Deborah Bloomfield

Never mind AI, the internet, or the rocket – it’s been argued that the control of fire was the most pivotal technological breakthrough in history. It gave our ancestors protection, the ability to cook food, and a reason to gather, transforming our genus from knuckle-dragging beasts to social creatures. Why do you think the gods […]

The emission of X-rays is usually the domain of the energetic events of the universe: hot stars, supermassive black holes, and the like. However, since 1996, with Comet Hyakutake, we have learned that even comets can emit X-rays. But despite efforts, no such signal was ever seen for an interstellar object. Enter this year’s superstar […]

Christmas – it’s a day to put your feet up, demolish an ungodly amount of chocolate, and fall asleep while your family fights over the TV remote. You might be surprised to learn, then, that December 25th is actually a pretty busy day when it comes to scientific anniversaries. Read on to find out some […]

The ancient Greeks, Aztecs, and Hindus all envisioned gods that represented both creation and destruction simultaneously, and it’s often noted that these double-edged deities reflect an inherent duality at the heart of human nature. Expanding on this idea, a professor from the prestigious Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence suggests that our unrivalled intelligence, coupled […]

The Roman Empire was literally built on a special form of extra-tough, self-healing concrete that has managed to stay strong for thousands of years. Modern scientists have previously been puzzled about how they made this “magic” building material, but new discoveries from Pompeii are offering fresh clues. The findings come from the same team at […]

Over on Reddit, and with remarkable regularity, people have been asking what those weird markings on watermelons are, which are sometimes described as looking like “crop circles”.  A few days ago, one curious Internet user asked the same question, though a quick search finds that the question has been asked many times throughout the site’s […]

Around 2012, a 32-year-old man presented to medical professionals with an unusual habit: he had taken to eating glass. This may sound like something a stage magician would do to shock their audience, but there was no performance here. For the previous 10 years, the man, who had no prior history of psychiatric conditions, increasingly […]

In 1979, two magicians walked into a study. It sounds like the start of a joke, but Project Alpha was more of a trick – a hoax, intended to investigate the scientific rigor of researchers conducting parapsychology research using, of all things, magic tricks.  Magic as a tool for science is more widespread than you […]

With no breakfast, second breakfast, elevenses, or afternoon tea to keep them going, the legendary “hobbits” of Indonesia may have starved to death around 61,000 years ago. Otherwise known as Homo floresiensis, the popularly named “hobbit” humans were a prehistoric species of hominin that stood around 106 centimeters tall (3 feet 6 inches) and occupied […]

Patients with previously incurable cancer are seeing incredible results thanks to a pioneering new treatment that has just completed early trials. The world-first gene therapy is called BE-CAR7, and it’s being tested in children and adults with an aggressive form of leukemia.  The first patient to undergo the treatment was Alyssa Tapley, now aged 16. […]

If you are of the sort of human who follows science news, you are probably aware that lately there has been a lot of discussion of tails lately, courtesy of our latest interstellar visitor comet 3I/ATLAS. That comet has developed a tail and a rare (but perfectly normal) anti-tail during its brief tour of our Solar […]

From Egyptian mummies to pumpkin-spiced lattes, cinnamon is a warm and sweet spice that’s had a hold on humans for many, many centuries. It’s derived from the fragrant, dried bark of a tropical tree – though not all cinnamon is created equal, so it’s worth watching out for the “fake” stuff. Where does Ceylon cinnamon […]

It’s an often-repeated phrase that some stories are stranger than fiction, and that’s certainly the case with Andy the goose. Born without feet, his tale is an emotional rollercoaster of how humans have gone above and beyond to make animals’ lives better. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or […]

Most people will sprinkle it on eggs without a second thought, but pepper has an origin story worthy of an epic. Pepper is a fruit that grows on a flowering vine called Piper nigrum, native to the Malabar Coast along the southeast of India. In the region’s balmy forest, it grows as small green berries […]

A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has laid out possible priorities and practicalities of a human mission to Mars. As well as setting out a key priority for such a mission – searching for extinct or even extant life on the Red Planet – the report delves into what […]

Humans have loved chocolate for millennia. The cacao tree was first domesticated around 5,300 years ago in the upper Amazon region of northwest South America, but it wasn’t until 1847 that the world saw its first true chocolate bar. The British chocolate company Fry & Sons were the first to work out that you could […]

The very first artifacts from the “holy grail of shipwrecks” have finally been brought to the surface after lying on the seabed for over 300 years. Among the treasures recovered from the ship are golden coins, pieces of fine porcelain, and a massive cannon that looks as if it came straight out of a pirate’s […]

UK health authorities have identified a new strain of the mpox virus in an English individual who recently returned from travel to Asia. The strain, which has not yet been officially named, appears to contain elements of two other virus strains known as clade Ib and clade IIb. Mpox, previously known as monkeypox, is a […]

Crashing sardine stocks off the coast of southern Africa have pushed penguins to the brink, starving tens of thousands to death. In an especially devastating eight-year stretch, up to 62,000 breeding birds perished – nearly 95 percent of the population. The findings come from new research that looks at how African penguins (Spheniscus demersus) were […]

Galaxy NGC 3783 is gorgeous, with well-defined spiral arms that make it almost the platonic ideal of spiral galaxies. That beauty hides a powerful secret; at its core lies an extremely active supermassive black hole, and it is releasing winds at a speed like nothing we have seen before.    The rest of this article […]