Deborah Bloomfield

Animal intelligence is a complex and hotly debated topic; there’s even some debate about the sentience of certain species and their ability to think. However, that hasn’t stopped us from giving bees math problems and marveling at falcons’ ability to solve puzzle boxes. But where do snakes fit into this spectrum of animal intelligence? ADVERTISEMENT […]

TV shows often lie, especially when it comes to complex topics, like those surrounding forensic science. Anyone who has watched a crime scene show will likely have the impression that crime scene science is unambiguous and that the “who done it” is typically made clear once the right piece of evidence is identified. That’s how […]

Had you lingered in the room with this hardened mass in the late 1980s, your chances of seeing another birthday would have been slim. Just seconds in its presence would leave you puking, feverish, and barely able to think. This is no ordinary industrial debris – it’s a relic from the heart of the Chernobyl […]

How do you feel in the morning? Do you feel like the day greets you at your best, that you’re at your brightest as you rise from bed but gradually feel less “perky” as the day goes on? If so, then you may not be alone as, according to a large new study, people generally […]

Avian flu first made the jump from birds into dairy cows on farms in a number of US states in spring 2024. Until now, all such cases of the H5N1 virus have been ascribed to a genotype called B3.13, but the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has just announced the detection of a second genotype, […]

Juice cleanses – where people exclusively consume fruit and/or vegetable juice – have often been touted as good for your health, purportedly “detoxing” you and helping you to get a bunch of vitamins and minerals to boot. The thing is, detox diets have been thoroughly debunked – and a new study has found that juice […]

There are some pretty weird relationships in the animal world. Some parasites exist only in the eyes of the world’s oldest sharks, while researchers have been researching fungus that survives by infecting spiders. Now, a new species of such a fungus has been described altering the behavior of its spider host, in the same style […]

Galaxies in a quasar state can release powerful jets from their active supermassive black holes. The jets can extend far into intergalactic space, even for millions of light-years. The process for many objects started a long time ago, and researchers have found these jets even in the distant universe. Astronomers have now announced the largest […]

The hominin family tree may have a new twig: Paranthropus capensis, a “gorilla-like” human relative that lived in southern Africa some 1.4 million years ago. A new study focuses on a hominin jawbone known as SK 15 that was unearthed in 1949 at Swartkrans, a cave in modern-day South Africa that holds a rich trove […]

Boiling an egg feels like walking a tightrope: misjudge it by just a fraction and you’ll end up with either a snot-like undercooked white or a miserable, dry yolk. Fortunately, a team of scientists has finally cracked it, developing a novel method to cook all parts of an egg to perfection. ADVERTISEMENT GO AD FREE […]

Update 2/6/25: We have updated this article to include the Center for Near Earth Objects Studies cumulative impact probability, which upgrades the chance from 1.8 percent to 2.3 percent. ADVERTISEMENT GO AD FREE The threat of Asteroid 2024 YR4 has not gone away just yet. The near-Earth object was discovered in December and calculations of […]

A team of researchers in Germany have proposed a new method for searching for life on alien worlds, which they believe could be integrated into future Mars missions. ADVERTISEMENT GO AD FREE Finding life on another planet would be a world-changing discovery for humanity. But actually detecting it is no simple task. Rovers sent to […]

A Cretaceous-era skull found on Vega Island, Antarctica, has been confirmed as a member of the same order as ducks and geese, making it one of the oldest known examples of a modern bird. Dating from not very long before the asteroid hit, the species Vegavis iaai, or a near relative, is a strong candidate for […]

Fear is very useful for survival – but so is being able to control it. It’s wise to be scared of the unfamiliar, especially when it resembles a known threat. However, once you realize that thing lying by the door is actually just a draught excluder and not a reticulated python, you can safely set […]

Researchers have successfully generated a digital image of an ancient scroll from Herculaneum that has not been seen in almost 2,000 years. The announcement was made by the Bodleian Libraries, Oxford, and the Vesuvius Challenge, which have been working to decipher three scrolls, including this one, over the last few years. ADVERTISEMENT GO AD FREE […]

Avoiding predators is one of the most important jobs for many members of the animal world. Even ocean giants like baleen whales have something to fear from killer whales, their only known natural predators. To avoid coming across killer whales, new research has revealed that some whale species might be whispering through the ocean, hoping […]

When you consider, say, a salmon, or a pigeon, your first thought is probably not “Wow, I bet that guy is great at quantum mechanics” – and yet, that’s precisely what the evidence suggests: that these animals, among others, exploit some of the most advanced science currently understood by humans in their everyday lives – […]

Around 2,700 years ago in ancient Egypt, a man named Pakepu held the title of “water pourer on the west of Thebes”, responsible for managing the funerary cult in the legendary city. Upon his own death, Pakepu was placed inside a set of wooden coffins, sealed with a selection of pink and white “pastes” that […]

Argentina’s president has ordered the country to pull out of the World Health Organization (WHO), following the lead of like-minded allies in the US.  ADVERTISEMENT GO AD FREE On February 5, President Javier Milei – a self-described anarcho-capitalist nicknamed “El Loco” (the Madman) – took to social media to announce the withdrawal, citing the WHO’s […]

Galaxy LEDA 1313424 is a beauty. It is 2.5 times the size of the Milky Way and has something no other galaxy has: A series of concentric rings, nine to be exact. This is more than other known galaxies, which usually have just two or three rings. ADVERTISEMENT GO AD FREE The galaxy has been […]