Deborah Bloomfield

On July 23, 1924, the editor of Scientific American, O.D. Munn, and six members of a scientific investigative committee gathered in a small room on the fourth floor of 10 Lime Street, Boston. It was hot and uncomfortable, after all, the city was experiencing a heat wave. But if there was any unease among the committee […]

Menopause: it’s a natural part of aging that affects millions of people each year, and yet there’s still plenty that we don’t know about it.  It’s widely considered to be understudied and even ignored in the majority of studies investigating the biology of aging. That’s not to say there’s no research on the subject at […]

This week, the world’s longest venomous snake, the king cobra, has been found to be four separate species, a new carbon capture design is a major step forward in removing CO2 from the air, and a new implant can detect opioid overdose, give lifesaving drugs, and even call for help. Finally, we ask a psychologist […]

The world’s rarest gemstone is made of kyawthuite, a transparent reddish-orange mineral that’s known from just one sample housed at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. It was retrieved near Mogok, Myanmar, and recognized in 2015 by the International Mineralogical Association (IMA), whose goal it is to standardize the nomenclature of the 5,000+ […]

Most people are born with 12 ribs on each side of the body, making a total of 24 ribs. Despite the prolific misconception, this is the same for men and women. This myth is often attributed to the biblical story of Eve being made from one of Adam’s ribs. One of the first people in […]

One person’s trash is another person’s treasure – and in the case of early results from an ongoing clinical trial involving the gut microbiomes of babies born by cesarean section, that treasure might just be a mixture of milk and poop. Whether or not a baby is born vaginally or by c-section is believed to […]

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If you already thought that Burmese pythons could stretch their elastic jaws inexplicably far, then boy have we got a surprise for you. Turns out they can open even wider than previously thought, and as a result can bring down bigger prey. There’s really not much that isn’t on the menu… Burmese pythons are an […]

Let’s face it: antibiotics – incredible, lifesaving innovations that they are – can be really annoying to take. Courses can be long, doses may have to be carefully timed around meals, and you might have to lay off certain foods and drinks. Wouldn’t it be great if you could load up on all the antibiotics […]

Some humans have what appears to be a real superpower – they can use sound to “see” in a similar way to Marvel’s Daredevil. In fact, human echolocation has been so advanced that some people have been able to do things like ride bikes or even play ball games. And now researchers have found a […]

Sorry Charli XCX, we think we’ve found a new 365 party girl: the oriental hornet. According to a new study, this big bug has a seriously high tolerance for alcohol. More so, in fact, than any other animal – even when given some very highly concentrated hooch. Consuming low levels of alcohol is actually pretty […]

In the dank depths of Ellison’s Cave, you can find two of the deepest freefall pits in mainland US: Fantastic Pit, which plunges vertically for 179 meters (586 feet); and Incredible Pit, an equally dizzying 134 meters (440 feet) deep. Ellison’s Cave is located on Pigeon Mountain among the Appalachian Plateaus of Northwest Georgia. The […]

Send word to Poirot, fetch Sherlock Holmes, and ring round the Thursday Murder Club – there’s been a death at 3,000 meters (9,800 feet) up, and only the very best team can solve it. So far, the evidence is pointing to one lead suspect… but let’s review the clues as they happened on the coast […]

Dreams are weird places. No matter how strange and incongruous the content, most people dream without realizing they’re in a dream. However, this is not the case for everyone as lucid dreamers are able to perceive the dream for what it is. It’s a desirable skill and now there are various lucid dream apps available […]

This week on Break It Down: the discovery of the smallest-ever dinosaur eggs reveals teeny tiny bones, the first black hole triple is changing our understanding of giant star death, the longest venomous snake is now four separate species, a rare bit of positive carbon capture news, how a new overdose implant can save lives, […]

In a stark example of the impact of human activity on the world around us, scientists are reporting that Aotearoa New Zealand’s native stoneflies have changed color as a direct result of deforestation. We tend to think of evolution as a series of very slow, incremental changes over millennia. Even the word “evolution” conjures up […]

Electric currents can affect bacteria at levels too small to harm (or even hurt) humans, which gave medical researchers an idea. Now, they’ve demonstrated that electrical stimulation can protect wounds from Staphylococcus epidermidis: a bacterium that, as its name suggests, lives on human skin and can seize the opportunity to wreak havoc when damage lets it […]

In recent decades, atmospheric rivers that transport water vapor high above the Earth’s surface have shifted position – a radical change that could have an impact on weather patterns and rainfall across the planet. Scientists at UC Santa Barbara found that atmospheric rivers in both hemispheres have moved approximately 6° to 10° closer to the […]

The most common stars in the universe are smaller and cooler than our Sun, but they can be a lot more violent when it comes to activities and intense ultraviolet radiation. Many rocky worlds have been found around these M-dwarf stars, but their temperamental behavior had researchers question their suitability for life. A new study […]

An international collaboration of radio astronomers has found evidence suggesting that massive stars might not form as models had previously indicated. The expectation was to see prestellar cores from which the largest stars slowly accumulate mass, grabbing material in turbulent flows. Instead, the stars might simply form from the direct collapse of a large chunk […]