Deborah Bloomfield

A high-powered pulse of X-rays could vaporize part of an incoming asteroid and change its trajectory in the process, a new study proposes. Whether the approach would be more cost-effective than alternatives under consideration remains to be seen, but questions also need to be asked about the safety of building a suitable instrument in the […]

The mysterious vanishing of stars might seem like the stuff of science fiction (look no further than the season four finale of Doctor Who), but it’s very much a reality; in the last 70 years, around 100 stars have disappeared from view, all without a concrete explanation. Advertisement How do we know they’ve disappeared? Their […]

Experiments at the Large Hadron Collider have shown that top quarks, the heaviest of all elementary particles, can end up being entangled. Such quantum entanglement is happening at the highest possible energy we have ever measured, 12 orders of magnitude higher than standard experiments.   Advertisement The intriguing results were seen by the ATLAS experiment […]

Piezoelectric crystals have recently been identified as being the cause of a natural phenomenon that has shaped the rise and fall of civilizations. There are also frequent efforts to find socially useful applications for it, although many of these have ended up as curiosities. So, what is piezoelectricity, and why do crystals that have it […]

“[In the] UK – we call it Autumn, from the French word ‘autompne’, and later, the Latin ‘autumnus’,” begins a now-infamous tweet from 2013. “[In the] US – WE CALL IT FALL BECAUSE LEAF FALL DOWN”. Advertisement It’s undoubtedly funny, but is it true? Well, not quite. Why do Brits call fall “autumn”? First things […]

Surviving for around 400 years, the Greenland shark is the world’s longest-living vertebrate – but little is known about its impressive longevity. Now, an international team of scientists has mapped its genome for the first time, potentially spilling some of its anti-aging secrets. Advertisement The research (posted as a preprint and yet to be peer-reviewed) […]

A team of researchers have won a coveted Ig Nobel Prize for tossing coins hundreds of thousands of times and proving that coin flips are not 50/50 after all.  Advertisement In sports, coin tosses are often used to decide who goes first, or pick who goes to bat for the first part of the game. […]

Submerged settlements, also known as sunken cities, might sound mythical but they are very real, and while their migration underwater makes them harder to find, it can also preserve them far better than they would have fared surface-side. Marine archaeologist Professor Jon Henderson knows this all too well. As Head of Archaeology at the University […]

You’ve no doubt heard of the Mediterranean diet, you might even have come across its cooler cousin the Atlantic diet, but what about the MIND diet? It’s touted for its brain benefits, and now a new study has provided evidence to suggest it could help reduce the risk of cognitive problems during aging. Advertisement The […]

Let’s talk about carrots. Sweet and versatile, you can turn them into so many tasty dishes – but the humble carrot has come in for some criticism as of late, with a small yet vocal corner of the internet warning people off them and similarly bright-colored veggies due to fears about “vitamin A toxicity”. We […]

Most of us have heard of the Mason-Dixon line, but far fewer of us – particularly outside of the US – really know the full story behind its creation. Most famous as the border between free and slave states before the US Civil War, the line – well, actually three lines, but we’re only going […]

This week, a growing body of research hints at a “third state” that lies beyond the boundaries of life and death, new research into a piece of African rock art suggests it may show an extinct animal that lived millions of years before humans, and a truly supermassive black hole has jets spanning 23 million […]

Growing up in the animal world is no easy feat. Not only do you have to survive in harsh climatic conditions, hide from predators, or even learn to fly, but sometimes you need to learn to hunt as well. Fortunately for the orca calves of Monterey Bay, California, they had some adults on hand to […]

In the latest move towards more sustainable construction, engineers at MIT have come up with an ingenious way of producing 3D-printed, reusable bricks – but the material they’ve chosen might just surprise you. They’re made of glass, but their clever construction means they’re every bit as good as concrete, with better green credentials.  Advertisement “Glass […]

Americans, we have good and bad news. The good news? A new report from the Commonwealth Fund has concluded that your healthcare system is, and we quote, “in a class by itself” among wealthy nations. The bad news? It’s… not exactly the AP class they’re talking about. Advertisement “The U.S. is failing one of its […]

When chemists had an idea for a better catalyst to make ammonia, they decided to try nine variations at the same time. That turned out to be just as well, because the version they expected to work didn’t – but one of the long-shot alternatives proved so successful the work could end up cutting carbon […]

Veterinary medicine is a difficult field at the best of times, considering that the majority (but not all) of their patients can’t talk. It becomes even more difficult when serious health issues require surgery, and the complications only compound when the animal that needs surgery is a southern white rhinoceros.  Advertisement Amara the southern white […]

Several hundred million years ago, a smallish elliptical galaxy passed through a larger spiral one. The result of that collision is the Arp 107 system. The spiral galaxy had its arms completely altered. One is still mostly there but the others present are now tendrils stretching around the galaxy. Now, new observations by JWST have […]

The entire human genome – all 3 billion or so base pairs – has been stored on a tiny, 5D memory crystal built to last for billions of years. In theory, should humans go extinct, this little chip could provide a blueprint to bring us back – providing the technology to do so has materialized […]

A 60-year-old woman has sustained thermal burns after going off-trail at Yellowstone National Park. Advertisement The incident took place on the afternoon of Monday September 16, 2024, when the woman, her husband, and their leashed dog wandered into the thermal area near Mallard Lake Trailhead, at Old Faithful. The woman then stepped through a thin […]