Deborah Bloomfield

A man has stumbled across probable space debris whilst snorkeling on Cayos Cochinos, a remote island cluster off the coast of Honduras in Central America. Advertisement Mike Irmen and his family were visiting the islands when they spotted the debris, conspicuously lying there on the beach. The debris was clearly labeled with the word “Ariane”, […]

In the second attack in a month, at least two loggers have been killed in the Peruvian Amazon by a threatened uncontacted tribe using bows and arrows.  Advertisement The incident occurred near the Pariamanu River in Madre de Dios province on the morning of August 29, but the news has only now been confirmed by […]

Microplastics are everywhere, causing havoc in the environment. They’re in the oceans, in our food – even inside us. From lungs, to placentas, to penises, no part of the human body is seemingly safe from microplastic contamination, and that includes the brain. A new preprint, which is yet to undergo peer review, has sparked fears […]

Wade out into the waters of western and northern Australia and, if you’re lucky, you might just stumble across the biggest snail in the world. The Australian trumpet doesn’t live on land but has endured to become a voracious marine predator that hunts on the sea floor, comparable in size to a Border Collie. Recent […]

There aren’t many in the animal world that would like to go toe to toe with a lion. However, despite what Disney movies would have you believe, lions aren’t actually ruling the jungle and there are a few species willing to put up a fight. Especially this angry hippo, filmed in Zambia. Advertisement Shenton Safaris […]

Ultraprecise timekeeping has made major leaps in the last several years. There are clocks that are hundreds of times more accurate than the standard atomic clocks that are employed across the world. Those are known as optical atomic clocks and have set many records recently. But researchers think they can go even further. They can […]

Puffling season has returned to Iceland and with it comes a peculiar site: humans tossing the baby birds off of cliffs. It sounds like cruelty but it’s a long-held tradition that helps these birds head in the right direction when they get confused by city lights. Puffling tossing mostly happens in the Vestmannaeyjar (Westman Islands) […]

Without an immune system, we wouldn’t be here. It is the crucial way our bodies defend against microbes and parasites that aim to use our bodies for themselves. But there is still a lot we do not understand about it, and that includes possible sex differences in immune responses. New research suggests that these might […]

The world’s largest wind-powered cargo ship has embarked on a transatlantic voyage, loaded with a cargo hold full of fancy wine and jam. Advertisement Sailing Vessel (SV) “Anemos” launched its maiden voyage on August 16 from a port in Le Havre, northern France, headed towards New York, according to TransOceanic Wind Transport (TOWT), the company […]

Colors are not a static entity, but are subjective both in personal and in cultural terms. So it is no surprise to see a little online test go viral based on the very arbitrary demarcation between blue and green. Sure, navy and forest are very different shades. So are emerald and sapphire. But where do […]

A man found frozen in a cave in Pennsylvania, USA, has been identified by authorities, 47 years after his death.  Advertisement On a bitterly cold day on the Appalachian trail in January, 1977, two hikers stumbled across the frozen body of a man in a cave, just below a hiking area known as the “Pinnacle”. […]

BepiColombo is a revolutionary mission that will study the smallest and innermost planet in the Solar System like never before. But its fate became uncertain a few months ago following a glitch that has prevented its thrusters from operating at full power. The mission team has recently made two important decisions. The spacecraft will get […]

A new model suggests that the universe did not undergo a Big Bang followed by inflation, as the prevailing model suggests, but a cycle of “bounces”. Though so very far from anything approaching confirmed, the authors believe it could help solve a few cosmic mysteries, including dark matter and the “flatness problem”. Advertisement You may […]

Earlier this year, astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore departed for the International Space Station (ISS) for what was meant to be an eight-day trip. Unfortunately, due to problems with the ship they rode in on – Boeing’s now infamous Starliner – they will now be stranded until they can be rescued by SpaceX’s Dragon […]

Saturn is one of the nicer objects to gawp at when you have access to a telescope or binoculars, being large enough to get a good look at, and having a pleasing ring structure around it. In early 2025, you will get a chance to have an even more unusual view: Saturn, without its rings […]

A pig in Hong Kong recently underwent an endoscopy with a twist – the person operating the endoscope was sitting in a lab 9,300 kilometers (5,779 miles) away in Zurich, Switzerland. Advertisement The collaborative project between researchers at ETH Zurich and The Chinese University of Hong Kong saw researchers peering into the stomach of the […]

The ocean wasn’t a fun place to be during the Mesozoic era, which featured a string of periods during which its waters were extremely depleted of oxygen, causing multiple marine mass extinctions. Now, a new study appears to have found the trigger behind this catastrophic chain of events. Advertisement What the team was looking for […]

Do you ever find yourself wondering what prehistoric slugs would’ve looked like? Yeah, us too. It’s hard to place them on the ancient Earth and picture how they first appeared: Were they huge? Were there shells? Does a gooey slug even fossilize? Turns out the answer is no, no, yes, as demonstrated by an incredible […]

Tattooing is one of the oldest and most widespread art forms in the world, and often the designs we decide to commit permanently to our skin are thick with meaning and cultural biases. Studying a tattoo from a certain time and place, therefore, can give us an idea of the cultural norms surrounding its design […]

We live in an age where things like “the Earth orbits the sun” and “Kepler’s third law” are well known, and yet the majesty of a solar eclipse is still something that can make even the most powerful man in the world stop and stare. How much more awe-inspiring must this cosmological phenomenon have appeared, […]