Deborah Bloomfield

Supermassive black holes can weigh millions if not billions of times more than the Sun. They lay at the center of galaxies where they accumulate mass over billions of years. But how did they start? Astronomers are not so sure. They could begin as relatively small black holes formed in supernovae, and then somehow accumulate […]

Nature is pretty good at coming up with clever color patterns to help animals hide from or deter predators, keeping them camouflaged against a backdrop of rainforest trees or tall grasses. Sometimes, however, genetic mutations can throw a spanner in the works, creating unusual variations of typical animal colors. Now, a new giraffe calf has […]

A cyberattack on the National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory (NOIRLab) research center for ground-based astronomy has left several large telescopes unable to operate for weeks. The attack took place on August 1, when NOIRLab say they detected a “cyber incident” in their computer systems, requiring them to suspend astronomical observations at the Gemini North telescope […]

A historic referendum has seen the people of Ecuador vote in favor of halting new oil drilling projects in the Amazonian Yasuní national park, signaling a major victory for the uncontacted tribes who call this forest their home. The vote took place on Sunday, August 20 in the first round of the country’s presidential elections. […]

Researchers examining fossilized remains in the La Brea Tar Pit, Southern California, have come to a disturbing conclusion. According to a new, in-depth analysis, changing temperatures and human activity led to more wildfires at the end of the Pleistocene era, which caused the extinction of megafauna species that once thrived in the area. The results […]

A new study has run simulations of colonies on Mars to determine the ideal number of Martian residents needed for such a settlement to survive, also finding that certain personality types should probably steer clear of such a mission. Should humans ever decide to create a permanent outpost on another planet (and remember, humans have […]

Earlier this year it was announced that Lolita the orca, also known as Tokitae or Toki, was finally set to be released back into her Pacific Northwest home after more than 50 years in captivity. However, as preparations were being made, it was announced that the elderly orca passed away on Friday afternoon from a […]

Do you ever spare a thought for your yolk sac? Of course not, you’re too busy thinking of yourself (or possibly never knew that it existed), but new research has discovered we have a lot to thank human yolk sacs for. It might sound like a vestige of evolution left behind by our distant relatives, […]

People who start smoking in their mid-teens may have less gray matter in two brain regions that play a central role in pleasure-seeking, self-control, and risk-taking. Analyzing brain imaging data from over 800 people aged 14, 19, and 23, researchers discovered that both the left and right ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) appeared smaller in those […]

Google “the Mediterranean diet” and you’ll find search results suggesting it has numerous health benefits tied to the gut microbiome, improved pregnancy outcomes, and even erectile dysfunction. While a diet claiming to be a cure-all is nothing new, what makes the Mediterranean diet stand out is that some of its alleged perks are actually backed […]

Scientists are saying they’ve made a “critical first step” in developing a treatment that could allow people to regenerate their lost or broken teeth. With further work, they hope this breakthrough could be used to make “living filings” that grow and produce real enamel to regrow the tooth.  In a new study, researchers from the […]

Right now, you’re standing on a goldmine. There’s so much gold on Earth you could cover every bit of land on the planet in it to a depth of 50 centimeters (20 inches), according to one calculation. So why is gold so rare that it’s a byword for preciousness? Because almost all of it has […]

French novelist Jules Verne delighted 19th-century readers with the tantalizing notion that a journey to the center of the Earth was actually plausible. Since then, scientists have long acknowledged that Verne’s literary journey was only science fiction. The extreme temperatures of the Earth’s interior – around 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit (5,537 Celsius) at the core – […]

Light can behave both as a wave and a particle, a head-scratcher that confused scientists for centuries before the fact became obvious. This duality is a cornerstone of quantum mechanics, and the peculiar behavior of the quantum world has mostly left classical mechanics theorems behind in the realm of things our own size. A research […]

Hogfish, like many reef-dwelling sea creatures, are experts in changing the color of their skin – and it turns out they don’t even have to be alive to do so. Without the use of their eyes, how can hogfish detect the environmental changes that lead them to color shift in the first place? Researchers believe […]

Building a large space station, where hundreds of thousands of people, if not more, could live, would not be easy. You would need a lot of material and even when built, your inhabitants would have to deal with two major health issues: the effects of low gravity on their bodies and a lot of cosmic […]

Quantum mechanics, thanks to its peculiar properties, can outcompete classical applications. But those same advantageous properties require a lot of knowledge of the quantum system in question which might not always come easily. Researchers have now developed a way to visualize the wave function of two entangled photons in real time. They are calling it […]

Archaeologists from the Indian Institute of Technology and the Geological Survey of India have recovered the remains of a new dinosaur that has never been seen in India before. The new fossil belongs to a species of dicraeosaurid sauropod – a long-necked “veggiesaurus” that lived in the area during the Middle Jurassic era. The fossil […]

One of the largest insects in the world is making a triumphant return to New Zealand. The wētāpunga, Deinacrida heteracantha, predates the dinosaurs but was nearly wiped out in 1840 following the introduction of new predators to their native islands. Now, a captive breeding program is returning them to New Zealand with hopes the species […]

A hoard of ancient plant DNA has been extracted from a nearly 3,000-year-old clay brick, revealing a time capsule of ancient flora in what is now northern Iraq. The authors adapted a technique that’s normally used in materials like bone, and now say that it could be applied to clay artifacts recovered from sites around […]