Deborah Bloomfield

Now, good sleep is important – that’s indisputable. But as the issues above make clear, what counts as “good” is really a mixture of myriad different factors. So, in an effort to de-oversimplify the issue, a new study takes a more holistic approach to quantifying sleep – and has found that, when it comes to […]

A robot has just set off on its mission to complete the first-ever global circumnavigation with an autonomous underwater vehicle. The self-gliding sub launched on the morning of October 10 from the docks of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, where it will go on to ride the Gulf Stream across the Atlantic Ocean. […]

A 71-year-old man in China became the first ever living recipient of a liver transplant from a genetically modified pig, as detailed in a new case report. The surgery was initially deemed successful, but complications arose, and the patient died on day 171 post-surgery. The team behind the procedure say it’s evidence that pig liver […]

One of the most complete sea monsters on record had been discovered along the UK’s Jurassic Coast, being perhaps the world’s most complete reptile fossil dating back to the Pliensbachian period. The rare and impressive specimen offers unprecedented insight into a period of time we know little about, and bridges a gap in our understanding […]

The acting director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has endorsed comments made by President Donald Trump, calling on parents to request that the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccines be given to their kids as three separate shots, known as monovalent vaccines. The CDC, guided by the Advisory Committee on […]

Finding new species is a tricky business, especially when it comes to areas off the beaten track. On the border between Peru and Brazil, a case of mistaken identity has been rectified within a very snazzy-looking group of poison dart frogs.  The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe […]

In a boon for this elusive and troubled species, a bundle of fossa pups have been born at Chester Zoo in the UK – and they’re undeniably adorable. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content. A resident female named Shala recently welcomed the […]

A team of astronomers believe they may have found the most “pristine” star in the universe to date. According to the team, the gas that formed this star may have come from an elusive “population III” star, the earliest stars in the universe. Population III stars are the name we give to the universe’s first […]

Asteroid impacts are normally associated with danger to life. The end of the dinosaurs’ dominion on Earth was caused by a massive collision. As the Chesapeake impact and others have shown, however, not all of the impacts bring global devastation. Researchers have now found evidence that craters can actually provide long-lasting habitable conditions, which could […]

A new study looking at data from 24 years of NASA satellite surveys has found that the Earth is getting darker, and there are significant differences between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. The team looked at data collected by the Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) project, which launched its first stage in […]

Quasar OJ287 is not wildly famous, but it is so bright that it can be seen even by amateur astronomers. Its brightness is due to the extremely active supermassive black hole at its center. But the black hole is not alone; it has a companion, as some intriguing, first-of-a-kind radio images have witnessed. The rest […]

The monolithic human figures of Rapa Nui, called Moai, are among the most recognizable statues in the world. There are 900 of them carved and erected between 1250 and 1500 CE. The making and transportation of these colossal statues became part of the oral traditions, and when the people of Rapa Nui were quizzed by […]

Wolves have been carefully (and often unconsciously) molded into docile dogs over thousands of years of domestication, many of their wild instincts softened into something more in tune with the way Homo sapiens tend to operate. Yet despite their many human-adjacent behaviors, “man’s best friend” still lacks one defining feature of our species: language. Why is […]

A paper from a SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) Institute scientist has directly addressed claims that interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS is an alien spacecraft. On July 1, 2025, the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) detected an object moving through the Solar System on an escape trajectory. Follow-up observations soon confirmed that we were looking at our […]

Texas is experiencing a superbloom of a very different variety, as smacks of “pink meanie” jellyfish have been spotted along its coastline. These vibrantly colored and predatory jellyfish are remarkable-looking creatures – and they can get huge. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full […]

Why do dolphins end up stranded? In a new study, scientists have found evidence to suggest that some may be suffering from an Alzheimer’s-like disease, causing them to become disoriented much like humans do – and that harmful algal blooms could be to blame. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign […]

Stevia – the natural sugar substitute – may help boost hair loss treatment, suggests a new study in mice. Scientists developed a dissolving patch that contained a sweetener derived from the Stevia plant, which helped improve the efficacy of a common hair loss drug in a mouse model of alopecia. The rest of this article is […]

Would you like to go to a spider’s birthday party? No? Suit yourself, I think it would be excellent. Eight legs call for as many balloons, but how many candles might you expect on the cake? It might shock you to learn that for Number 16, the longest-lived spider on record, that number reached a […]

Time is everything to us: in terms of physical laws, in how we experience the world, and how society works. Still, its true nature remains beyond us. As scientists search for a deeper understanding, the way humans relate to time has changed massively. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in […]

Welcome to True Crime in Science. Over six episodes – all of which you can watch here – we have discussed some well-known true crime cases, as well as some cases you may not have heard of, and then looked further into the science and the forensic details behind them. In this special episode, we delve […]