Deborah Bloomfield

Fossilized fats that date back over a billion years have revealed a whole community of previously unknown organisms that were shaping Earth’s ecosystems during the planet’s middle age. They were abundant in marine ecosystems, and while we don’t know what they would’ve looked like, they were considerably more complex than bacteria – something they may […]

By venturing closer to the Sun than any spacecraft before it, the Parker Solar Probe has identified the regions responsible for streams of highly energetic particles traveling orders of magnitude faster than the rest of the solar wind. The finding may improve our predictions of solar activity, allowing operators to shut down endangered grids and […]

Use it or lose it – that’s the motto when it comes to connections between neurons, AKA synapses, and we now have more insight into this process. It’s established that a frequently firing connection is strengthened, whereas lesser-used ones are “pruned” off. However, the exact molecular mechanism behind this competitive process has been unclear. Now, […]

If you have been stung by a jellyfish at the beach, you’ll know how painful and unpleasant it can be. But how best to treat jellyfish stings has been debated over the years. Is it best to use hot water or an ice pack? How about pouring on vinegar or rubbing with sand? Then there’s […]

Beneath the cobbled roads of Derinkuyu in Turkey, there lies an ancient warren of tunnels and chambers that could have once accommodated as many as 20,000 people. Burrowing more than 85 meters (280 feet) beneath the Earth’s surface and encompassing 18 levels, the Derinkuyu underground city is the world’s largest subterranean city –  or, at […]

Despite common ideas, you cannot actually walk on clouds. If you tried to do so, you would plummet straight through and just get a little wet in the process – that is, unless you’re unlucky enough to fall through a cumulonimbus cloud.  Cumulonimbus clouds are the villains of the cloud world. Characterized by towering columns […]

Once the world’s largest iceberg, A76 was an enormous beast of a berg, 170 kilometers (105.6 miles) in length and 25 kilometers (15 miles) wide, and around 4,320 square kilometers (1,667.9 square miles) in area. Soon after its calving event it broke into three smaller – but still enormous – pieces, the largest of which […]

A major damn in Russian-occupied Ukraine collapsed on Tuesday, sending a deluge of water downstream. Along with the huge economic and humanitarian cost, many experts fear it will spell long-term environmental consequences not only for Ukraine but also for neighboring countries. The incident took place on the morning of June 6 at the Kakhovka dam […]

Rock art dating back 7,000 years has been discovered by scientists flying a drone, marking one of the first times the technology has been used this way. Researchers studying the mountains surrounding Alicante were used to having to hike their way to the region’s hidden archaeological treasures, but now they’ve demonstrated that there can be an […]

Pleasuring one’s genitalia is a very widespread practice among animals, but primates (humans included) are particularly partial to a little self-love. This might be because our hands are much better suited to the act than the limbs of most other creatures, but biologists suspect there is more to it than that. A new study doesn’t […]

Apple has revealed its new iOS will use artificial intelligence (AI) to help stop autocorrect from impulsively changing swear words to tame but useless alternatives. What took so ducking long? Speaking at the WWDC 2023 event on Monday, senior vice president of software engineering at Apple Craig Federighi explained that their new autocorrect feature on […]

It’s no secret that Earth is facing an ecological crisis. For example, global wildlife populations have plummeted by 69 percent since 1970. It’s a big problem faced by the global population – but it can be easy to feel powerless when it’s often the few creating emissions, run-off, and pollution that far outweighs that of the […]

Evidence has been released suggesting that the mysterious hominin species known as Homo naledi buried their dead and left symbolic drawings above them. The implications of such a finding are revolutionary, suggesting intelligence similar to our own in a species with brains not much larger than those of chimpanzees. However, some paleontologists are cautious, arguing […]

It can be hard to know what to trust these days. With the rise of fake news and misinformation on social media, you could be forgiven for feeling unsure about content, especially when it is popular. But a new experimental study has shown that the addition of a “trust” and “distrust” button, to accompany the […]

It’s a common trope of fiction that maps from ye olde times bare the small print “here be dragons” warning of where untold dangers lie. It stems from the age-old tradition of medieval cartography to include illustrations of sea monsters and other mythological beasts on uncharted areas of maps. Truth be told, however, it’s exceptionally […]

An epileptic patient who was treated with an experimental brain implant has had to have the life-improving device removed after the company that manufactured it went bankrupt. Rita Leggett was diagnosed with severe chronic epilepsy when she was 3 years old, according to a report on the case published in Brain Stimulation. She tried a […]

Salvē! We bring great news if you’re a time traveler of the Roman Empire hoping to find your way back to the motherland from Londinium. This brilliantly crafted interactive map shows the ancient roads, sea passages, and trade routes that connected the vast expanse of the Roman Empire.  The map – called ORBIS: The Stanford […]

You know you’ve made it when you land yourself on the mailing list for rare lobsters, and they don’t come much rarer than a recent addition to the technicolor lobster family that’s been gradually growing at the University of New England (UNE), Maine, US. The rare catch is bright orange, a variant that’s estimated to […]

JWST has been spoiling us with amazing views of the cosmos, from distant galaxies to nearby planets. But even being used to the amazement can’t really prepare us for this latest photo. Its latest deep field is a glittering scene of more than 45,000 galaxies, adding to a total of stars bordering on the ridiculous. […]

Through a combination of gravitational bending of light and the extraordinary power of the JWST, scientists have detected polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in a galaxy 12 billion light-years from Earth. We are seeing the galaxy SPT0418-47 as it was when the universe was a tenth of its current age, and the observations show it was […]