Deborah Bloomfield

Thanks to our orbits, Earth and Mars make relatively close passes every 26 months. Every now and then, there’s a really close approach. In 2003, for instance, we passed at a distance of 55.7 million kilometers (34.6 million miles), the closest the two planets have been to each other in 60,000 years. In 1924, the […]

Meet the Brazilian wandering spiders in the genus Phoneutria, also referred to as the armed spiders or the banana spiders. The members of this group have one of the most dangerous bites of any spider species on Earth and they have been classified as the world’s most venomous spider many times. Where Do Brazilian Wandering […]

The edge of the solar system is different and the rules that govern the formation and interaction of bodies there are likely to be different too. This region is known as the Kuiper Belt, stretching from the orbit of Neptune outward. For the first time, the surface composition of two small trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) has […]

If you haven’t seen Dune or Dune II, now is a very confusing time to be on social media, seeing posts about some guy named “Paul” and naturally assuming they’re some sort of accountant, before the post pivots hard to talking about space worms.  The films, like the cult classic 1984 version, have grown a […]

Science is tiptoeing towards a new procedure that could revolutionize fertility treatment, as researchers demonstrate the possibility of transferring DNA from skin cells into a donor egg. While we’re still years away from this being used in the clinic, it could mean a future where women without viable eggs and men in same-sex relationships are […]

Even before Homo sapiens had evolved, our ancestors had a brush with extinction. Evidence from different sources supports this theory, but provides contradictory estimates of the timing: One study claims it occurred 1.15 million years ago, while another placed it 200,000 years later. Reconsideration of the data supports the later figure – and may reveal one […]

Runglish is the unlikely hybrid “language” created by fusing elements of English and Russian. While some forms of this Frankenstein parlance have been uttered by immigrant communities for decades, perhaps even centuries, it’s most prominently associated with day-to-day chattering between English-speaking astronauts and Russian cosmonauts onboard the International Space Station (ISS).  The ISS is a […]

The US Government has released a fresh batch of footage taken of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) around the world, as well as explanations that turn a few right back into FOs. Releasing the footage, the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) stated that they had found no evidence that any investigation into UFOs – aka […]

The truth is out there – and, for many, it is going to be disappointing and mundane. After much speculation and anticipation, the US Defence Department has released its report exploring whether the government has been covering up alien encounters, and whether they have access to extra-terrestrial technology that they are reverse engineering. And the […]

Prehistoric ornaments made of stone and volcanic glass provide the earliest conclusive evidence for body piercing ever discovered. Recovered from graves at a Neolithic settlement in Türkiye, the 11,000-year-old accessories are likely to have been associated with coming-of-age rituals in which young adults were pierced in order to symbolize their passage from childhood to maturity. […]

In October, NASA will launch Europa Clipper – a mission that aims to study the intriguing icy moon of Jupiter like no other spacecraft has done before. And within, it will carry the names of millions, as well as other symbols of planet Earth. NASA has described it as a “Golden Record” for Europa as, […]

Few things in the world are more representative of strength and the passing of extreme time than mountains. On the face of it, these colossal formations look like they have always been there, untouched by time – but, of course, they were created millions and millions of years ago by the tumultuous forces of nature. […]

This article first appeared in Issue 17 of our free digital magazine CURIOUS.  The twilight zone is filled with bizarre, alien-like species that look as if they splash-landed from outer space, and yet there is something that connects us: sexual reproduction. There’s no Tinder in the twilight zone, so how are animals looking for love in […]

In 1938, a new book hit the shelves: Named Rebecca, it told the story of a young woman who marries a wealthy widower and moves into his estate, only to be continually psychologically tortured by the household’s and society’s devotion to her new husband’s first wife. Of course, it was a work of fiction – […]

Habitat loss, pollution, poaching, climate change – the list of threats against Earth’s species seems only to be growing. In the midst of these struggles lives a small population of critically endangered freshwater porpoises: meet the Yangtze River finless porpoise (Neophocaena asiaeorientalis asiaeorientalis). As the name suggests, this porpoise species lives in China’s Yangtze River […]

A not-so-fresh loaf of 8,600-year-old bread has been found at Çatalhöyük, an extremely early city located in today’s Turkey. While older flatbread – or at least what’s left of it – has been found in Jordan, the researchers on this project believe the doughy discovery might be the oldest bread loaf of its kind. Archeologists […]

Caffeine appears in all manner of places, from your morning cup (or three) of coffee, to the pills you pop when you’ve got the flu, or the bar of chocolate you chomp down on of an afternoon. In fact, caffeine is the most widely used psychoactive substance in the world. It’s also no stranger to […]

The organic molecules that enabled life to emerge were present on Mars around 4.5 billion years ago, research suggests. And while these critical components may have hitched a ride to Earth around the same time, it was on the Red Planet that life found the most hospitable conditions. Earth and Mars are both members of inner Solar […]

In the northeastern region of California, close to its border with Oregon, lies the Lava Beds National Monument. Here, a half-million years of eruptions from an unassuming looking volcano have left their mark, creating a rugged, geologically rich landscape. Medicine Lake volcano The big cheese responsible for all of the cool geological features seen at […]

You wouldn’t be alone if you hadn’t heard of a lava tube, but it turns out there’s actually quite a lot of them – so what exactly are they? And if human curiosity is getting the better of you, but you’re a bit worried about, y’know, molten lava, don’t worry: it’s long gone. What are […]