Deborah Bloomfield

For the first time, NASA is about to publicly unveil the X-59, an experimental aircraft that’s designed to pull off a remarkable engineering feat: supersonic flight without a sonic boom.  The game-changing plane will be rolling out of its Californian hangar on Friday, January 12. NASA is calling this moment a “historic milestone in aviation […]

Our lives are becoming increasingly data driven. Our phones monitor our time and internet usage and online surveys discern our opinions and likes. These data harvests are used for telling us how well we’ve slept or what we might like to buy. Numbers are becoming more important for everyday life, yet people’s numerical skills are […]

As a science website, it’s easy to get bogged down in questions like “is there life on Enceladus” and “where are all the aliens“, when people are struggling with more basic (but fun!) questions like “why can’t we power our cars with magnets” and “could people breathe the air on Mars“. One fun question we […]

So-called Odd Radio Circles (ORCs) are the products of vast outflows of gas from galaxies generating stars at a phenomenal rate. A team of astronomers have concluded supernovae within those galaxies are pumping out enormous winds, with the ORCs as the end product. That might have been the explanation all along, had it not been […]

More than 30 new-to-science species of bacteria have been discovered in patient samples at the University Hospital Basel, Switzerland. Some of these are clinically relevant, and so could open up new avenues of research for those seeking to better understand, or find treatments for, the associated infections. The findings also highlight just how many pathogens are […]

Despite controversy, human remains are on their way to the Moon today, after Space burial firm Celestis, which promises to launch the remains of loved ones into space, purchased space on board private firm Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander. The mission has been criticized by the Navajo Nation (amongst others) for ignoring the sacred position the […]

We’re sorry to inform you that you probably have herpes. The good news, should you choose to view it that way, is that you’re in good company. Well over 3 billion people around the world are thought to be carriers of herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1), which means that a decent proportion of them […]

The city of Lexington, Kentucky has sent a message via laser to the TRAPPIST-1 system, officially in the hope of attracting tourists from one of the many Earth-like planets there. Some may suspect the real agenda is to attract visitors from closer to home, but we’ll let you be the judge of that. There’s plenty […]

Long COVID is perhaps most famous for the “brain fog” it can cause in those who have it, but that’s far from the only symptom. The physical symptoms can be equally debilitating, including long-lasting and extreme fatigue, especially after exercise – and thanks to a new study out of Amsterdam, now we know what causes […]

For years now, the potential benefits of psychoactive drugs have been slowly moving from “hippie nonsense” to “science-backed research.” From magic mushrooms to psychedelic toad milk, it seems ever clearer that tripping balls can actually be a pretty effective treatment for certain mental illnesses – including, suggests a small new study out of Stanford University, […]

When it comes to protecting ourselves from asteroids, we remain poorly prepared. Big leaps have been made – we know where the planet-killing asteroids are and even how to deflect them thanks to DART. We have expanded the number of known objects a lot but there are too many that are discovered too late, in […]

Despite being knocked off the top spot by TikTok back in late 2021, Google soon reclaimed its title as the most popular domain on the internet, and if the past is anything to go by, it doesn’t seem set to give it up anytime soon. According to Cloudfare Radar’s popularity rankings, Google and its offshoots […]

One of the risks that come with aging and obesity is the development of metabolic diseases, including nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Figuring out the intricacies of this process and how it could be stopped is far from an easy task, but researchers now believe they may have found the answers in a protein called ZAK-alpha. […]

We’re faced with an all-too-familiar stress when it comes to grocery shopping. No, we’re not talking about entering a Walmart in the week before Thanksgiving – it’s those carefully constructed sloping towers of fruit. Picking up a few apples on the way home suddenly becomes an intense and very public game of produce-themed Jenga. But […]

If we’re ever to survive on other planets, we’re going to need to come up with effective and sustainable ways of not becoming dead. This means growing food, having water and oxygen, and all the other stuff we have on Earth that prevents us from being a corpse. Short of terraforming a whole planet, we’re […]

Over more than a century of aliens in cinema, we’ve seen Earth’s first encounter with extraterrestrials imagined in a myriad of ways. Would humanity be forced into an intergalactic war, like in Independence Day? Would it happen after a watershed technological advance, like in Star Trek: First Contact? Or would it be more like… you […]

The term “ivory tower” refers to a metaphorical state in which people live without awareness of the facts and practicalities of the real world.  For instance, people of high social status – from academics and artists to politicians and celebrities – are often accused of “living in an ivory tower” when they lose touch with […]

Uranus and Neptune are the ice giant planets of the Solar System and have plenty of similarities. A major difference at a glance has always been their color – sure, they were both on the blue spectrum, but the aquamarine Uranus was strikingly paler than the cobalt Neptune. It turns out that contrast was down […]

Munchausen by proxy cases have risen to a strange kind of infamy following the release of series and documentaries like The Act and Take Care of Maya. They chronicle the devasting impact that this psychological condition can have on families and the extremes that the abused have reached to escape their situation. Munchausen syndrome by […]