Deborah Bloomfield

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 […]

Amid its towering ice sheets, Antarctica conceals a fiery secret, a landscape dotted with volcanoes. Most remain dormant, inactive, or buried beneath the ice, but some speculate that as the surrounding ice melts, these sleeping giants could stir back to life. The last major melting event on Earth occurred between 12,000 and 7,000 years ago […]

As the Moon orbits the Earth, and the Earth circles the Sun, the Sun itself travels around the center of the Milky Way—rising and falling above and below the galaxy’s plane along the way. A study has suggested that this motion of our star through the galaxy potentially takes us through regions of space that […]

Every now and then, one of the robots on Mars sends back a picture of an unusual rock it has found on its journeys. After all, that’s one of the reasons we sent them there. These can range from the interesting (such as the donut-shaped rock which may not be from the planet) to the […]

High up in the tree tops of Peru live all manner of species – from red howler monkeys to tiny tamarins, these species are perfectly adapted for life above the ground. However, roads for logging are cutting up their environment, separating trees by more than a monkey’s jump. That’s where wildlife bridges come into play, […]

The largest wildfire currently burning in the US is sweeping through Arizona’s Grand Canyon National Park, scorching more than 51,000 hectares (126,000 acres) and blanketing the surrounding area in thick smoke. To make matters worse, hot, dry conditions continue to fuel the flames as ominous “fire clouds” loom overhead. The fire, named the Dragon Bravo […]

It is all happening in August! We are just days away from the peak of the Perseids, there is going to be a Black Moon later this month, and right now and for several weeks, you can see not just one but six planets in the night sky, four of which are visible to the […]