Deborah Bloomfield

The only lungless frog in the world has been exposed as a fraud, in fact being the secret owner of a tiny pair of lungs and glottis – respiratory organs that had previously been declared as absent in the rare Bornean flat-headed frog. New research looked at museum specimens using a high-resolution micro-CT scanner and […]

When Janet and Stephen Boxall saw a sea turtle on Campwin Beach in Queensland, Australia, they realized this was not a species they had seen before. Months later, they learned it was an olive ridley turtle, never known to nest on Australia’s east coast despite decades of observations. In the process, they may have rescued […]

Nightmares and “daymares” could be an early warning sign of an autoimmune disease according to a new study. Troubling dreams and daytime hallucinations could provide advance warning of the arrival of diseases like lupus, and a greater awareness of them both from patients and doctors could lead to improved management of a person’s autoimmune conditions. […]

Freshly released images show a bird’s eye view of the colossal craters that scar the surface of Mars. Not only do they make for a pretty sight, but the images provide clues about whether life has ever lived on our closest planetary neighbor. The images were captured by the Trace Gas Orbiter of ExoMars, an […]

Once upon a time, humans were just one of quite a few hominid species roaming the planet, just trying to eke out a survival with nothing but an overgrown frontal lobe and a stubborn attitude to their name. Advertisement Today, we’re alone – and those evolutionary cousins are a mystery. But here’s the thing: we […]

Healthy ecosystems are known to require diversity, but a study from the forests of Maine reveals there’s an aspect of this ecologists have been overlooking: the personality of pollinators and seed dispersers. If the work proves applicable to other environments, it suggests that the richness and sustainability of the planet depends on having some animals […]

Ed Dwight is truly a modern-day Renaissance man. At the age of 90 years 8 months and 10 days, he was able to add another achievement to his illustrious and varied CV. He got to space, traveling on a suborbital spaceflight, Blue Origin’s New Shepard NS-25. He beat actor William Shatner to the record of […]

The impact of war on the migration of an endangered species has been revealed for the first time. The study looked at the migration of the greater spotted eagle through Ukraine, before and after it was invaded by Russia back in 2022. The investigation into the effects of war came about unexpectedly, as the team […]

Google, perhaps feeling it has been left behind in the artificial intelligence (AI) arena, has made a number of updates in the last year in attempt to compete with smaller firms like OpenAI.  Advertisement The latest move has been a rollout of “AI overviews” to topics you are searching for. Instead of the usual list […]

Sarcasm is so easy to convey via text. Nothing’s easier. If this sarcastic statement wasn’t apparent, then perhaps there’s a reason why researchers are trying to develop new algorithms to better detect it. Advertisement Even in person, some sarcastic verbal statements can be tricky to pick up on. That’s because sarcasm is used to convey […]

In 1982, an ancient burial site was discovered by accident during the construction of a new road. The operator of a digger noticed skulls collecting in the machinery, triggering an excavation and investigation, uncovering over 177 human remains that date back 7,000 to 8,000 years ago. The peat-bottomed pond in what’s now known as Florida […]

If you’re wondering what health and disease might look like in 30 years time – what conditions might be dominating and how that will affect our lives – then wonder no more. According to the latest findings from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD), the landscape will look quite different by […]

Chinese astronomers have released the most detailed atlas of the Moon ever published, which they describe as the “first high-definition geological atlas of the whole Moon”. The atlas not only provides images of the craters as can be seen from telescopes or orbiters, but offers Geologic, Lithologic, and Tectonic maps of the whole lunar surface. […]

Fossils and ancient creatures sometimes tend to give researchers a headache just as much as they bring excitement to the team. One such item is part of a marine tapeworm that has been discovered trapped in amber – quite how a marine parasite ended up trapped in tree resin is leaving scientists scratching their heads. […]

BepiColombo will be the first mission to Mercury in a decade, a joint collaboration between the European and Japanese space agencies ESA and JAXA. But almost a month ago, the mission team discovered a glitch that is causing a lack of power in its thrusters, potentially putting the mission in jeopardy. Advertisement BepiColombo is three […]

Shortly before midnight on Saturday night, an enormous blue-green fireball lit up the skies over Portugal, turning night back into day for a few incredible seconds. Also visible across parts of Spain, the light show was the work of a comet that burnt up in the Earth’s atmosphere as its race across the cosmos came […]

Keeping up with your COVID vaccines could have benefits beyond just topping up immunity to the latest circulating variants, according to a new study. Researchers led by a team at Washington University School of Medicine found that the antibodies generated by the vaccine have broad effectiveness against a range of variants, and might even help […]

NASA has shared an image of a truly bizarre-looking galaxy, believed to be surrounded by a “halo” of dark matter.  Advertisement The image – taken by the aging but still extremely useful Hubble Space Telescope – shows lenticular galaxy NGC 4753, part of the Virgo II Cloud of around 100 galaxies and galaxy clusters. Lenticular […]

Asking which country is the richest is like asking what the best recipe for dinner is: it sounds like a sensible question, right up until you try to answer it – at which point you realize some pretty important context has been left out.  Advertisement Sure, we usually think we know what it means: which […]

This article first appeared in Issue 19 of our digital magazine CURIOUS.  Advertisement Nobody on stage has ever been hypnotised in the history of the world. – The Amazing Kreskin, veteran mentalist and showman, 1994 Advertisement It was midnight, in the Palace of Westminster, UK in December 1994, and hypnotism was in trouble. “Stage hypnotism has been a […]