Deborah Bloomfield

Every now and then, somebody with a lot more self-belief than is warranted will set out to the “end” of the Earth in order to “prove” we are living not on an oblate sphere, but a pancake. They have traveled to Antarctica for a “final experiment” and attempted to sail to the edge, always ending […]

Earth has reached its first climate tipping point, according to an official new update, marking a “new reality” for our natural world. The tipping point concerns the world’s warm-water coral reefs, which have recently been facing repeated, unprecedented die-offs due to relentlessly rising ocean temperatures. With global temperatures already about 1.4°C (2.52°F) above pre-industrial levels, […]

What do you get when you propose to someone at a cheesemaking facility? Hopefully a yes, if they’re not too put off by the smell – but as a new study has shown, you might also end up with the ability to witness evolution in real time. That’s what happened in 2016, when Tufts University […]

Human embryo models capable of synthesizing their own blood have been developed, in an advance that could lead to new treatments for blood disorders as well as the production of stem cells for transplants. The 3D structures, named “hematoids”, are similar to embryos but differ in several important ways. They don’t have the capacity to […]

Sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing – these are the senses we’re probably all familiar with. But we humans may not be limited to just five: some scientists argue for a “sixth sense” – though there are several contenders for what this might be – while others suggest we have way more. One candidate for […]

Viewed from space, modern Earth looks like a blue marble, decorated with swirls of wispy clouds and slabs of green and brown land. But in our home planet’s freshman years, it might not have been dominated by greenish-blues, but soft purple hues.  This is what’s known as the “Purple Earth Hypothesis”, an idea first proposed […]

These days, the humble hippo is found exclusively in sub-Saharan Africa, but that hasn’t always been the case – thousands of years ago, the river horse also inhabited central Europe, for far longer than we once thought. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full […]

The list of animals pushed into extinction has grown even longer. In its latest update, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has officially declared several species extinct, including a charismatic bird, Australian marsupials, and a couple of plants. The update, part of the IUCN’s Red List of Threatened Species, tracks the conservation status […]

Of all the ghostly creatures lurking in our oceans, a recently spotted deep-sea cusk eel species cosplaying as a giant phantom tadpole might just be our new favorite. This bizarre creature was seen during E/V Nautilus’ latest expedition, which aims to explore the previously uncharted deep-sea areas of the Cook Islands in the South Pacific. […]

All manner of deep ocean creatures live beneath the waves, from funky disco worms to octopuses and just about every manner of tentacled creature you can think of. Off the coast of Uruguay, a deep-sea chanchito, or sea pig, was recently recorded zooming past an underwater camera. The rest of this article is behind a […]

NASA astronaut Don Pettit has helped YouTuber Steve Mould with the final step in his “weird chain theory”: testing the idea in space. In 2013, YouTuber and science communicator Steve Mould brought the “chain fountain”, an unsolved problem in physics, to the attention of the wider public. The effect, sometimes referred to as the “Mould […]

Did you know that organisms that live exclusively in caves are known as troglobites? It’s not the most appealing name in the world, but it seems fitting. Brings to mind images of wet, cold, and dark places where unknown liquids drip from the ceiling (some of which has been discovered to be the oldest water […]

Thousands of volunteers recorded bird behavior in response to the total solar eclipse of 2024, revealing a diversity of bird responses.  For some, the wonder of total solar eclipses is enhanced with reports of animals responding as if night has come early. In 1932, New England cattle were reported heading to their barns, while frogs […]

Since we became a (semi) intelligent species and started studying the cosmos, humanity has been on a long journey to realizing we are not the center of the universe, the galaxy, or even the Solar System. While disappointing for an egotistical species, this realization has led us to discoveries about the real nature of our […]

October is Nobel Prize season, an annual period when scientists in the fields of physics, chemistry, and medicine eagerly await to see who will win a giant gold coin in Stockholm later that year. Even economists get their turn in the spotlight in these. But mathematicians, much to their dismay, are left out in the […]

It’s fair to say that growing new life is rarely easy. For humans, it involves a lengthy stay in the womb before being squeezed out through the vagina – an amazing, but painful feat. Some other species have rejected the genitals as a means of delivery, however. Just take a look at gastric-brooding frogs. How […]

The first-ever evidence-based dietary guidance for adults experiencing chronic constipation has just been released, and you might be surprised by some of the recommendations. Advice like eating a generally high-fiber diet has been found to be lacking in evidence, but an unlikely star has emerged as something of a gut health hero: the humble kiwi […]

Human classification, from celestial bodies to living organisms, often starts with their morphology. Depending on how something looks, it gets a certain label. This is all well and good until you find the exceptions, so you expand the category. But what happens when you find an exception to the exception? Well, you get something like […]

On a small stretch of land near the Kenya-Somalia border lives the world’s rarest antelope, a curious-looking, “four-eyed” animal called the hirola that once roamed the region’s grasslands in the thousands. Today, it’s on the brink of extinction – but how exactly did it get there? Formally known as Beatragus hunteri, these bizarre members of […]

In 2000, the famous 1997 Levitating Frog experiment hopped its way to an Ig Nobel Prize, thanks to Dr. Andre Geim and his team, who figured out how to make a frog, a cricket, and a few plants float using magnetism. Geim would later win a real Nobel Prize for graphene, but that’s another story. […]