Deborah Bloomfield

Astronomers have attempted to explain the non-gravitational acceleration of comet 3I/ATLAS, our third confirmed interstellar visitor, in a way that removes the need for “non-natural hypotheses for 3I/ATLAS”. You probably are aware of our celestial visitor by now, but for those who are just joining the story, here’s what we know so far. On July […]

Sweat. It’s a beautiful thing. It cools, it hydrates, and even keeps microbes in check. Still, there are times you could do without it being quite so visible through your pale blue shirt, and for that, we invented antiperspirant. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access […]

Pugs, Mastiffs, Chihuahuas, and Greyhounds didn’t splinter off from wolf-like wild dogs in a matter of generations – the story runs far deeper. The forms we recognize in our canine companions today began to appear surprisingly early, at a time when the Ice Age was ending and agriculture was just beginning to take root around […]

Among the hilly forests of southern China, scientists have discovered the largest modern meteorite impact crater on Earth. Dubbed the Jinlin crater, the giant pitted scar could become an invaluable tool for learning how and when extraterrestrial objects crash into our planet. Located in a remote, hilly region in the northwest of Guangdong Province, not […]

Physicists agree that an awful lot went on in the first few seconds after the Big Bang, a lot of it in incomprehensibly tiny units of time. The exact nature of that activity is far more debated, but a new model proposes not only near instantaneous black hole formation, but exotic boson and cannibal stars. […]

Astronomers looking at data from the European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) Euclid mission have concluded that the universe is only going to get “colder and deader” from here on out. The Euclid telescope launched in 2023, hitching a ride on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 to study the cosmos from the Sun-Earth Lagrange point 2, 1.5 million kilometers […]

We recently reported on a new discovery about those zigzags you see in spider webs. Silken decorations like these are known as stabilimenta, and they can serve all kinds of purposes.  In the case of the zigzags, it’s thought they may act like extra doorbells, letting you know when food has arrived to a broader […]

Being intimate with your partner might help physical wounds heal faster, according to the results of a new study. And if you’re not in the mood for sex, then you might be able to achieve a similar effect simply by exchanging compliments with your other half. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. […]

Sometimes, the hardest battles are the simplest ones. Chess may have its drama, Magic can enchant, but few things compare to the pure, raw warfare of rock, paper, scissors. It’s a game that dates back potentially more than two millennia – and yet, even today, people argue about how best to play it. Is it […]

The Pleiades star cluster is 20 times larger than it looks at first sight, astronomers have learned. The cluster celebrated in cultures around the world, often under the name the “Seven Sisters”, is the remnant of something much greater, with hundreds of the original stars having escaped each other’s gravitational grip. Stars are usually formed […]

For the first time ever, scientists have captured underwater footage of humpback whale calves nursing from their moms. Recorded in Quandamooka Sea Country, Australia, the footage highlights just how important the area is as a nursing and resting site to the humpbacks. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or […]

The idea that you can smell snow might sound like whimsical baloney dreamed up by romantics or a winter advertising campaign. However, there’s strong evidence that some people can sniff out a thunderstorm or rain, so the idea of snowfall having a scent is not too much of a stretch. The rest of this article […]

If you’ve ever been stung by a bee, you could be forgiven for shouting that the infernal beast must have been sent by the devil himself. Now, the discovery of a new species of the pied insect has added more evidence of their demonic nature, being as it is named Megachile (Hackeriapis) lucifer. The rest […]

The bear family is no stranger to being sizeable, standing firm at the top of the world’s largest land-dwelling carnivorans. Still, even the biggest groups have their smaller members, and the title for the smallest bear of all goes to a unique, freakishly long-tongued, and weirdly human-like animal: the sun bear (Helarctos malayanus). The world’s […]

You might’ve heard we’re trying to talk to whales. It sounds crazy, but it’s not so far-fetched, as in recent years we’ve been getting closer and closer to cracking the code of their remarkably complex communications. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content. […]

Sea urchins look like an inanimate bundle of needles, but a closer look at these alien-like creatures reveals a surprisingly complex “all-body brain” that challenges our assumptions about nervous systems, evolution, and the nature of intelligence. Echinoderms – the phylum of animals that includes starfish, sea cucumbers, sea urchins, and others – are easy to […]

Astronomers have detected the radio burst from a massive eruption known as a coronal mass ejection (CME) on an M-type star 133 light-years away. CMEs have been suspected to occur on other stars based on activity that frequently accompanies them on the Sun, but this is the first direct evidence. Unfortunately, the major advance for […]

2024 YR4, the “city-killer” asteroid that briefly made headlines last year due to a small but non-zero chance that it may hit the Earth, may soon have increased odds of striking our Moon. Asteroid 2024 YR4 was first discovered on December 27, 2024, by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) telescope in Chile. Initial […]

Faced with filthy waterways and a worsening public health crisis, Chicago’s authorities took a radical step to literally reverse the flow of the Chicago River in 1900. Needless to say, the move did not help relations with the city of St Louis, whose residents suddenly found themselves downstream of a river brimming with garbage, human […]

The Sun has just fired off its most powerful solar flare of 2025, causing radio blackouts across half the globe. As the barrage of charged particles makes its way toward Earth, the aurorae borealis – or Northern Lights – could become visible at unusually low latitudes tonight. The rest of this article is behind a […]