Deborah Bloomfield

The United States itself might only be a measly 248 years old, but there are plenty of sites now existing within it that have been around for far longer. That even includes cities – but which city is the oldest of them all? Pack your sunglasses (and maybe a helmet), because we’re off to Florida. […]

Sometimes, world-changing discoveries are made in the field, or the lab, or are accompanied by a cry of “Eureka!” and a naked Greek dude running down the street dripping bathwater as he goes.  Advertisement Other times, though – probably more often than you might expect, in fact – they’re found collecting dust in a box […]

Ever since their discovery in the 19th century, Neanderthals have been unfairly tarnished as the heavy-browed, brutish cousins of Homo sapiens (whose name, by comparison, means “thinking man” in Latin). While the stereotype has been tough to shake, a huge amount of research has helped to reinvent the image of Neanderthals in the 21st century; […]

Built and designed over 50 years ago, the Soviet K-222 submarine still holds the record for the world’s fastest submarine ever built, reaching speeds of 82.8 kilometers (51.4 miles) per hour or 44.7 knots. Advertisement Initially known as K-162, the K-222 was developed under the orders of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of […]

A new study dates the start of the Anthropocene, the epoch where human impact on the Earth system causes it to deviate from its natural behavior, as having started in the middle of the last century. Human activities have reached a point where their impacts on the planet’s system can be observed, and it’s driving […]

The great thing about having telescopes that can look further and further into the past is being surprised by what we see there.  Advertisement With the infrared JWST, we were hoping to learn more about the formation of galaxies, as well as clear up mysteries about how supermassive black holes became so large. But we […]

The jets released by supermassive black holes are formidable. Some extend for millions of light-years and most have particles that move close to the speed of light with incredible energies – and it seems that might affect events completely unrelated to them such as novae eruption. Advertisement A nova is a temporary brightening of an […]

Paleontologists have described a brand-new species of duck-billed dinosaur with one hell of a honker, and this giant schnoz – alongside some pretty huge toothlike structures – is part of the reason why they were able to identify it as such. The new species, dubbed Coahuilasaurus lipani, is thought to have lived around 72.5 million […]

There are some sentences you never expect to write. Things like: the porcupine C-section was a success, and both mother and porcupette are doing well. Advertisement And yet, that’s where we find ourselves – because that’s exactly what has happened. This April saw the birth by cesarean section of Dakota, a male baby porcupine from […]

A 50-year-old idea about electromagnetic waves known as the Zel’dovich effect has been tested by physicists in the lab, and proven to be correct.  Advertisement The idea behind the Zel’dovich effect came from a strange place. In 1969, British physicist and mathematician Roger Penrose suggested that energy could be extracted from black holes by lowering […]

Life isn’t easy under the sea, but luckily its resident creatures have evolved all sorts of clever tricks to keep themselves out of the jaws of predators. That includes the humbug damselfish, which new research suggests takes a much more complex approach to hiding from predators than previously thought – and it dazzles while doing […]

Satellite images of the test site of Russia’s infamous “Satan II” superweapon taken this month appear to show that a test launch ended in failure. Advertisement The RS-28 Sarmat, sometimes called “Satan II”, is a liquid-fueled intercontinental ballistic missile developed by Russia as a replacement for the Soviet-era SS-18. Back in October, Russian president Vladimir […]

Brace yourself to meet the Lammergeier, a bone-crushing bearded vulture that dyes its feathers red with baths in springs of iron-rich mud. As tough as it appears, the intense-looking vulture has been wiped out from much of its historic range and continues to face existential threats in parts of its habitat. The species (Gypaetus barbatus) […]

A little-known population of orcas living off the coast of Chile has been seen hunting and eating dusky dolphins for the first time. The behavior may offer insights into the lives and diets of all orcas in the southern hemisphere, which could help future conservation efforts. Advertisement Off the coast of Chile is the Humboldt […]

A small study of 156 people with COVID-19 has found that mutations that confer resistance to antiviral drugs were “commonly detected”, especially in immunocompromised patients. The authors stress that most of these mutations were transient and occurred at low frequencies – the results do not mean that drug-resistant strains of SARS-CoV-2 are going to become […]

The Pennsylvanian might make up a hefty chunk of one of Earth’s most important periods, the Carboniferous, but we know relatively little about the land ecosystems that existed in its earliest days. Now, thanks to the discovery of an “exceptionally preserved” fossil site in Massachusetts, researchers are beginning to fill in the gaps. Advertisement The […]

In the balmy air above the Amazon rainforest, nasty human-made chemicals called PFAS have been discovered for the first time. While it’s known that “forever chemicals” have become ubiquitous in the natural world, the researchers behind the discovery have described it as “shocking”.   Advertisement An international team of scientists collected air from a 325-meter-tall (1,066-foot) […]

Scientists have just discovered the mechanism through which a winged fish uses its “legs” to taste the seafloor. The peculiar fish is so good at tasting the seabed, in fact, that other animals follow it for clues on where to find food. Isn’t the ocean just absurd? Advertisement Every now and then an animal comes […]

A recent Supreme Court ruling has seen calls for clarification after a study found that it could result in nearly all of the nontidal wetlands in the conterminous USA being stripped of federal protections. Advertisement The ruling in question was over Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency, a case that concerned the scope of the 1972 […]

A decade ago, California became the first US state to ban single-use plastic bags. It proved to be a massive failure. Hoping to rectify the problem, the Golden State is doubling down with a new, even bigger plastic bag law.  Advertisement The initial 2014 ban prohibited grocery stores from distributing free single-use plastic bags for […]