Deborah Bloomfield

De-extinction. It’s not a word many of us were thinking about just a decade ago, but it’s one that we’re getting ever more familiar with. The de-extinction company Colossal Biosciences has set its sights on de-extincting five key species whose extinction is thought to have either been caused, or heavily contributed to, by humans: the […]

NASA has announced its schedule for the second stage of the Artemis missions, returning humans to the Moon, and it’s earlier than expected.  In a press conference yesterday, NASA officials gave an update on Artemis II, the second stage in the space agency’s project to land humans on the lunar surface. In the update, they […]

Physicists have unveiled a new type of time crystal that is governed by quantum behavior that conflicts with classical models. Quantum connections between particles maintain the regular movements of the crystal, conserving its status. Traditional crystals are defined by their order, with atoms bound in a regular repeating structure, in contrast to the liquids they […]

In 1984, a team of scientists were studying a group of dolphins and whales at the National Marine Mammal Foundation (NMMF). During their research, staff had started to notice weird, human-like noises coming from inside the enclosure. They described it as sounding like two people speaking. Things got even weirder when a diver pulled themselves […]

Mammoth species in North America repeatedly interbred over thousands of years, creating hybrid offspring, a new fossil analysis has revealed. The findings alter what we know about the evolution of these Ice Age giants and how they responded to dramatic climate shifts. It has generally been assumed that the woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius), which lived […]

It’s easy to forget that plants are living, moving, reactive organisms when to the human eye they appear to swoosh about so passively. Every now and then a species comes along that reminds you of this – most recently Vincetoxicum nakaianum, the plant that pretends to be an ant. The rest of this article is […]

Stations on planet Earth have sent and received messages beamed via laser from NASA’s Psyche spacecraft over 350 million kilometers (218 million miles) away. This breakthrough in optical communication shows that NASA is laying the groundwork for high-speed data links for future human missions to Mars. NASA’s Deep Space Optical Communications technology has recently demonstrated […]

A man who sought medical attention after being unable to urinate discovered that he had become home to one of the largest known parasites to infect humans, a case report explains. The 35-year-old man showed up to the emergency department, complaining of retention of urine and a fever that had lasted for two days. Retention […]

Even one of the world’s rarest freshwater dolphins is not safe from the scourge of plastic pollution. For the first time, researchers have discovered microplastics inside the stomachs of endangered Indus River dolphins. The Indus River dolphin (Platanista minor) is a freshwater species found mainly in Pakistan with a small population in India. Wonderfully adapted […]

Venus probably shares its orbit with numerous asteroids with unstable orbits, and these could represent one of the most unpredictable threats to Earth from space. We’ve only found a few of these objects, but a new study notes that given how hard it is to find them, the sample we have indicates there must be […]

A giant structure around 9.2 billion light-years from Earth and measuring around 1.3 billion light-years across is raising huge questions about our understanding of the universe. If the structure persists with continued observations and analysis, it could shake up the cosmological principle, and the idea that the universe is the same in all directions. The […]

We humans love putting things in boxes. Assigning simple categories makes us feel comfortable – but all too often, biology comes along to ruin the fun. Sex is often described in simplistic, binary terms: male and female. The reality, however, contains a lot more shades of gray, and now a new study is showing that […]

The Nikon Small World in Motion 2025 winners have been announced, and oh boy are they a delight for the eyes. The competition features the very best in movie or digital time-lapse photography and they are all taken through a microscope.  The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe […]

If you’re planning a trip to Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni, be sure to take your camera. Not only does the relentless uniformity of the landscape provide endless opportunities for trick photography by distorting the sense of perspective, but the thin layer of water that accumulates on the surface also converts this colossal salt flat into […]

Everything is stranger in Australia, at least when it comes to wildlife. Case in point: in a quiet corner of the country, the hills gurgle and slurp with the sounds of giant earthworms that are longer than a pool table. The giant Gippsland earthworm (Megascolides australis) averages around 1 meter (3.3 feet) in length with […]

One of the world’s rarest mammals can be found in America. Known as red wolves, they are among the rarest in the world, but there was a time when their range reached from southeastern Texas to central Pennsylvania. However, as of August 2025, the Wolf Conservation Center reports there are just 18 known to remain […]

Two diamonds from South Africa’s Voorspoed mine provide a rare direct insight into the chemistry of Earth’s mantle. Although diamonds can be formed in multiple ways, the findings add to evidence natural diamonds are most often formed deep in the mantle at depths where pressures are 9-16 billion pascals and temperatures are around 1,600°C (2,900°F). […]

NASA has selected its next round of astronaut candidates, or ASCANs, from a pool of 8,000 candidates. The final selection of six women and four men will endure two years of notoriously intense training before being eligible for flight missions, which could take them to low-Earth orbit, the Moon, or even Mars. The selection, NASA’s […]

The Trump administration just announced a program of actions to tackle the so-called “autism epidemic”, a term that is disputed by many within the autistic community. As well as seeking Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for a new drug treatment, safety label changes are being pursued for acetaminophen (paracetamol) due to a “potential association” […]

Just like their human neighbors, the rats of New York City have their own distinctive vocalizations, or “accent”, something akin to an urban dialect shaped by the chaos of noisy subways, busy sidewalks, and an abundance of dropped pizza slices. Likewise, these city-slicking rodents have a unique social life that’s significantly different from their lab-living […]