Deborah Bloomfield

Tattooing is one of the oldest and most widespread art forms in the world, and often the designs we decide to commit permanently to our skin are thick with meaning and cultural biases. Studying a tattoo from a certain time and place, therefore, can give us an idea of the cultural norms surrounding its design […]

We live in an age where things like “the Earth orbits the sun” and “Kepler’s third law” are well known, and yet the majesty of a solar eclipse is still something that can make even the most powerful man in the world stop and stare. How much more awe-inspiring must this cosmological phenomenon have appeared, […]

Venus and our closest neighbor Mercury (here’s how that works) are lonely. While Jupiter hogs up at least 95 moons, neither of the innermost planets have a single moon to keep them company in their orbits of the Sun. Advertisement Mercury is likely too close to the Sun to hold onto a moon, with any […]

There’s something lurking in the peaceful waters off the coast of Fukui Prefecture, Japan – but it’s not the kraken, or a whirlpool, or even a shark. In fact, experts believe that the culprit behind a spate of attacks on humans in the area, leading to 18 injuries this year alone, is a single Indo-Pacific […]

Iceland has been having something of a bumper year when it comes to volcanic activity, with lava flows causing all sorts of bother, even leading to evacuations. While the lava flows can be terrifyingly powerful, they are also all sorts of mesmerizing. Advertisement Videographer Jeroen Van Nieuwenhove captured incredible drone footage of the lava inside […]

New research is opening a window into the brain’s prediction machinery, showing how two brain regions work together when something unexpected happens. As well as offering a deeper insight into how our brains constantly work to fill in the gaps and guess what’s coming next, the findings could really help people experiencing difficulties with perception […]

A new study looking at the potentially hazardous asteroid 99942 Apophis has suggested that the odds of an impact in 2029 or 2036 is ever so slightly higher than we thought. Advertisement When Apophis was first discovered in 2004, observations briefly placed it at level 4 on the Torino impact hazard scale, with a score […]

If you ever need evidence as to why you need to respect nature, look no further than US national parks – and none more so than Yellowstone, where a visitor was filmed appearing to dip their fingers into its most iconic hot spring (which is a really, really bad idea). The park’s Grand Prismatic Spring […]

A scientific whodunnit recently kicked off in the waters off Cape Cod in Massachusetts where scientists studying porbeagle sharks made a grim discovery: a pregnant female had been eaten by a monstrous predator. The key culprits? The great white and shortfin mako whose reputations precede them, but the murder finvestigation marks the first documented predation […]

Ganymede is not only the largest satellite of Jupiter and the biggest moon in the Solar System, but it is the only moon with its own magnetic field and is also tidally locked, meaning it always shows Jupiter the same face just like our Moon does to us. On the far side of Ganymede, there […]

Alberto, Beryl, Chris, Debby, Ernesto – they’re names you’ve probably heard a lot of over the last few months, the first storms in what’s expected to be a fairly busy 2024 Atlantic hurricane season. But why do these storms have names, and who decides what to name them? Advertisement Why do tropical storms and hurricanes […]

When Betelgeuse finally collapses, the star – currently a red supergiant – will likely shine as brightly as the Moon in the sky for about two weeks, and be visible during the day time for 6-12 months after that. Advertisement It will be a spectacular event, but calculating when it will happen is a tricky […]

Cairo is perhaps one of the world’s most famous capital cities, with a rich history that spans over 1,000 years. Its chapter as capital, however, is soon to end – and going from recent satellite imagery, its megaproject replacement is finally taking shape. The plan to move the capital was first announced back in 2015, […]

Never short of their quirks, from their flappy primordial pouches that put a swing in their step to the fishing wildcats that quack like ducks, it’s safe to say cats are pretty strange creatures. So, to unravel another kitty mystery, what are those weird folds on their ears and what are they for? Advertisement The […]

If there’s one color that is almost universally associated with nature, it’s green (just don’t tell the mammals). No prizes for guessing why – green is overwhelmingly present in the plant kingdom. Once we start thinking about fruits and flowers, more of the rainbow starts to emerge, but with one notable exception. Where is all […]

What happens if you can’t burp? You might think that sounds quite nice – burping is not the most pleasant or socially acceptable bodily function, after all, at least not in most cultures. But it’s also necessary, and for the community of “no burpers” out there, the lack of it comes with an array of […]

Thanks to the seismic waves produced by earthquakes, scientists have been able to probe the interior of our planet. Layers and composition, as well as changes and motions, are the targets of these investigations. But nothing in the universe is simple. Our planet has weird things buried deep within itself, and even when we expect […]

In an image that’s sure to give you indigestion, a new paper has reported a world-first predation event as a Burmese python was spotted chowing down on a reticulated python. The Burmese was over 3 meters (10 feet) long with the tail-end of a reticulated in its mouth, in a rare meal that took about […]

In Prehistoric Planet, one of the most memorable scenes sees a small Masiakasaurus gaily frolicking by the waterside when BAM – it’s snapped up in the jaws of an enormous predatory amphibian. The beast in question is Beelzebufo, a giant dinosaur-eating frog that once lived in what we now know as Madagascar. Advertisement How big […]

It’s no secret that rainforests are among some of the most biodiverse habitats in the world, but as anyone who has visited one will tell you, that doesn’t mean you’re going to be bumping into rare wildlife left, right, and center. Well, unless you’re hiking in Sumatran striped rabbit territory, apparently. Advertisement In June 2022, […]