Deborah Bloomfield

For all our fancy telescopes and particle accelerators, we still haven’t managed to detect even a smidgen of dark matter. In a dramatic change of course, researchers at Virginia Tech are now taking a staggeringly low-tech approach to the hunt by looking for the elusive stuff in a bunch of old rocks. While most scientists […]

At Georgia’s Fort Mountain State Park, a historical marker erected in the 1960s tells of a mysterious race of “moon-eyed” people that are said to have occupied Appalachia until they were vanquished by the Cherokee hundreds of years ago. Nearby sits an ancient stone wall, thought to be the remains of a battlement that some […]

A signal beamed towards Earth from Mars has finally been decoded after thousands of people from around the world spent more than a year examining the message. In the end, a father and daughter duo from the US managed to crack the code and reveal the contents of the dispatch, yet the process of interpreting […]

That old saying about death and taxes being the only certainties in life has been disproven by physicists, who have revealed that our existence is governed by a third – and equally terrifying – inevitability: all of our cables are doomed to become tangled. This awful discovery was made in 2007, and was recognized with […]

Microwaves are the undeniable king of convenience; bung last night’s leftovers in one and a few minutes later you’ve got a delicious hot meal. Unfortunately, they can sometimes get a bit of a bad rap, with claims that microwaving food can cause us harm. It is, however, safe – here’s why. Radiation Long before the […]

This week, an “extremely rare” fool’s gold fossil revealed the soft tissue of a 450-million-year-old new-to-science sea creature, Voyager 1 has phoned home from 24 billion kilometers away, and we ask: what is the rarest gemstone? Finally, as we celebrate the 70th year since the creation of the Godzilla franchise, we discuss the lessons learned […]

One of the complaints when it comes to solar power is that you usually have to link it to batteries. Even in areas with plenty of sun, you cannot have sunlight 24/7 all year round. At least, not on Earth. In space, however, you can. For decades, people have been considering options and possibilities of […]

“Cabin crew, arm doors and crosscheck” is the instruction delivered over the plane’s public address. In-flight staff then pull a metal lever on each door before attaching a little red ribbon across the window of every exit, and we’re all thinking the same thing: that flimsy rag can’t be doing much. In reality, though, this […]

Next time you’re staggering into a takeaway restaurant with a belly full of beer and a desperate need to raise your blood sugar levels, it’s a good idea to check the quality of the doner kebab you are about to slather in sauce and shovel into your booze-addled body. A study in 2022 by the […]

Welcome to the wonderful world of Crocodylia, or more specifically the order. Here, we’ll break down the differences between alligators and crocodiles, beyond which one will be seeing you later and which one will be seeing you in a while.  Let’s start with a little background on crocodiles Crocodiles have a pretty wide distribution: the […]

This week on Break It Down: a quantum cat experiment breaks a record for surviving over 23 minutes, Voyager 1 encountered a glitch but fixed itself with some old school tech, fossils from the Ordovician are a glittering new species, animals are getting drunk more than we thought, though we’re not quite sure why, kyawthuite […]

Every year a small town in Canada gets a sudden influx of polar passersby as the world’s largest bear (that begins life as a fluffy stick of butter) embarks on its annual migration. The big move is driven by the return of the sea ice they need to hunt, but getting to seal town involves […]

The 1988 Piper Alpha disaster has been described as one of the worst industrial accidents of its kind. While it was a tragedy of horrific proportions, the incident did spark some significant positive changes in safety standards across the world.  The hellish disaster unfolded on the night of July 6, 1988, at the Piper Alpha offshore […]

Gather round the fire, oh traveler, and listen to an ancient story. The days of the old gods are numbered; one day, catastrophe will strike and the final battle-to-end all battles will take place. Here the gods will die and the world as we know it will end. This is the story of Ragnarök, the […]

Archaeologists excavating a site in Dorset, England, have recovered one of the oldest and most complete wooden tools ever unearthed in Britain. The ancient spade is thought to be between 3,400 and 3,500 years old and reveals new insights into the relationship between Bronze Age humans and this waterlogged landscape. The excavation took place at […]

At just 36.8 hectares (91 acres), Gateway Arch National Park in St Louis, Missouri, is the smallest national park in the United States – but while it may be small in size, it manages to pack quite the punch. The park’s beginnings Gateway Arch National Park didn’t actually become a national park until 2018, but […]

Ah, Winter. The coziest of the seasons. Time to light that fire, toast those marshmallows, and dig out your snuggliest jumpers and socks from the back of your closet. Of course, finding your clothes ruined by mold and mildew might put a big old damper on that festive feeling – so how do we ensure […]

The “Forbidden Experiment” may have the potential to illuminate fundamental truths about human nature, but it’s so grossly immoral it would send any modern university’s ethics committee into meltdown. Nevertheless, in historical periods that were less concerned with human dignity, some have dabbled with their own renditions of this deeply problematic endeavor. There are a […]

For exactly 100 years, chemists have considered double bonds impossible – or nearly so – in organic chemistry under specific circumstances. Known as Bredt’s rule, this axiom was based not on theory, but decades of previous observations of molecules where such bonds were lacking. Confidence was high enough that it has widely been published in […]

Godzilla has made something of a comeback in recent years. Ever since he stomped back into western cinemas in 2014, it seems the monstrous reptile has barely left the screen. But while Godzilla’s destructive antics are easy entertainment, the creature itself has always walked a line between chaotic spectacle and deeper metaphor. This year the […]