Deborah Bloomfield

In 2016, a lightning storm rolled across the Hardangervidda plateau in Norway. When the skies cleared, wildlife officials stumbled upon a haunting scene: the bodies of 323 wild reindeer all huddled together. It seemed like a grim mystery, but the massive thunderstorm that afternoon led the Norwegian Environment Agency to suspect the mass death was […]

If you want proof that Mother Nature has a sense of humor, look no further than the squirting cucumber. Yes, it’s exactly what it sounds like; yes, it’s as funny as you’re imagining; and yes, thanks to new research out of Kiel University in Germany, you can now witness it for yourself. “We recorded the […]

A new digital reconstruction of Ötzi the Iceman’s ribcage shows a number of “ambiguous” features that might have assisted him on his seasonal migration to the frosty Alpine peaks. By comparing the mummy’s thorax to those of several other ancient humans, the authors of a new study dispel a long-standing assumption that Homo sapiens trunks […]

Titan is the second-largest moon in the solar system and the only other body with rivers, lakes, and seas. They are not made of water. With a temperature of -179°C (-290°F), these are not made of water but of liquid methane and ethane, as well as hydrocarbons. This is truly an alien environment; still, the […]

A female blanket octopus has to be up there as one of the most spectacular sea creatures to see alive in the wild. Growing to the length of an adult human, they trail an iridescent rainbow skirt as they glide through the water. They are big, they are bright, they are beautiful, but a blanket […]

An animation using data from the European Space Agency (ESA) allows you to “listen” to Earth’s magnetic field being disrupted during the Brunhes-Matuyama Reversal 780,000 years in the past. Though you might think that compasses will always point towards the geographic north pole, the magnetic and geographic poles do not always align. As well as […]

Radio astronomers have detected radio pulses from a source that appears to send a signal in our direction every 14 minutes, although we’ve only captured a tiny fraction of those since it was found. While several radio sources have been found on similar cycles in recent years, this one stands out for the extreme polarization […]

Across July 14-15, 1965 (depending on your time zone), the Mariner 4 mission was doing something incredible. This early NASA mission performed the first flyby of Mars and took the first close-up photograph of another planet. Space exploration was changed for good 60 years ago. If we consider Mars alone, there are now multiple missions […]

For centuries, people have noticed strange, fleeting flashes of light on the Moon. Long pushed aside as optical illusions or observational errors, these eerie bursts eventually captured the attention of the scientific community. While observations of odd light blips on the Moon have been reported since the 17th century with the rise of telescopes, unconfirmed […]

When an asteroid made Meteor Crater in northern Arizona, it did more than leave the Earth’s best preserved impact crater. According to new research, the earthquake that the collision caused induced a landslide, which caused water to back up to the height of a 20-storey building above the current river. Meteor Crater, also known as […]

Heads up for the “Blood Moon” eclipse. In just a few months, most of the world will have the chance to witness a total lunar eclipse. 2025 will experience its second total lunar eclipse on the nights of September 7 and 8, following the first one that took place in March. A total lunar eclipse […]

In the 1990s, Romanian-Australian economist Stefan Mandel and his small team entered the lottery and won. Over and over and over again. The feat, of course, wasn’t achieved through having a really lucky set of numbers. Mandel had a system — one he first used to win a lottery in Romania, before later applying it […]

Imagine the Amazon. No doubt you’re thinking hot, humid, and a thousand shades of green, but really, the Amazon begins high in the frosty Andes. This is where melting snow and glaciers meet with rainfall and flow into the Amazon basin, feeding its dense network of rivers and tributaries. It’s said the outflow of the […]

A newly discovered parasite has caused quite a stir among microbiologists who were left scrambling to place it on the tree of life – and it seems even the organism itself is confused as to its identity. Sukunaarchaeum, as it’s been provisionally named, is not a virus – but it sure behaves like one – […]

Like the icy ocean depths it inhabits, the Greenland shark is ancient, vast, and hella mysterious. Thanks to a new study from researchers at the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources and the Natural History Museum of Denmark and colleagues, though, we now know one more thing about this gentle arctic giant: the fact that it’s […]

The relationships that exist in the natural world are extremely complex. However, by looking more closely at the way moths and plants interact, scientists have revealed that the animals can respond to sounds produced by the plants. According to the team, this is the first time such an interaction has been demonstrated, and it could […]

Life in the deep sea can often appear slow, still, and unchanging, like an alien ecosystem that works on a different timescale to the rest of the world. However, research is starting to show that even this environment is constantly restless and even subject to seasonal changes. Scientists used to think that deep-sea ocean currents […]

We know, we know – it’s only been about a month since we introduced you to the Nimbus variant of COVID-19, but there’s yet another new variant we think you should know about. Sticking with the cloud theme, this one’s called Stratus, or more officially XFG, and the World Health Organization (WHO) is officially monitoring […]

The Amazon rainforest has long been a source of inspiration for novel solutions to modern problems, from biopharmaceuticals to sustainable ways of living. One of its most commercially coveted resources ignited a global rubber rush in the 1800s, one that came at enormous human cost. By the 1920s, Brazil’s rubber trees had caught the eye […]

You scratch your hand and notice some faint irritation. There’s a small red bump on your skin, curiously close to where you swatted a mosquito just a few days ago. You prod it, and it moves. Congratulations, new parent, you’re officially with botfly! Known to science as Dermatobia hominis, the human botfly can be found […]