Deborah Bloomfield

For the first time, the effects of a geomagnetic superstorm on the Earth’s protective plasmasphere have been observed in detail. The storm in question compressed the plasmasphere by 80 percent, leaving us to wonder what even larger storms of the past did. The auroras of May 10-11, 2024, were almost certainly seen by more people […]

To our best of our understanding, the Moon formed from Earth following a colossal impact. A Mars-sized world we nicknamed Theia slammed and merged with the primordial Earth, throwing material into space. Some fell back onto the planet, while some spread out and formed the Moon. New analysis is providing novel insights into Theia and […]

Sniffing another being’s armpit to judge their social status might seem like an animalistic activity that’s beneath modern humans, who tend to prefer to rely on fancy clothes and job titles to express their worth. But body odor may actually play a significant role in how men are perceived, especially in terms of dominance, according […]

If you’re interested in bats, there’s a good chance you know that around 70 percent of bat species are insectivores, some capable of consuming hundreds of insects an hour, some gobbling down up to a third of their body weight during a single night of hunting. Some species even eat spiders, though it is not […]

A team looking at the dynamics of objects in the Kuiper belt, the ring-shaped region of icy bodies well beyond the orbit of Neptune, believe they have found evidence for a “very old, undisturbed structure” in our Solar System. While the Oort Cloud, thought to be between 5,000 and 100,000 astronomical units (AU) from the […]

NASA has finally published several observations of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS that were taken during the long government shutdown. In a special press conference, the space agency released images from eight different missions that add to the Hubble, JWST, and SPHEREx observations from the summer, as well as those from NASA-funded ATLAS (Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert […]

Had you been in Cleveland 360 million years ago, you’d be swimming for your life. Not only would you have found yourself bobbing in a shallow sea, but there’d be something monstrous in the water: Dunkleosteus terrelli, a 4.2-meter (14-foot) apex predator unlike any fish alive today. The rest of this article is behind a […]

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the foremost public health authority in the United States, is at time of writing openly stating on its website that “the claim ‘vaccines do not cause autism’ is not an evidence-based claim”. Against all scientific consensus on the matter, the agency instead spotlights the idea that […]

It’s a great shame that Tyrannosaurus rex and Otodus megalodon never got the chance to meet. Arguably two of the greatest predators the Earth’s ever seen, they were separated by time and territory as megalodon didn’t appear for over 40 million years after T. rex’s extinction and, well, it was a giant fish (that said, […]

What’s the riskiest decision you ever made? If the results of a new study are to be believed, there’s a pretty good chance you just answered either “quit my job” or “accept a new one” – or perhaps you’re one of the few whose anxieties just revolve around the rise of 5G. Whatever your definition of […]

More than 40 percent of all known chameleon species live on the island of Madagascar. Among those species is a group called the Calumma gallus species complex, which contains the “Pinocchio” chameleons, featuring males with all sorts of funky nose appendages. These fancy extras have been the main way of telling different species apart for […]

In October 2018, a man named Ippolit Bodounov boarded a plane from Russia to Toronto, Canada. Although we do not know how he felt as he made his way through the terminal and eventually took his seat for the long intercontinental flight, we can easily imagine he was at least a little nervous. That’s because […]

Fresh from finding potential biosignatures on the Bright Angel formation in Cheyava Falls, announced in September, NASA’s Perseverance rover has discovered a highly unusual and out of place rock on Mars. Every now and then, the rovers exploring the Red Planet send back an image of an unusual rock on our neighbor planet. These can […]

Have you ever heard of Jesus being called Jesus H. Christ? This is, in fact, not a little-known middle name like Howard, but a relic of the Greek alphabet and Christian symbolism. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content. Dr Dan McClellan, Biblical […]

Have you ever noticed how life during the Ice Age just seemed to be much, much bigger? As Apple TV’s new series Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age demonstrates, everything from bears to sloths, birds, and armadillos was far bigger than anything we’ve seen since, but might I point you to one small fact that might’ve escaped […]

Parts of the tectonic boundary between Africa and Asia may be creeping away from each other, as fresh evidence shows that a rift near the border of the two continents is slowly pulling apart at the pace of a very, very slow snail.  The movement is occurring in the Gulf of Suez Rift, a deep […]

Owls, God bless them, are pretty weird and wonderful creatures, with some strange and impressive adaptations to their environments. Though it’s a fact you know well, it’s still astonishing that they can spin their head through 270 degrees, like a flying tribute to The Exorcist. Their concave facial disks, for example, as well as being […]

With dinosaur-like scowls and spiked spines, sailfin dragons look like relics from a primordial world or a mythical beast – but they are very much real and here to stay. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content. Also known as sailfin lizards, they […]

The giant structures that sit where Earth’s core meets the mantle and slow seismic waves as they pass through could be key to the planet hosting life, at least in the abundance we see. If the newly presented idea is right, it would provide yet another way in which the world we take for granted […]

According to the original Artemis plan, we should have already put people on the Moon. Artemis III should have gone and come back by now. Instead, it is currently tentatively scheduled for no earlier than mid-2027. However, the mission is almost certain to be delayed again. The reason for the delay lies with SpaceX’s Starship […]