Deborah Bloomfield

History is full of crummy times. Flip to any chapter in the human story, and you’ll find that peace and prosperity are the exception, not the norm. Sure, periods of plenty and politeness have been enjoyed, but they often came crashing down in an outbreak of violence or, if you were lucky, they slowly rotted […]

There are many things that are creepy about I, Robot’s Sonny. He’s missing the back of his head, for starters, but then there’s also that way he looks just a little bit blank all the time (even when destroying Will Smith in two words). What is it about this robot’s way of thinking that makes […]

Ice cores are a pretty good way to get an idea of the Earth’s atmosphere in the ancient past, thanks to their ability to trap gas and other debris within them. “Like a prehistoric fly trapped in amber during dinosaurs’ days, airborne relics of Earth’s earlier climate—including dust, air bubbles, sea salts, volcanic ash, and […]

Flamingos are not passive filter feeders, but active hunters of prey, a new study reveals. Instead of chasing their diverse diet, they create disturbances in the water that force the food items to come to them, a much more efficient approach. The curiosity a trip to Zoo Atlanta inspired in Dr Victor Ortega Jiménez of […]

Off the coast of Central California there is a huge field of strange circular structures lining the ocean floor, created in prehistoric times and still visible today. Known as the Sur Pockmark Field, the Los Angeles-sized area is host to more than 5,200 circular depressions, each around 200 meters (656 feet) across and five meters […]

Jupiter has a stupendous magnetic field, so powerful that it makes our planet’s one look like a fridge magnet. It is 20,000 times stronger than Earth’s own, and its power is responsible for the creation of incredible aurorae displays, shining from x-rays down to the infrared – and it’s in infrared where new insights and […]

The number of cases of measles in the United States in 2025 has surpassed 1,000, with the disease continuing to grow. In certain states, it is expected that the outbreaks will continue for months to come, with severe risks for unvaccinated people, especially children. As reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), […]

When astronomers first spotted Ursa Major III/UNIONS 1, it caused a little excitement. The group of stars at the edge of the Milky Way, not adding up to much more than 16 solar masses, appeared to be an ultra-faint galaxy orbiting our own. “UMa3/U1 is located in the Ursa Major (Great Bear) constellation, home of […]

Sci-fi loves a flying car. From a way to avoid traffic to creating gridlocks in 3D, we have been brought up to believe that a plane/car hybrid is a cornerstone of the “future.” That future might soon be the present, as such a hybrid vehicle might soon enter the market. The name is AirCar, and […]

A world-first medical trial is taking place at Concord Hospital in Sydney, Australia. Using a patient’s own skin cells, biomaterials can be printed directly onto a wound, helping to rebuild tissue to treat patients with burn injuries. “This is life-changing technology that can make a world of difference to people with burns injuries and soft […]

A video going around the Internet at the moment in geologist circles appears to show what might be the first ever fault movement caught on camera. On March 28, 2025, the city of Mandalay, Myanmar was hit by a magnitude 7.7 earthquake which was felt as far away as Thailand, leaving at least 4,900 people […]

Ubrogepant, a drug approved for migraine treatment since 2019, can not only be far more effective if taken on the first pre-headache symptoms, a recent clinical trial has found, but according to the latest data, could also be the first acute treatment for those initial symptoms. Those who don’t suffer migraines sometimes think of the […]

Do you rinse your mouth after brushing your teeth? Maybe you use water, or maybe you favor a mouthwash, thinking that it’s better for oral health. They even sell little cups specifically to keep in the bathroom, so surely you’re supposed to rinse, right? Wrong. We’re about to reveal a secret that’s guaranteed to catapult […]

In addition to being an influential philosopher, Henry David Thoreau was a keen observer of nature, who took exceptionally detailed notes. Those notes provide a record of the New England climate in the 1850s, at a time before weather stations collected much of the data we have today. Detailed readings of the diaries have allowed […]

The Aztecs were big fans of obsidian, and often used the razor-sharp volcanic glass to slice through the chests of human sacrifices in order to extract the still-beating heart. Such was their love of this mesmerizing and deadly material that the Aztecs – also known as the Mexica – sought out obsidian from multiple sources […]

Did you know that you’re glowing right now? Alright, it is only very, very faintly. Too faintly for the human eye, in fact, but thanks to biophotons you glow alongside every other living thing. Now, new research into mice and plants has shown how that light can alter under stress, and be extinguished by death. […]

US space agency NASA has outlined lessons that have been learned following the “Gannon storm” of May last year, the most severe geomagnetic storm in over two decades. On May 9, 2024, representatives of NASA and 30 other US government agencies were gathered at a meeting in order to simulate and workshop potential Earth-based problems […]

Anyone who has taken a flight to the other side of the planet has realized that our pale blue dot is only small in cosmic terms. For human needs, the globe is big, and even the fastest flying machine takes a long time. In the future, those flights might be a lot shorter if hypersonic […]

In 1905, a 13-year-old boy was playing in a cave in Craighead Caverns, a giant system of caves in between Sweetwater and Madisonville, Tennessee, as he often did, when he stumbled across an unexplored opening and squeezed his way through.  The caves themselves had been known about since the time of the Cherokee, the Indigenous […]

Space has dramatically changed in the last decade. It is now cheaper and easier to get stuff into space, and the consequences of this space rush are not fully understood. There are environmental effects here on Earth and the risk of increasing junk in space, and the research and regulation that underpins our understanding and […]