Deborah Bloomfield

Dr Dara Orbach is a field biologist who conducts regular surveys of cetaceans, namely dolphins, in her Gulf of Mexico home waters. During a routine workday in 2013, Orbach encountered a deceased dolphin “so fresh that its tail was still twitching.” She did what any researcher might do – collected the specimen for future analysis.  […]

A new study has looked into the possibility that our Solar System could capture and provide a home for a rogue planet as they hurtle through the galaxy, alone. In 2017, astronomers at the Pan-STARRS1 observatory looking for near-Earth asteroids spotted an object as it hurtled past our Sun at 38.3 kilometers per second (23.8 […]

Dolphins have various reputations based on their incredible intelligence. They are often seen as friendly, inquisitive, and often playful aquatic mammals, but behind that popular image is an animal that learns quickly, has a talent for mimicry, and demonstrates both self-awareness and strong problem-solving skills.  It’s therefore no wonder dolphins, along with other marine mammals, […]

The festive season can be tough on the old mental health. Back-to-back social engagements, the pressure to purchase the perfect gift, and the occasional run-in with a conversation you’d sooner not be having when everyone’s imbibed an eggnog or two. It can be hard to get some time to yourself, but for some people it’s […]

Female water buffalo like to hang with their pals – whatever the truth of opposites attracting may be in some species, it doesn’t extend to these ungulates. At least that’s the conclusion of a study of feral water buffalo that shows they too get by with a little help from their friends. Most people don’t […]

Shortly, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, his deputy Pam Melroy, and several other members of the leadership team will sit down with the media at the agency’s headquarters in Washington to update people about the Artemis lunar program. The press conference will take place at 1 pm EST (6 pm GMT) and can be followed on […]

A skeleton found in Belgium and assumed to be of an individual person has, after further examination, turned out to be made of at least seven individuals who lived centuries apart from each other. In the 1970s, excavations of a large Gallo-Roman town in Pommerœul, Belgium, found 76 cremation burials and one strange burial of […]

Ocean photographer and advocate Rachel Moore is fortunate enough to spend a lot of time swimming and interacting with whales and dolphins. On one particular day, she swam with a humpback whale she’s nicknamed Sweet Girl, capturing extraordinarily detailed photographs of the whale’s eye. Tragically, four days later Sweet Girl was struck and killed by […]

Ceres, a dwarf planet and queen of the Asteroid Belt, continues to be a fascinating world. When it was visited by NASA’s Dawn, signs of geological activity – including ice volcanoes – were abundant. The spacecraft also reported the presence of several organic-rich regions. The assumption was that comets and asteroids brought those to the […]

Antarctica, the icy continent, is experiencing a surprising transformation as its fringes turn green with plant life in the wake of warming temperatures. This remarkable change is vividly captured in a new map created by NASA’s Earth Observatory using data from archives of satellite imagery. The amount of green vegetation on the Antarctic Peninsula has […]

Galaxies are broadly divided into three groups. You have the spirals like the Milky Way and Andromeda, the irregular galaxies, and the elliptical galaxies. This latter group tends to have the most massive and usually most aged population of stars. The idea is that these elliptical galaxies arrive at their final shape through collisions across […]

Envy is a complex emotion that can take different forms and is often shaped by both social and biological influences. Now, researchers have described a “new” kind of envy imbalance that is directed toward the opposite sex. The team found that women tend to envy men for perceived social advantages, including their salaries and prestige, […]

Take a heart out of a human and – provided you keep it stored under very exact conditions for transplantation – it can carry on beating. How? Well, it could come down to the organ’s “little brain,” as new research has identified that a cluster of neurons may play a much more significant role in […]

The first battery made from carbon-14 encased within a diamond that can replace a standard lithium-ion battery has been produced, culminating from years of research.  As the original, the battery might fetch a price far above a conventional gemstone from collectors, but its makers have bigger goals than the jewelry market. Instruments powered by such […]

Something’s cooking down inside Earth. At the center of our planet, temperatures reach approximately 5,200°C (9,392°F), almost as hot as the surface of the Sun. Driving this hellish heat is a medley of god-like forces that have persisted for billions of years.  The Earth’s core is divided into two separate regions: the outer core – […]

The European Space Agency is about to have a way to get solar eclipses on demand in space, a crucial approach to studying the solar corona. The solar corona is the extremely hot atmosphere of the Sun and has a massive impact on Earth and our technologies, which is why it is important to monitor […]

Just how similar were Neanderthals to Homo sapiens? Are we a single inseparable species or just siblings (perhaps merely cousins) in the great, messy family tree of humans? These questions have been debated since Neanderthal fossils were first unearthed in the 19th century, but a new paper aims to advance the discussion and move it […]

Welcome to True Crime in Science. Over six episodes, we will discuss 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 two on Harold Shipman now. In episode one, which you can watch […]

Whether they’re trekking 1,450 kilometers (900 miles) or discovering new viruses, cats are pretty great. Unless, of course, you’re allergic. But what if there was a way to create felines that don’t leave your throat feeling akin to sandpaper? It’s early days, but new research into the protein that triggers allergies to cats has hinted […]

If you’ve ever visited a medieval castle – or read a book about them, or watched a TV show about them, or just have one of those friends who likes to come out with weird bits of trivia every now and then – then you’ll have heard this one before: the staircases in castles, it […]