Deborah Bloomfield

Today, June 20, is the solstice, the day with the longest day and shortest night in the Northern Hemisphere. It came a little earlier than usual (actually the earliest since the late 1700s) and it means that we are entering summer everywhere north of the Equator. In the Southern Hemisphere, it is the opposite. Advertisement […]

A Bronze-Age ship that sank around 3,300 years ago has been discovered on the Mediterranean Sea floor, along with its cargo of hundreds of intact jars that once stored merchandise. Located around 90 kilometers (56 miles) off the northern coast of Israel and at a depth of 1,800 meters (6,000 feet), the ancient vessel is […]

We often take it for granted that animals can be smart. Corvids have distinct cultures, can cheat death, and will hold a grudge. Elephants refer to each other by name. Dogs will throw children into rivers to score a tasty snack. You know – normal signs of intelligence. Advertisement But still, you probably wouldn’t want […]

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Keeping water pure is important in many aspects of society, from protecting drinking water and for hygiene to less obvious situations, such as the water that scientists use in their experiments. In laboratories, untreated water can cause contamination in scientific experiments, which can lead to wasted hours and potentially have a negative monetary impact.  Laboratory […]

A team of YouTubers have put together an impressive retractable lightsaber they describe as “potentially dangerous”. Advertisement In a new video, HeroTech explained that they wanted to construct a lightsaber that retracted like a real lightsaber from the Star Wars movies, rather than the extended blades on sale to the public. Advertisement “When we decided […]

While out walking in deer country, you just might come across what some call “lost fawns”. These deer babies are often found curled up at the base of a tree or beneath a bush, but they do not need you to rescue them. Adult deer with babies in tow have evolved a smart way to […]

Jets of plasma are produced by a variety of astrophysical sources. The more extreme the object, the faster these jets can move. Studying them at a distance has provided a lot of insights, but if we could create them in the lab, we’d know a lot more about them. Scientists have now been able to […]

The lakes of liquid methane and ethane on Titan have shorelines that appear to have been shaped by waves on those hydrocarbon lakes, new evidence suggests, potentially settling an old argument. It could also shape the forthcoming mission to Saturn’s giant moon. Advertisement When it comes to finding a world we can study for its […]

Would you volunteer to be deliberately infected with COVID-19, all in the name of science? For most of us, the answer is probably a resounding “no”, yet 36 healthy people agreed to do just that as part of the world’s first COVID human challenge study. Now, some new results are in, and they’ve revealed a […]

On July 28, 1945, a tragic accident happened in New York. A B-25 Mitchell bomber accidentally crashed into the Empire State Building while flying in thick fog. The incident claimed the lives of 14 people. But it is the story of one of the survivors, Betty Lou Oliver, that continues to captivate the attention of […]

Rivers do all sorts of strange things, from flowing backwards to changing course, and sometimes these changes can be brought on by seismic events such as earthquakes. A new study has revealed how a major earthquake 2,500 years ago caused one of the biggest rivers on the planet to abruptly change course – a little […]

The whole inner Solar System was blasted with intense plasma back in May. Most of it came from a single extremely active sunspot called AR3664. This was responsible for a coronal mass ejection leading to spectacular auroral displays at lower latitudes than usual, and a solar flare that caused a significant radio blackout on Earth […]

Orcas have become pretty much the poster child for ocean shenanigans in the last few years with their antics sinking yachts in the Mediterranean. While research suggests they are doing this mostly for fun, and not for malicious reasons, new research has been released that sees them gobbling up sharks in the Gulf of California, […]

Jupiter’s Great Red Spot – a storm larger than our whole planet – is one of the most visible features of the Solar System, thought to date to not long after the invention of the telescope, if not much earlier. However, new evidence suggests it instead originated in 1831 and has been mistaken for being […]

El Niño is officially over – and while we are currently in ENSO-neutral conditions, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Climate Prediction Center, La Niña is expected to return this summer, possibly as early as July. This new phase is forecast to persist through the Northern Hemisphere winter and ties in with […]

Earth is not an isolated system; our planet receives energy and particles from outer space. Some of those particles are what we refer to as cosmic rays, a source of radiation with celestial origin. In general, cosmic rays do not affect us humans. We have evolved under this shower of extraterrestrial particles. However, it does […]

A 21-year-old man has received a week-long jail sentence, a hefty fine, and a two-year ban from Yellowstone National Park after trespassing near the notoriously explosive Steamboat Geyser. Advertisement The incident took place on April 19 this year; Viktor Pyshniuk, of Washington, was spotted and then photographed by an on-duty park employee crossing over the […]

Human feet sailing in sneakers can offer a unique opportunity to ascertain the facts of a case based on marine forensics of scant remains. Just as metamorphizing insects on land can tell us the time of death of corpses, the larval stages of barnacles can help us work out how long human remains have been […]

The International Astronomical Union is now accepting names for one of our planet’s quasi-moons, the space rocks that follow Earth’s path around the Sun without being bound to us like the Moon is. Advertisement The object in question is called 164207 (2004 GU9). It is a potentially hazardous asteroid up to 360 meters (1,181 feet) […]