Deborah Bloomfield

In a shocking step backwards, whaling is set to continue in Iceland. The Icelandic government has announced today that the country’s last remaining whaling company, Hvalur hf., will be issued an annual license to kill 99 fin whales in the Greenland/West Iceland region, as well as 29 whales in the East Iceland/Faroe Islands region. Although […]

With their large, dark eyes, elusive nature, and unusual sounding calls, it’s no wonder European nightjars (Caprimulgus europaeus) are steeped in folklore. While they’re probably not as supernatural as they seem, there’s still an air of mystery surrounding them – so what do we actually know about the nightjar? Advertisement Masters of camouflage We would […]

Jesus of Nazareth, the principal figure of Christianity, is both an incredibly influential figure and an obscure one. Although he probably existed (proof outside of biblical texts is limited to a few references), historians and theologians know very little about him, especially his early life. Advertisement There are apocryphal accounts, such as the Infancy Gospel of […]

A team doing follow-up investigations into seven potential candidates for Dyson spheres has found that they have likely been misidentified. Advertisement Dyson spheres are hypothetical alien megastructures built around (or partially around) stars in order to harness their energy. Finding one would be unlikely (sorry to break it to you, but we have found zero […]

If we want to live in the modern world, we can’t help but be reliant on space. Satellites whizzing about over our heads provide us with telecommunications and precise positioning, as well as keeping us safe with weather forecasting and many other analyses, like keeping an eye on wildfires, floods, ice, and pollutants released into […]

Every so often, a piece of information splits society into two parts: the people for whom it’s brand new and eye-opening, and those who can’t believe anyone didn’t know it in the first place.  Advertisement Did you know, for example, that ketchup is meant to live in the refrigerator? Because two-fifths of us don’t. Barely […]

The Sun is getting to its peak of activity for this cycle, the solar maximum. We have seen the effects here on Earth, with radio blackouts and a series of spectacular aurorae that were seen at lower latitudes than usual. The sunspot responsible for the mayhem moved to the other side of the Sun shortly […]

Pharmaceutical company Moderna has announced that a combination vaccine it has been developing against flu and COVID-19 has performed well so far in Phase 3 trials. The data are yet to be submitted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal, but the company says their combi vaccine has produced stronger immune responses than the already-licensed vaccines […]

When men and women in heterosexual relationships complain their partners do not understand their pain, they might be right. A study of pain receptors in rodents and primates has found that in every case, male and female members of the species are primed by different molecules.  Advertisement Physical pain, be it excruciating or merely unpleasant, […]

Given that they’re, y’know, dead, it’s hard to discern much about the life of extinct creatures like the little bush moa, a turkey-sized emu lookalike that strutted around New Zealand until the 13th century. But using the 21st century power to study ancient DNA, a new study has provided more clues about how the bush […]

Some of the world’s largest earthquakes and tsunamis have originated from the Cascadia Subduction Zone, a 1,127-kilometer (700-mile) stretch that runs from northern California up to British Columbia. Here, the Pacific Ocean floor is subducting under North America – and when the fault periodically locks and releases, it can unleash devastating megathrust earthquakes and record-breaking […]

Around 2,400 meters (7,874 feet) below the Jinping Mountains in China’s Sichuan Province, the world’s deepest laboratory is quietly unraveling the mysteries of the universe.  Advertisement The China Jinping Underground Laboratory (CJUL) became fully operational in December 2023, swiping the title of the “world’s deepest lab” from another dark matter lab called SNOLAB, located around […]

Finland may be about to become the first country in the world to start dishing out preventative bird flu vaccines to some citizens. It’s being reported that the first shipments of vaccine secured by the European Union (EU) will be heading there, so that those most at risk of exposure to the virus can be […]

Indulge me, if you will, in a little hypothetical situation. The Earth has suffered a major catastrophic event, human life as we know it has been wiped from the face of the planet and only a few species of living things remain, but which species are up to the task of surviving such an apocalypse? […]

Dog whisperers can now join the list of professionals whose jobs are at risk of being stolen by artificial intelligence (AI), as it may have just entered the world of animal communication. Using machine learning software, researchers were able to successfully decode the meaning of dogs’ vocalizations, paving the way for new technologies that may […]

Google has achieved what few brands have, making their company name become the default verb for what their product does. Rather than saying “search it” it’s common to say “Google it” even if the person you are talking to is the type who will Google it on Bing. Advertisement Google didn’t start out as Google. […]

A so-called “mammoth graveyard” in Arctic Siberia has a lot to teach us about how humans and hairy elephant cousins related in the last days of the latter’s existence. Unfortunately, some of the best evidence has been stolen by ivory hunters. Advertisement It is astonishing that humans managed to live in Siberia above the Arctic […]

The speed of light in a vacuum is the absolute speed limit of the universe. As you accelerate towards it, any object with mass suddenly finds it has a lot more of it, and so it takes more and more energy – eventually infinite amounts of energy – in order to move towards it. Advertisement […]

It could be argued that death has become sanitized in some parts of the modern world, a far-removed concept few of us have to face until it happens to someone close, and even then we typically experience grief from a distance to the actual dead. In the Victorian era, the advent of photography brought in […]

Awards season in Hollywood might be over, but the most important competition of the year has just announced its winner – and it looks straight out of Tolkien’s Middle-earth. Advertisement The competition in question is New Zealand’s Tree of the Year, and the winner is a uniquely shaped northern rātā, one of the country’s tallest […]