Deborah Bloomfield

A detailed investigation of the expansion in human brains over 7 million years finds faster growth in modern humans and our nearest relatives than our predecessors. Nevertheless, brains have grown as species evolved, rather than suddenly jumping when one branch of humanity replaced another. Brain size and intelligence do not correlate perfectly, but the findings […]

Get ready to meet your new favorite amphibian, because today we’d like to discuss the desert rain frog, Breviceps macrops. Also known as the marshmallow frog (for it is about the size of a marshmallow) these mini critters have evolved to thrive in desert ecosystems, and they have some pretty bizarre adaptations to show for […]

China has struck gold — literally — after geologists discovered an estimated $83 billion worth of gold in central China’s Hunan Province, though accessing the underground deposit might be easier said than done. The Geological Bureau of Hunan Province announced their geologists have detected over 40 gold veins with a reserve of 300 tonnes of […]

Uranus and Neptune were only visited once by human spacecraft when Voyager 2 passed by them almost 40 years ago. During those visits, scientists measured peculiar magnetic fields unlike those seen around other planets. A recent paper suggests that the Uranus measurements might have been messed up by the Sun, but in general, it has […]

A new plastic has been created, and its makers say it combines durability with complete recyclability while also breaking down in seawater and soil, in case it is not disposed of properly. Given the scale of plastic buildup in the oceans and the widespread presence of microplastics in the environment, any solution is welcome, but […]

If you look at the flight paths of planes traveling around the world, you may notice a few oddities. One is that they don’t appear to travel in straight paths to their destinations (the answer to this one is fairly obvious) and, if you really go into detail, that very few planes seem to fly […]

We all know we’re supposed to be drinking water – to survive, yes, but also for a myriad of health benefits. What are they? Well… that’s a good question, actually, and one that a new study set out to answer by conducting a systematic review of 18 clinical trials. Stanley cups at the ready, lads. […]

We’ve launched a brand new series called True Crime in Science. Over six episodes, we will break down some well-known true crime cases, as well as some cases you may not have heard of, and then delve further into the science and the forensic details behind them. Watch episode one on Colin Pitchfork now. If […]

Let’s face it: kids are not smart. That’s fine; they’re not meant to be – they have a lot of growing and learning left to do, and they can’t be spending that time grappling with the finer nuances of special relativity when “apples fall down because gravity” will serve them just as well. But it […]

As anyone who follows fashion knows, certain trends like indie sleaze and cargo pants can come back around after a long and quite deserved break. Orcas, it seems, are not immune. After a 37-year break, killer whales have once again been spotted wearing dead salmon on their head. Orcas are intelligent and social animals, known […]

By delving into the genomes of people on 23andMe, scientists have shown that human language and musical rhythm share “genetic architecture”, suggesting the two abilities may have evolved in tandem. Music was a human quality that confused the hell out of Charles Darwin. To him, it served no immediate advantage for our survival, so what’s […]

The luxurious textile that sparked the first global trade network may have been seen as more than just a material object in ancient China. Having discovered silk residues in a Bronze-Age sacrificial pit in Sichuan province, the authors of a new study suggest that the opulent larvae-derived fiber was revered as much for its elegance […]

When we talk about “The Age Of Dinosaurs,” we think of an era where these enormous beasts ruled the land, but that wasn’t always the case. Like all animals that have lived to taste the upper echelons of the food chain, dinosaurs had to work their way to the top by outcompeting those that came […]

For a long time, interstellar objects were considered theoretical, with no observations to back them up. Then in a matter of a few years, we had two: ‘Oumuamua and Comet Borisov. This has opened the door on the study of these interstellar objects (ISOs) and researchers have begun to simulate how they move in the […]

It’s amazing just how impactful our behavior can be. Even small acts, like using the taps in our homes, can contribute to significant changes across the planet. This may sound trivial, but over the last 20 years alone, the pumping of groundwater – mostly for drinking – has caused Earth’s rotation to tilt eastwards by […]

While scanning the frozen surface of northwestern Greenland this year, NASA scientists stumbled across a “city under the ice” from the paranoid years of the Cold War. The structure was Camp Century, an abandoned Arctic military research base run by the US between 1959 and 1967 during the Cold War. It was the hub of […]

An astrophotographer attempting to create a timelapse of trails of stars behind Mount Xiannairi in Sichuan, China, ended up capturing a strange blue light being emitted during an avalanche. Shengyu Li set up the timelapse on October 27, when a block of ice broke free from the mountain and sparked a small avalanche. Avalanches happen […]

The Great Red Spot is not the only Earth-sized atmospheric disturbance seen on Jupiter. That dramatic storm remains number one for size and power in the Solar System, but ultraviolet (UV) observations from Hubble have now revealed that Earth-size ovals of haze are being stirred up over Jupiter’s polar regions. The culprit is believed to […]

The stunning specimen you can see above was the first documented instance of a tarantula with gynandromorphic characteristics: one side of its body is female, while the other is male. The case first came to light in 2014 at a lab at the University of the Republic in Uruguay when a team of bug experts […]

For the first time, astronomers have found a likely explanation for a type of repeating radio signal first identified two years ago but now found popping up in many places. In a new case, the emissions are coming from the direction of a red dwarf star, believed to be in orbit around a white dwarf, […]