Deborah Bloomfield

While we all wish our pets would live forever, only a few animals have extraordinarily long life spans, so we love to celebrate them. There are tortoise birthday parties, of course, but today, let’s take a journey into the world of some of the longest-living cats – including Creme Puff, the oldest cat to have […]

There is a sleeping giant off the coast of the Pacific Northwest that could cause chaos to North America when it eventually wakes up. Known as the Cascadia Subduction Zone, this 1,130-kilometer-long (700-mile-long) fault line extends from around Cape Mendocino in California up to near Vancouver Island, Canada. Although it has been quiet for centuries, […]

For the first time, solar astronomers have been able to observe striations on the surface of the Sun at an unprecedented resolution. Thanks to the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, located in Hawai’i, astronomers have snapped images of these “magnetic curtains” at a scale of 20 kilometers (12.4 miles). We had never before seen details […]

The world’s groundwater is disappearing at a rate so great as to knock the Earth off its axis. Like any global threat, though, while we may all be affected by the problem, some places are feeling it more than others – and this time, it’s the southwest US that’s feeling the heat. “The Colorado River […]

A team of international scientists recently returned from a 35-day expedition to explore the waters of the South Sandwich Islands, one of the most remote island chains in the world, and the ocean oddities to be found there. Far beneath the water’s surface, they discovered thriving polar ecosystems in some of the coldest and most […]

Humans have been scooping copper out of the Morenci Mine in Arizona for over 150 years, leaving behind a city-sized terrain of vast pits. But the story of Morenci isn’t just about lifeless geology – this land has also been shaped by powerful human struggles, from fiery labor disputes to the growing green revolution.  The […]

The most exciting possible avenue for physics beyond the standard model of particle physics has been, for years, the discrepancy in the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon. After refinement in the theory and high-precision experiments, scientists have finally announced that the standard model of particle physics continues to be correct. The experimental results are […]

A surprising number of people, if Internet forums are anything to go by, are of the belief that we are living inside a simulation. The idea, made popular by films like The Matrix, is pretty simple to explain. Instead of being in “base reality”, we are simulated beings living in a simulated world created by […]

President Donald Trump has signed a new executive order that has the stated goal of restoring trust in science – but critics are claiming the order will allow the administration to dictate what science can be done and shared, limiting freedom of research across the United States. In section 7 of the executive order, the […]

On May 15, Gilmour Space Technology was supposed to launch its Eris rocket into space, which would have been the first launch of an Australian-made rocket from Queensland. A fault with electrical wiring was to blame; the source had to be investigated, and the first suspect turned out to be a red herring. Well, actually, […]

Two Yangtze finless porpoises have been returned to the wild for the very first time, offering fresh hope for this deeply troubled species. The Yangtze finless porpoise (Neophocaena asiaeorientalis asiaeorientalis) is the world’s only freshwater porpoise, known for its cute “smiley” face and marvelous melon-shaped head.  Native to the Yangtze River system in China, the […]

A giant haboob from the Sahara desert is about to reach the southeastern USA, predicted to hit Texas and Florida on Wednesday. Haboobs are a regular occurrence in the Sahara desert between May and October, particularly in June, as thunderstorms kick dust up high into the atmosphere. “Haboobs result from a microburst – an intense […]

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Sometimes, when you see dusty artifacts in a museum or crumbling ruins in the streets, it’s easy to forget that these things were once new. Ancient Greek statues were complete and gaudily-painted; Pompeii was a bustling (and other activities) metropolis. In Egypt, the Pyramid at Giza shone and sparkled in the Sun – and murals, […]

When satellite images revealed what a part of Canada looked like from the skies, people noticed a striking rock formation resembling a human face in side profile. Remarkably, it’s possible to clearly make out distinct features, including an eye, nose, mouth, chin, neck, cheekbones, the jawline, and even what appears to be a feathered headdress […]

A team of physicists from the University of Waterloo have succeeded in making a ball roll vertically down a wall without applying any external force, a feat once thought impossible. “On perfectly vertical surfaces, rolling is conventionally deemed impossible without external torque. While various species like geckos and spiders exhibit vertical locomotion, they cannot achieve […]

As well as being super clever, breaking our hearts in that Netflix show and even riding sharks, octopuses are pretty famous for having eight limbs. What is even more remarkable is that they can regrow lost limbs and even have arms that split during the regrowth process. What scientists are trying to work out is […]

The Trump administration has released its final budget proposal and in response, many have expressed concern that it will stifle American science and halt NASA’s and other agencies’ work for decades to come. For NASA in particular, the planned cuts are set to eliminate several important upcoming missions, as well as end missions that are already […]

Think learning and memory are all the job of the brain? You might want to think again, if the results of a recent study are to be believed. In a first, scientists at New York University (NYU) uncovered evidence of a type of learning called the massed-space effect in cells from outside the brain, suggesting […]

From around 50,000 to 10,000 years ago, Earth was home to terrestrial giants: mammoths, moa, and mega-marsupials, including something that “would have looked like a wombat the size of a hippo”. We really had it all, until we didn’t.  The disappearance of Earth’s megafauna remains something of a mystery, not least because we don’t have […]