Deborah Bloomfield

The 2024 Ig Nobel Prizes have been announced, and once again prove that science can be funny, which only sometimes gets in the way of it being good. Advertisement Highlights this year include research comparing the movements of live and dead trout, and sober and drunk worms. Apparently, being drunk may harm a worm’s capacity […]

Finding new drugs isn’t an easy task, but new research in which wild gorillas were found to be eating the same plants used in local traditional medicine suggests the animal world may just hold the answers. Advertisement The team of scientists made this connection after spending time observing western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) living […]

We humans tend to view pooping as a solitary activity. Unlike many animals, who void themselves without so much as breaking stride and use their waste in ingenious ways, most people would prefer not to discuss or even think about the topic when we’re not actually doing it. But when you’ve got to go, you’ve […]

Gold nuggets may be the product of earthquakes repeatedly shaking the veins of quartz, thanks to the mineral’s unusual electrical properties. The idea is hard to prove, but evidence produced in the lab shows it’s plausible, and would explain anomalies that have been glossed over for a long time. Advertisement Gold is a very rare […]

In 2023, a first-of-its-kind clinical trial used a brain implant and artificial intelligence (AI) to return movement and sensation to a man with quadriplegia. Now, a year on, it’s been announced that he can once again feel the fur of his family dog, Bow. Advertisement The pathways that connect the brain and body were severed […]

Leonardo Da Vinci was pretty much the definition of a Renaissance man, and not just by virtue of being a man who lived during the Renaissance. He was an artist, a scientist, a musician; a dick pic connoisseur and the creator of a mechanical lion that could walk several steps and then rip its own […]

Some 13,000 years ago, wandering people set up a campsite in the Great Lakes region and returned to the plot each summer. The site is one the earliest ever discovered in this part of North America, revealing fresh insights into the population of the continent. Advertisement The humans belonged to a group known as the […]

Following a rambunctious breeding season, California’s wolf population has rapidly expanded in the past year. At least 30 new pups have been born in the state this year, bringing the total number of known gray wolves in California to around 65. Advertisement As of 2024, there are seven known wolf families in California found across […]

The idea that the universe is expanding was first proposed by Edwin Hubble in the late 1920s and has been repeatedly backed up by empirical observations over the past century. Despite this, an alternative notion known as the Tired Light theory won’t seem to fully go away, with some scientists clinging on to the idea […]

In the newest breakthrough in prosthetic technology, researchers in Italy have unveiled a robotic hand that is magnetically controlled. There are no wires or electrical cables to be seen here – instead, the wearer directs the movements of the fingers with just their mind and the power of magnets.  Advertisement The device has been taken […]

Last year, a landslide sent a wall of water 200 meters (650 feet) high rushing down a Greenland fjord. Thankfully, not only was no one hurt but hardly anyone noticed. Seismologists across the globe were confused by signals they had never seen before. Fortunately, a research station at the mouth of Dickson Fjord, while abandoned […]

As we’ve explored the Solar System’s planets and moons using probes and orbiters, we have found and studied plenty of unusual features, from Jupiter’s “Great Blue Spot” to signs of something stirring beneath Europa’s ice. Advertisement One particularly striking feature, perhaps because it sparks our pareidolia, is the so-called “spiders on Mars“. Images taken of […]

Deep in the ocean lives an unusual isopod that’s known to swim upside-down while going backwards with the help of peculiar paddle-like legs as long as your fingers. Scientists recently captured several of these critters on camera, revealing for the first time their surprising snack of choice: sargassum. Advertisement Sargassum would seem an unlikely choice […]

Today, Polaris Dawn Mission Commander Jared Isaacman and Mission Specialist Sarah Gillis made history, becoming the first people to conduct a spacewalk on a private mission. Advertisement This morning, the four crewmembers sat inside their spacecraft and waited as the cabin depressurized. Once complete, they were protected from the vacuum of space by nothing but […]

Today at 6:12 am ET (10:15 am GMT), the crew of Polaris Dawn made history, becoming the first-ever private citizens to conduct a spacewalk. But they may have made history with another first; the first-ever livestream of a space crime.  Advertisement In 1967, 111 countries around the world signed up to the Outer Space Treaty, […]

Everyone is familiar with what happens when you shake up a bottle of soda and then open it up, or else hand it to an unsuspecting friend and let them open it up. Advertisement If you don’t, well it will explode everywhere. But the reason that happens may not be what you have been told.  […]

Earlier this year, a devastating wildfire ripped through 33,048 hectares (81,663 acres) of land in Jasper National Park in Canada. According to the BBC, it was the park’s worst wildfire of the last century, and yet already a new forest is emerging from the ash. Advertisement “This fire has even surprised me as a fire […]

It’s “rush hour” in Earth orbit at the moment. With three new humans arriving at the International Space Station (ISS) yesterday, September 11, plus the all-civilian Polaris Dawn mission, a total of 19 people are orbiting Earth right now – that’s a new world record. Advertisement A US astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts – Don […]

Today is the day that the crew of Polaris Dawn will conduct the first spacewalk ever attempted by private citizens.  Polaris Dawn Mission Commander Jared Isaacman and Mission Specialist Sarah Gillis will conduct the spacewalk, leaving the safety of Crew Dragon Resilience, and test SpaceX’s newly designed spacesuits, specially designed to give astronauts more maneuverability. […]

Astronomers have seen bubbles on the surface of red giant star R Doradus for the first time. This is the first time scientists have observed such incredible details on the surface of a star that is not the Sun.  Advertisement R Doradus is a variable red giant star. It has a volume over 5 million […]