ability to solve complex problems that not even the most powerful supercomputer could. We are not there yet, despite some positive steps forward. Quantum computers will also benefit from a quantum communication network – a quantum internet. Now, researchers have been able to test a quantum […]

The Atlantic Ocean has been widening for hundreds of millions of years, but its growth may have briefly gone into overdrive thanks to the melting of glaciers as the last Ice Age came to an end. Moreover, the processes involved may have also caused up uptick in volcanic eruptions, with implications for the melting we […]

Bigger mammals usually roam more widely than smaller relatives, but fossils indicate this wasn’t true for extinct giant kangaroos. The findings could help explain the extinction of these great beasts as climate change made their home ranges unviable. Australia is famous for its existing strange beasts, but that is nothing to what it had in […]

A Roman-era skeleton from York, northern England, shows signs of having been bitten by a big cat, thus providing the first archaeological evidence that gladiators did battle with lions and other terrifying beasts. Previously, these fabled human-animal contests were only known from written and artistic sources, leading many scholars to question whether the brutal encounters […]

Scientists might have succeeded in sequencing the entire human genome, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t still learning new things about it. Case in point: a new study has found that some parts of our DNA are acquiring changes much more rapidly than previously thought. Changes in the genome are known as mutations. That word […]

The USS Yorktown was a major chess piece in one of the most pivotal naval battles in the Pacific Theater of World War Two. But on a recent deep-sea expedition, ocean explorers made a bizarre discovery aboard its watery grave: a shell of an old car, resting silently on the hangar deck. What was it […]

On April 7, 2025, star HIP 16271 was occulted by Uranus. As a star, it is by no means famous. A yellow-white star in the constellation of Taurus, not bright enough to be visible to the naked eye given its distance – about 400 light-years away – but bright enough to allow astronomers to look […]

The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) yesterday announced plans to remove all petrochemical food dyes currently in use in the country.  The six-stage roadmap starts by establishing a firm timeline for the transition, moving quickly on to beginning the process of banning two food dyes […]

For decades, a scattering of ruins in southeastern Europe was dismissed as little more than an unremarkable military outpost, but new excavations are rewriting that story. Archaeologists now believe the site may be the lost capital of an ancient kingdom with direct ties to none other than Alexander the Great, the ferocious conqueror whose campaigns […]

Scientists have knocked out genes that trigger cane toad tadpoles to turn into active toads, turning them into “Peter Pan”-like perpetual adolescents. The work provides a way to slow or halt the spread of an invasive species that is wreaking havoc on Australian ecosystems everywhere that heat and high rainfall coincide. Cane toads were introduced […]

Spider crickets are intriguing insects that often surprise homeowners with their long, spindly legs and sudden jumps. Don’t fear, though; they might look a bit creepy, but these creatures are harmless and do not bite humans. What Are Spider Crickets? Spider crickets – also known as cave crickets, cave wētā, land shrimp, sand treaders, jumping, […]

The most recent analysis from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows an increase in diagnoses of autism in US kids. Based on data from 2022, the agency now estimates that 1 in 31 kids aged 8 have a diagnosis of autism. “Prevalence of [autism] among children aged 8 years was higher in […]

After the last few years and the hit movie Conclave, you probably have a rough idea of how the Catholic church deals with the death of a Pope and the process afterwards. But the process has evolved somewhat, as highlighted by events in 897 CE, when a newly appointed Pope dug up his predecessor’s corpse […]

NASA’s Lucy spacecraft has encountered its second official asteroid, and once again, the object has defied expectations. The asteroid in question, Donaldjohanson, was visited by the mission on April 20, 2025. It flew approximately 960 kilometers (600 miles) from the space rock, revealing interesting insights into its properties. Donaldjohanson has a weird shape, a bit […]

Set a time machine to around 275 million years ago and the Guadalupe Mountains would look like another world. Instead of dusty towers of desert rock, you’d see an underwater reef bustling with alien-like animals. The Guadalupe Mountains are a range of mountains located in West Texas and southeastern New Mexico, reaching 2,667 meters (8,751 […]

Most people would probably be a bit freaked out if an octopus appeared and started wrapping its sucker-laden limbs around them, but that’s far from the case for one marine videographer, who recently captured footage in which a large, red octopus appears to have given them a quick cuddle. The videographer in question is Jules […]

The mitochondria are the powerhouses of the cells, and that power is created by freeing the energy stored in nutrients with a series of biochemical reactions. These are known as the citric acid cycle or Krebs cycle. It is a mystery whether this is something that life developed or if it was simply co-opted from […]

As civilizations grow and mature, if humanity so far is anything to go by, they require a lot more energy to sustain themselves. A number of power-supply options for advanced civilizations have been dreamt up by sci-fi writers and scientists alike, including Dyson spheres and swarms. These are hypothetical megastructures placed around a star to […]