Deborah Bloomfield

Wind Cave, South Dakota, has interesting minerals, but is ill-suited for life, being too far underground for sunlight to reach. Yet its glowing colors revealed by black light could assist the search for life on other worlds, cave researchers have argued. ADVERTISEMENT Professor Joshua Sebree of the University of Northern Iowa led a team of […]

Democracy, if Winston Churchill is to be believed, is the worst form of Government – except for all the other forms that have been tried. That tells us two things: that sometimes, you have to make do with the least bad option, and that Churchill was no mathematician. ADVERTISEMENT Why? Well, had the statesman been […]

Objects found in the tomb of Tutankhamun indicate that the Boy King was the first pharaoh ever to undergo a funerary rite designed to re-animate his mummified body in the afterlife. Known as the Awakening of Osiris, the ancient ritual sought to facilitate the deceased ruler’s transformation into Osiris, the god of the underworld, thus […]

If your friend starts screaming, but you can see them standing in front of you just fine, your response probably wouldn’t be the same as if they were in another room. That’s because you have the cognitive capacity to marry up the auditory information with visual information, combining them to accurately assess the threat and […]

Get those eclipse glasses ready! Later this week, many areas in the Northern Hemisphere will witness a partial solar eclipse. At no point will the Sun’s disk be completely covered, so to witness the celestial event you need to make sure you use the right protection. ADVERTISEMENT The event will happen on March 29 in […]

A “beautiful, thriving ecosystem” has emerged from the shadows after an iceberg the size of Chicago splintered off Antarctica, revealing a seafloor teeming with life. Once hidden beneath an icy ceiling, this newly exposed world is home to an array of weird and wonderful life forms, including icefish, giant sea spiders, and octopuses. ADVERTISEMENT The […]

You’d have thought scientists would know about all of the extremely large tree species out there by now given that they’re, y’know, frickin’ huge. But as the discovery of a brand new, absolutely massive, and long-lived species of tree in the mountains of Tanzania makes clear, even giants can be good at hiding. ADVERTISEMENT The […]

An alligator and a crocodile have been filmed getting into a tussle in (where else) South Florida. Fortunately, no reptiles were harmed in the making of this video, although a few nasty hisses and snaps were exchanged. ADVERTISEMENT The two giant crocodilians were seen scuffling on March 19 along a sidewalk in Everglades National Park […]

The Artemis program, NASA’s highly anticipated plan to get humans back on the Moon, might be changing. For years now, its stated goal has been to “land the first woman, first person of color, and first international partner astronaut on the Moon using innovative technologies to explore more of the lunar surface than ever before.” […]

The Curiosity rover has found the largest organic molecules yet discovered on Mars within a Cumberland mudstone in Gale Crater. The mudstone is 3.7 billion years old, which is when the molecules, or their chemical predecessors, were first formed, so whatever made them is long gone. Molecules like this are made on Earth both through […]

Beware, bean fans and lovers of tinned fish. It might be tempting to put your half-empty can of food in the refrigerator to save for a later date, but there’s a good reason to avoid this habit. ADVERTISEMENT The biggest concern is metal leaching, a process where the can’s metallic material seeps into your food […]

Astronomers studying a massive and unusual spiral galaxy have found hints at the possible fate of our own home, the Milky Way. ADVERTISEMENT When looking at the universe, we have found plenty of evidence to support the current Concordance Lambda Cold Dark Matter (ΛCDM) model of it. But every now and then, astronomers have found […]

In 2018, a photo began circulating the Internet, appearing to show Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield on board the International Space Station (ISS) holding a gigantic baggie of cannabis.  ADVERTISEMENT The image, of course, is a hoax. In fact, Hadfield was holding a much more wholesome bag of Easter eggs to share with his fellow crewmates. […]

The possibility that your genetic data could one day be sold to the highest bidder sounds like something out of a sci-fi novel, but fiction has just taken one step closer to reality. Genetic testing company 23andMe has filed for bankruptcy protections and is looking for a buyer, which has people asking – what’s going […]

The cuts in funding to American and international research projects currently underway are unprecedented in their size and speed, but they’re part of a long tradition. For decades, politicians have loved to find examples of science research projects that sound stupid to people who’ve never studied the area and wave them around as examples of […]

If there is life on Proxima Centauri b, it could take the Extremely Large Telescope as little as 10 hours to detect its influence on the planet’s atmosphere. Observations will take longer for planets orbiting more distant stars (ie all the others), but modeling undergoing peer review is encouraging about how quickly the giant telescope […]

A single sheep on a Yorkshire farm has tested positive for H5N1 bird flu, the UK’s Chief Veterinary Officer has confirmed. The detection was made during routine surveillance after birds on the farm had become infected, but it marks the first time the virus has been found in a sheep. ADVERTISEMENT Highly pathogenic H5N1 avian […]

DNA analysis confirmed in 2023 that a trapdoor spider lost to science had been rediscovered in the Portuguese village it was named after following a 92-year disappearance. Fagilde’s trapdoor spider (Nemesia berlandi) was first described in 1931 before apparently dropping out of existence – but all that changed when an expedition team happened to look […]

There are so many variations to the human ear that a study concluded they can be used as accurately as fingerprints to identify an individual. One of the ways our ears can differ is in the presence of what’s known as Darwin’s tubercle, a small bump on the outer ear that’s thought to be an […]

A blink, a heartbeat, or even saying “one Mississippi”. These are ways we try to count one second with our body. Whether it’s the ticking of a clock or a changing number on a digital display, the basic unit of time describes the beat of our lives and underpins almost all scientific measurements. But what […]