Deborah Bloomfield

Well, here we are again, folks. The eighth test flight for SpaceX’s Starship ended in a spectacular explosion yesterday evening (March 6), less than two months after the last test flight for the largest rocket ever created met a similarly fiery fate. ADVERTISEMENT Everything started well; the rocket lifted off from SpaceX’s Starbase site in […]

Ever wondered why sometimes, it’s horrible weather where you are, and yet at your friend’s house just a few miles away, there’s blissful sunshine? Well, if you happen to live near high ground, it might be down to something called the foehn (or föhn) effect. ADVERTISEMENT The foehn effect is a weather phenomenon in which […]

As well-researched as the immune system is, it still regularly manages to throw us a surprise or two. The latest discovery? A whole new mechanism that’s been hidden all along in cells’ garbage disposal and recycling system. ADVERTISEMENT One of the key elements of that system is the proteasome, a structure that chops up proteins […]

A spacecraft’s sample return capsule was detected entering the Earth’s atmosphere using acoustic sensors by a team of scientists from the Los Alamos National Laboratory and Colorado State University. ADVERTISEMENT In 2016, NASA launched an awesome mission to catch up with asteroid Bennu, 320 million kilometers (200 million miles) from Earth. In 2020, the Origins, […]

A hipbone from Paranthropus robustus, a species of hominin thought to have lived alongside our direct ancestors, has revealed they also walked upright. Besides confirming their similarity to us, the discovery also reveals how small Paranthropus was and how vulnerable it would have been given the fearsome predators of its environment, and also complicates the story […]

A video on X of people collecting marine fossils has apparently caused some confusion, as they are collecting their ancient sea-life fossils from the top of a mountain. ADVERTISEMENT The video, posted with the unhelpful caption “why were all the mountains under the ocean” has led to questions and claims that it is due to […]

We humans bloody love a flower. Sniffing them, looking at them, lopping them off and popping them in vase. On land there are flowers to be found everywhere, but in the ocean there’s only one kind of plant that produces blooms, and yes, they need pollinating. ADVERTISEMENT Seagrasses are the only true flowering plants that […]

NASA has taken the decision to shut off two more instruments on the iconic Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft, in order to extend their missions a little further. ADVERTISEMENT NASA’s Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft have traveled farther away from Earth than any other human-made object, sending back useful science data from the edge […]

Recently, a scuba diver was treated not to a rare sighting of an unusual fish or marine creature but to the sounds of humpback whales singing loudly as he dived below the waves off Oahu, Hawaii. ADVERTISEMENT “It was the loudest/most whales I’ve heard singing underwater so I decided to send a GoPro down so […]

Thousands of never-before-seen microbe species have been found in the deepest point of the world’s oceans, the Mariana Trench. These strange microorganisms are like nothing we see on the surface, perfectly adapted to life regularly subjected to the extremely high pressure, cold, and lack of nutrients found beneath kilometers of ocean water.  ADVERTISEMENT In 2021, […]

It’s a question that stumps philosophers, scientists, and elementary school kids alike: is my “red” the same as your “red”? It’s a question that’s potentially impossible to answer for sure – but a new study has provided some pretty strong evidence that the answer is “yes”. ADVERTISEMENT “The question of whether sensory experiences are intersubjectively […]

NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer mission is in jeopardy, after the US space organization lost track of the spacecraft on its way to the Moon. ADVERTISEMENT Part of NASA’s Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration (SIMPLEx) program, the small, low-cost Lunar Trailblazer mission is an attempt to map different forms of water on the lunar surface. The […]

A man paralyzed by a stroke has become able to pick up and move objects using a robotic hand controlled by his thoughts. Although similar technology has been announced before, the control lasted only a day or two, doing little for participants’ quality of life. In this case, control of the brain-computer interface was demonstrated […]

Until relatively recently, the combination of light skin, blue eyes, and blonde hair was something of a rarity among Europeans. According to new research, dark features may have been the norm all the way up until the Iron Age, which is considerably later than previously thought. ADVERTISEMENT Having originated in Africa, humans started off with […]

Aging might be an inevitable part of life, but that doesn’t mean people aren’t desperate to slow it down, particularly when it comes to our skin. The fear of a wrinkle or sag can see many dropping their hard-earned cash on products that claim to keep us looking young – including collagen supplements. But does […]

A trial with a new approach to treating bacterial vaginosis (BV), a condition that affects millions of people across the globe, has suggested that treating both affected females and their male partners with antibiotics can significantly reduce the risk of their symptoms returning. ADVERTISEMENT Estimated to affect between 23 to 29 percent of women of […]

In the remote forests of northern Vietnam, a teeny, tiny gibbon has been spotted. This is no ordinary ape: it’s an infant of the world’s second-rarest ape species, the cao vit gibbon. ADVERTISEMENT The newly released footage (below) was shot in November 2024 by researchers at Fauna & Flora who were surveying the population in […]

Planets and moons during the early Solar System were pelleted by asteroids a lot more than they are today. We can see the evidence of these impacts on the Moon, but the geological traces on our planet have been erased by erosion and plate tectonics. Despite these challenges, researchers have found evidence of an impact […]

Einstein’s general relativity is an exceptional theory of gravity that has been proven correct time and time again. Quantum mechanics takes care of the three other fundamental forces, and it too has been exceptionally successful over the last century. Unfortunately, the two don’t work together. Many solutions have been proposed to get to the elusive […]

Hoaxes come in all sizes, but few are as large-scale and weirdly distributed as recurring stories about giants. That’s right, giants. You didn’t read that wrong. This may seem like a surprising statement to make in the 21st century, but to those who believe giants once walked the planet, it is a serious subject with […]