Deborah Bloomfield

The Montreal Protocol was a landmark international agreement for the benefit of all humankind. It is among the only United Nations treaties ratified by every country in the world, designed to protect the ozone layer by phasing out harmful chemicals such as chlorofluorocarbons. And it is working. Since it entered into force in 1989, the […]

The Ethiopian wolf (Canis simensis) is one of the most endangered carnivore species in Africa. There are thought to be only around 500 individuals left in scattered populations across Ethiopia’s Bale and Simien mountains. Until now, the entry of the Ethiopian wolf into Ethiopia from Eurasia has not been known from the Pleistocene fossil record, […]

Planes come in all shapes, sizes, and roles, from fighter jets to single-engine propeller planes, but every single one of them has one thing in common – a black box. A flight data recorder, known as a black box, must be installed in every aircraft nowadays and looks rather unassuming, but it is the most […]

If you’ve spent too long on the Internet – and let’s face it, we all have – you may have come across the story of the Philadelphia Experiment. According to the urban legend on 28 October 1943, Naval destroyer the USS Eldridge conducted a top secret experiment. There’s no sugar-coating just how stupid the conspiracy […]

The day we have all feared is upon us: Netflix’s crackdown on password sharing has arrived on the shores of the UK, the US, Australia, and dozens of other countries. If you have a Netflix account in these countries and you share the password with loved ones who live outside your household, it’s going to […]

A newly-described species of pachycephalosaurid called Platytholus clemensi that lived around 68 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous may have rocked some fabulous keratin headgear, a recent paper detailing the analysis of a partial skull has revealed. Named MOR 2915, the skull was found in 2011 by study author John R. “Jack” Horner, of […]

Very few Earthlings are aware that their planet’s oceans hold a significant amount of gold – perhaps upwards of quadrillions of dollars worth, in fact. Unfortunately, if you’re thinking of heading to the beach in a hasty get-rich-quick scheme, you might be in for a challenge. Scientists have estimated that there’s around one gram of […]

A man whose legs had been paralyzed for a decade due to a spinal cord injury has been able to walk again, after treatment with a revolutionary new implant. The device helps to bridge the gap between the brain and the spinal nerves that control movement, restoring communication that was interrupted by the patient’s injury. […]

Over the last eight years, the world’s three gravitational wave observatories have delivered on their potential, detecting some of the most extreme events in the universe: black hole mergers and neutron star collisions. Now after three years of downtime for upgrades and improvements, they are about to turn on again. The goal now is to […]

The spiny mouse is one of nature’s great oddities and it just got even weirder, as researchers discovered that it has a peculiar adaptation on its tail that’s more commonly associated with reptiles. The skin of its tail is covered in bony armored plates known as osteoderms, and until now it was thought that the […]

The Tempest Prognosticator would likely pull great ratings for weather reporters. Like a haunted carousel housing leeches in glass bottles, its inventor George Merryweather (don’t you just love nominative determinism?) believed it could warn of great storms. In truth, the leech barometer hasn’t been found to be all that reliable, but it sure is cooler […]

Marie Curie is remembered today for her pioneering work on radioactivity, which not only earned her two Nobel Prizes but also the recognition as the “mother of modern physics”. But while her research into the radioactive elements polonium and radium may have secured her a lasting scientific legacy, those same substances have also had a […]

Jo Cameron is a woman who doesn’t feel pain but is also spared the usual consequences, thanks to rare mutations. She also experiences less anxiety or fear than other people. A study of the molecular basis of her condition could yield medical benefits for the rest of us. Not feeling pain may sound wonderful, but a […]

A team of researchers has used artificial intelligence (AI) to reconstruct videos by using continuous functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) data of participants’ brains.  Publishing their findings, which are yet to be peer-reviewed, on pre-print server arXiv, the researchers used data taken from volunteers who had watched videos of varied inputs – including animals, humans, […]

A new report into the scale of biodiversity loss across the planet has revealed that almost half of the animal species on Earth are currently in decline. According to the researchers, this shocking depletion of populations is largely due to the degradation of habitats by human activity, all of which points towards an “Anthropocene extinction […]

Giant clams, as their name suggests, are pretty big. The mollusks sit on the ocean, can reach up to 1.2 meters (4 feet) in length, and weigh over 226 kilograms (500 pounds). Some species can live for over a century in the wild, and make giant pearls while they’re at it. It’s really no wonder […]

In May 1969, Apollo 10 staged a dress rehearsal for the first human landing on the lunar surface. The mission was a success, with the crew of three orbiting the Moon for over 10 hours, and separating and then rejoining a lunar landing module. While they were up there, alone on the far side of […]

New research has found a method that can determine the sex of a chicken in early development by “sniffing” the scent emitted through the shell. If the technology is successfully scaled up, it has the potential to avoid the culling of millions of live chicks. Over 350 million male chicks are culled each year in […]

In an entirely predictable but damning vision of the internet’s future, a fake photograph of the Pentagon on fire has prompted a brief dip in the stock market, showing just how important it is to get the AI-fueled misinformation crisis under control.   Shared by a “verified” account (they paid $8 for a blue tick, […]

Farting is an odorous fact of life: humans do it, dogs definitely do it, lacewings do it with such aplomb they can take out six termites with a single toot. But do all animals release offensive gas in this way? It got us wondering… do cats fart? The short answer is yes, cats do fart. […]