Deborah Bloomfield

Mars is a desert planet with dunes, canyons, and surprisingly fast winds. It is very cold, though, so it does not often get compared to desert planets of fiction, like Tatooine of Star Wars or Arrakis of Dune. But a mysterious feature made astronomers consider a parallel with the Dune planet, gullies carved in Martian […]

This week, almost 90 percent of US adults have at least one risk factor for a newly defined medical condition, the ancient Jomon of Japan might be one of the only groups of people outside Africa who had virtually no Denisovan DNA, and Iceland records its first-ever sighting of mosquitos in the country, meaning there’s […]

Even in this modern world, there are still so many things science can’t explain. What goes on inside a black hole? Are we alone in the universe? What’s the secret to human happiness? And perhaps most importantly of all: why doesn’t spaghetti disintegrate when we cook it? It’s not a trivial question, even if it […]

Languages evolve over time, prompting a great question: How far back in time could you go and still understand English?  If you were to speak to someone from the 1800s, or read a book from the same period, you would likely be fine. Sense and Sensibility (1811) remains comprehensible, for example, with some even claiming to be […]

The first people to enter the Americas may have sailed from Japan around 20,000 years ago, according to a new analysis of prehistoric stone tools from 10 sites across the US.  Until now, researchers had only uncovered a few tantalizing hints that humans had reached the American continent by this time, with ancient footprints in […]

A new study by scientists investigating the impact of 2023’s record-breaking marine heatwave on Florida’s coral reef has revealed that the event drove two of the area’s key coral species to functional extinction. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content. The corals in […]

A newly discovered planet sits in the habitable zone of its star, where temperatures are right for liquid water if the atmosphere is appropriate. Based on the available data, GJ 251c is thought most likely to be a “super-Earth”, a rocky planet somewhat larger and more massive than Earth, but a sub-Neptune can’t be entirely […]

A zoo in the UK has welcomed the arrival of a critically endangered Bornean orangutan. Born in the early hours of October 7, keepers report the newest member is doing well.  The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content. The baby orangutan was born […]

It is, these days, an overwhelmingly familiar sight: adorning every packet of food or drink, the little table of nutritional information. Snacks today are duty-bound to relate their concentrations of certain vitamins; to warn us of how much sugar and fat they contain; most of all, looming large above all other attributes, they must inform […]

In a matter of days, Comet 3I/ATLAS will reach its closest point to the Sun. The third known interstellar object will reach its peak of activity, releasing gases and dust like it might not have done in tens of millions of years, or maybe even longer. Comparison between this interstellar interloper and the previous two […]

For the first time ever, we’ve been able to prove that some dinosaurs had hooves, thanks to two remarkably well-preserved mummified dinosaurs retrieved from Wyoming’s Badlands. The specimens are the duck-billed dinosaurs Edmontosaurus annectens that, thanks to a “fluke preservation event” are near-perfect 66 million years later. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please […]

“So,” begins a popular if now ancient (at least, in internet years) meme. “Apparently the numbers on the toaster are minutes? I’ve thought for years it was degree of toasty-ness.” It’s immediately clear why the quip took off. It’s funny, sure – after all, what kind of measure is “toastiness” anyway? What scale would we […]

NASA’s Artemis III is going to take humanity back to the Moon in the middle of 2027. The Orion spacecraft, launched on the Space Launch System, will rendezvous with SpaceX Starship in lunar orbit. Two astronauts will board Starship and fly down to the Moon. At least, that is the plan – but it is […]

 They say we know more about the surface of the Moon than we do about the bottom of the ocean, which is what made it so incredibly exciting when scientists decided to do what the rest of us are too chicken to, dive down to the seabed to get a look at what’s lurking there. […]

What do you get when 100 million cubic meters (3.5 billion cubic feet) of land suddenly plunge into an icy Alaskan fjord? Some big-ass waves, it turns out – including one that was taller than all but one of the highest buildings in New York City. That’s what happened back on August 10 this year, […]

This week on Break It Down: a potential environmental trigger for autism has been identified, interstellar object 3I/ATLAS is doing weird things with its tail, 90 percent of people are at risk of a newly recognized syndrome, why we know the Denisovans didn’t hook up with the Jomon, as Iceland falls, mosquitos have just one […]

In a now infamous prank interview, actor Dominic Monaghan once asked fellow Lord of the Rings star Elijah Wood, “When will you wear wigs?”. Wood didn’t have a response – but were we to pose the same question about a group of Australian dolphins, it turns out that the answer is “when they want to […]

A technique reportedly used by the military to fall asleep “anywhere” within two minutes has been seen by just about everyone on TikTok lately, and it might be worth a try if you are struggling to drift off. Fitness “guru” Justin Agustin shared the hack to his followers, claiming that the technique was originally developed for fighter […]

If you’re the kind of person who (a) loves dolphins and (b) believes that the end can never justify the means, then you might want to skip this article. That’s because – well, it will contain good news for dolphins, but probably not for the reasons you’re hoping. So, here’s the scoop: whether you agree […]

For centuries, dating back to long before the invention of the telescope, people have reported odd flashes that sometimes light up the Moon. While these claims go back over a thousand years, it took a long time for them to be taken seriously by scientists, and we still lack an agreed-upon explanation. It is unclear […]