Deborah Bloomfield

Researchers have identified the brain regions that are essential for logical thinking and problem-solving. The findings help us understand how our brains support our reasoning skills – our ability to comprehend, draw conclusions, and deal with novel problems. Reasoning skills are pretty important. They underpin many of humanity’s greatest intellectual achievements – from mathematics, philosophy, […]

Even zoo animals can sometimes benefit from a little trip to the vets. Whether they have a blade of grass stuck up their nose or require a neck brace, zoo vets can work wonders to help all manner of patients from the feathered to the scaled to the furred. Rico the sloth is no different […]

Every year, the US Library of Congress chooses 25 audio pieces to be add to the National Recording Registry, aimed at preserving recordings which are “culturally, historically or aesthetically important, and/or inform or reflect life in the United States”.  “This year’s National Recording Registry list is an honor roll of superb American popular music from […]

What’s the most ironic and tragic thing about the bear on the Californian flag and the state’s seal? The fact that there have not been any wild grizzly bears in the state for just over 100 years. However, the California Grizzly Alliance has released a new peer-reviewed study showing that there are no insurmountable biological, […]

Human-wildlife conflict can take all sorts of forms, but one of the most common is the problem of roads and roadkill. While scavengers can benefit from roadkill in certain areas, different species can become more at risk than others. New research from across Africa suggests some of the country’s most vulnerable wildlife could be put […]

There’s a famous story, told by a once widely lauded author, about finding himself at a party where he felt hugely out of his depth. Amongst the “great and good people: artists and scientists, writers and discoverers of things,” he said, “I felt that at any moment they would realize that I didn’t qualify to […]

Some years seem to zip by in the blink of an eye, while others seem to drag on for far longer. But some, like leap years, can last a little longer than usual. And then there’s 46 BCE, which lasted 445 days, 80 days more than we are used to.  So, why did the year […]

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“How, then, did life originate on Earth?,” the distinguished speaker, William Thomson, asked his audience during a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS). “Tracing the physical history of the Earth backwards, on strict dynamical principles, we are brought to a red-hot melted globe on which no life could exist.” This […]

In 2018, astronomers discovered a brown dwarf binary system. Brown dwarfs are stellar objects that never had enough mass to fuse hydrogen and become fully fledged stars. They are often found in binaries, but this one was only the second eclipsing binary system discovered with both members being brown dwarfs. But there is something odd […]

Researchers have scanned the brains of more than 500 babies and young children in order to paint a detailed picture of the brain’s development during the first six years of life. By observing how functional connectivity within and between different brain networks changes at different timepoints, the study authors were able to map out a […]

A new explanation has emerged for why Homo sapiens survived in Europe and North Asia when the apparently better-adapted Neanderthals did not. A variety of approaches, including ochre sunscreen and tailored clothes, may have saved them from skin cancer and weakened immune systems when a weaker magnetic field let in more radiation. During the Earth’s […]

It appears conservative Americans have a deeper distrust in science than previously believed. Not only do they distrust scientific ideas that do not correspond to their worldview, but they also distrust fields that contribute to economic growth and productivity when compared to liberals. Unfortunately, short-term interventions aimed at improving trust seem to have little impact. […]

Sound can induce changes in cells and one team of researchers think this could be an effective way to manipulate their behavior, including for the treatment of disease. Sound waves are variations in air pressure. Our ears are so finely tuned to amplifying them over a certain range of frequencies, that we can sense pressure […]

Dark matter is a hypothetical substance that outweighs regular matter – which makes stars, planets, and everything we can see and touch – by five to one. But we don’t know what it is. One hypothesis, with some astronomical backing, is that it is made of extremely light particles known as axions. Researchers have now […]

Something significant is happening to religious life across the US. In just a few decades, remarkably large numbers of people have been leaving organized religion. However, this exodus is not in favor of secular rationality, but rather the pursuit of spirituality that is more aligned with their personal values. The number of people who regard […]

YouTuber and science communicator Steve Mould, famed for his excellent and interesting demonstrations of physics and engineering (check out this life-sized pop pop boat, for example) has turned his attention to an old idea about treadmills. Rather than getting the result he had expected, he ended up feeling a little more empathy for flat-Earthers when […]

Behold: a live colossal squid in all its glory. After a century of searching, the extremely elusive cephalopod has been caught on camera alive in its natural habitat for the first time (and, for once, not inside the belly of a whale or washed up dead on a beach). The juvenile squid was filmed on […]

Perhaps it’s no wonder, then, that fewer Americans than ever before now intend on having them. At least, that’s the finding from a new study out of Michigan State University: “We found that the percentage of nonparents who don’t want any children rose from 14 percent in 2002 to 29 percent in 2023,” said Jennifer […]

An unknown tribe of ancient hunter-gatherers that lived on the south Texas coast may have made music using modified human bones. After sifting through bone artifacts in a museum collection, the author of a new study identified a musical rasp fashioned from a humerus, resembling a macabre instrument called an omichicahuaztli that was used by […]