Deborah Bloomfield

If you’re watching the Olympics, you may have noticed that fencers are attached to a cable, making them look somewhat like they’re on a big leash.  Advertisement The cables are not there for the safety of the competitors, nor so that they can be yoinked backwards if they get too feisty. The cables, which are […]

Sometimes in the animal world, genetics or circumstances throw something of a curveball. From dolphins with “thumbs” to whales with curved spines, these animals with slightly unusual morphology open up questions about survival and adaptations to different environments. That includes the latest addition to the gang: a giraffe with a wonky neck. Advertisement On a […]

In the search for extraterrestrial civilizations, it’s difficult to know what to look for. During the pursuit, we have tended to search for detectable signals and signs that we ourselves would emit (on purpose, or by accident) on the assumption that aliens will use similar technology, given that they have access to the same physics.  […]

Peaches the famous orange lobster has welcomed a bumper crop of tiny baby lobsters. Being a 1-in-30 million lobster herself, Peaches’ clutch includes over a dozen of a rare variety, and they’ve joined the offspring of a second mother lobster, Norma, as the subjects of a research project. The mega family of mini babies calls […]

A record-breaking 17 California condor chicks have been hatched at Los Angeles Zoo in a huge boon for the critically endangered species. All of the chicks will be candidates for release into the wild as part of the wider California Condor Recovery Program. Advertisement The feat was made possible by a new breeding technique developed […]

If you’re the sort of person who likes to end a meal with smoke coming out of your ears then you may be tempted to try and get your hands on the recently developed “Pepper X”. Be warned, though, this bad boy is the hottest chili pepper on the planet, with a heat rating that […]

The entirety of Earth’s surface is made up of biomes. Within each of these biomes are many different ecosystems that are constantly growing, decaying, and teeming with diverse life. But which ecosystem came first, and which are still standing today? Advertisement As ecosystems are made up of constantly decaying pieces, the organisms alive at the […]

Glaciers in the Andes Mountains are melting away, revealing rocks that haven’t seen sunlight in at least 11,700 years. Advertisement New research has shown that four glaciers in the Andes in South America – Pan de Azucar Glacier, Queshque Glacier, Zongo Glacier, and Charquini Norte Glacier – are thawing way faster than previously expected as […]

If something came over you and you felt compelled to drop a metal ball superheated to 1,000 degrees Celsius (1,832 degrees Fahrenheit) onto a piece of pineapple skin, you’d observe a peculiar phenomenon. Rather than burning, erupting into flames, or fizzing out of existence, the pineapple skin does, well, not much. How? It all comes […]

The star V889 Herculis rotates faster at midlatitudes than either the equator or the poles, unlike the Sun and everything we would expect. The astronomers who detected the pattern do not yet have an explanation, but when we find it there could be some big changes to our assumptions about stellar behavior. Advertisement Once astronomers […]

PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances), better known as “forever chemicals,” have been found in almost every single fish tested in Illinois rivers, highlighting how these synthetic pollutants have become prolific in the natural world.  Advertisement In a new study, scientists at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign studied 17 different PFAS across nine fish species caught […]

Sometimes, physicists spend their time solving the great universal mysteries like “where is all the dark matter?” or “how do we know we’re not living in a simulation?” Other times, they look at the important stuff – like why paper cuts happen, and how we can avoid the damn things. Advertisement “Paper has been central […]

You probably associate vaccination with a needle jabbed into your shoulder muscle, giving you that annoying muscle soreness for many hours (even days) after. Traditionally, most vaccinations are delivered in this way: intramuscularly. Now, a new vaccine delivered as nasal drops (just try not to sneeze) shows promise for drastically reducing transmission of airborne disease. […]

Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is a spiral galaxy. Its main components are a bulge at the center, a thin disk and a thick disk where the spiral arms are located, and a halo. The thin disk is believed to be the youngest component of the galaxy. So imagine how surprised astronomers were when they […]

A 12,000-year-old human skeleton found along the banks of the Tigris River may have belonged to a shaman who was believed to connect the natural world and the supernatural world. If that interpretation is on point, it would be the earliest known example of the complex cultural behavior reported in this part of the world. […]

A controversial team of physicists say they are about to conduct a series of quantum tests to try to determine whether we are living in a simulation or not.  Advertisement We live in a real universe, as far as we can tell – but to be fair it’s a pretty weird one. In the quantum […]

The diving bell spider is the only species of spider that can spend the entirety of its life underwater. Remarkably, it pulls off this aquatic lifestyle without the ability to actually breathe underwater.  Advertisement The diving bell spider (Argyroneta aquatica) is native to freshwater habitats across large parts of Eurasia, from the British Isles and […]

Tulip trees have a category-busting wood structure unlike anything scientists have seen before. Although more research is needed, this could enable them to store carbon more efficiently than other species, which might come in very useful. Tulips do not of course grow on trees, although during the infamous mania someone might have spread claims they […]

Concrete is pretty much the most common construction material, but it is far from being the most green option. As such, scientists and engineers have been searching for alternatives that are more environmentally friendly, and now they may have a solution: cement-free concrete. Advertisement The global production of cement, a fundamental component of concrete, is […]

There is no GPS on the Moon – so to find where things land and go, we have to rely on orbital observations. To make this work easier, NASA has developed an ingenious object that doesn’t require power to make its presence known: You put it on top of your lander and you are ready […]