Deborah Bloomfield

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We’ve all been there: the movie ends; the lights come up; you shift in your seat, only to find your entire left calf is missing. Or at least, it feels that way – it’s still there when you check, but you can’t feel it, and it’s certainly not doing what you’re telling it. What’s going […]

There’s nothing particle physicists like more than crashing particles together and seeing what comes out of the mess. Such experiments can help us find evidence of particles and processes predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics – such as the Higgs Boson – or allow us to probe the conditions of the early universe, […]

The closest exoplanets to the Solar System are around the red dwarf Proxima Centauri. This little star is orbiting two bigger Sun-like stars, which are known as Alpha Centauri A and B. For over a decade, people have proposed possible planets around either, with no confirmation. New observations now make a stronger case for a […]

Over on Reddit, people are discussing whether it is possible to “smell” that somebody else is pregnant, with several users claiming anecdotal evidence that you can smell when somebody has a fetus forming inside them.  “This might sound really weird, but I’m being completely serious and would really like some insight… For some reason, I […]

If size doesn’t matter, then explain this: The Cosmic Horseshoe is a gravitationally lensed system with the foreground galaxy being one of the heaviest in the known universe, hundreds of times our own galaxy. It is so heavy that it warps space-time to such a degree that the light of a background galaxy is distorted […]

Alas, we do not live in Star Trek; the speed of light, as far as we can tell, is an insurmountable limit. This means that even if we wanted to visit the closest star system, we would have to travel for several years. We currently have no spacecraft that can travel at the speed of […]

A Czech zoo has welcomed four Barbary lion cubs, the result of continued efforts to conserve this rare population of big cats after it was driven to extinction in the wild. The cubs were born at Dvůr Králové safari park to mom Khalila and dad Bart, who have previously parented equally adorable little lions back […]

What a time to be alive, when you can pull a tiny computer from your pocket and gaze at a high-resolution panorama of Mars captured by a space-traveling robot. The image is a mosaic of 96 images taken by NASA’s Perseverance rover on May 26, 2025, that were carefully pieced together to create this 360° […]

A newly published study by Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) researchers has looked at mysterious “transient events”. Since 2017, the Vanishing & Appearing Sources during a Century of Observations (VASCO) project has attempted to look for stars and other sources of light that have appeared and disappeared from view or have dimmed unusually over the 20th […]

The remains of what may be an entire family have been discovered in a Neolithic cave in northern Spain, with evidence suggesting that the group was eaten by cannibals. According to researchers, the barbaric act had nothing to do with either famine or religion, but was probably motivated by conflict and a desire to annihilate […]

The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), under the leadership of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., just announced a “coordinated wind-down” of mRNA vaccine development. That includes the termination of 22 research contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and a moratorium on new agreements being initiated. In a statement, Kennedy claimed that the […]

Soaring over the Indian Ocean might sound idyllic, but when you’ve got to catch your supper it becomes a lot trickier. New bird-mounted cameras have offered researchers an insight into how red-footed boobies catch flying fish, and revealed that both birds and fish are on the wing.  Red-footed boobies (Sula sula rubripes) in the Chagos […]

Imagine returning to your home, the ancient Roman city of Pompeii, after it had been crushed and crozzled by a violent volcanic eruption. The streets are buried in ash, your house is flattened beneath a shower of boulders, and your favourite bakery is nowhere to be found. Remarkably, there’s now evidence that some people did […]

The Sun is just past its peak of activity for this solar cycle, but that does not mean it is done with its fireworks. A relatively weak flare yesterday has caused a minor radio blackout, and it might lead to some aurorae on Friday as a large wave of plasma has left the Sun, speeding […]

Humans are not the most rational beings when it comes to fear, especially about things that are interesting and dramatic in the media, but are rare occurrences in real life. If you are a millennial, you’ll know by now that quicksand, while dangerous, is not quite the threat we were promised as kids. Asteroids, however, […]

Tumors are abnormal masses of tissue that usually form when cells go rogue, be that due to uncontrollable cell growth or division, or refusing to die when they should. We have rounded up some of the most bizarre cases where tumors didn’t just misbehave… but went completely off-script.   A patient’s tumor was accidentally transplanted […]

Sometimes science stumbles across something amazing while researching another thing entirely. Most recently? That the humble apple snail (Pomacea canaliciulata) can regrow its eyes, regenerating them after injury or amputation. The discovery came about after Assistant Professor Dr Alice Accorsi began working on a solution for the invasive apple snails that are munching their way […]

When it comes to bizarre wildlife and freaky fauna, Australia and the Galápagos often steal the limelight, but Madagascar is an even stranger world unto itself. Located off the east coast of Africa, it is home to 1,314 species of native land and freshwater vertebrates, up to 90 percent of which are found nowhere else […]

In 2016, the sea ice in Antarctica’s Weddell Sea developed an enormous hole twice the size of Wales – the country, not a pod of giant mammals. The following year it returned, but the reasons remained unknown. Now they have been explained as a result of previously understood factors and a rare form of salt […]