Deborah Bloomfield

If you think people today enjoy a cheeky bottle (or two) of wine on a Friday night, then wait until you hear about the Romans. It’s well established that they loved a bit of vino, even to the point where watching it be made was seen as a form of entertainment. But what did Roman […]

Sprawling underneath Mammoth Cave National Park in the US is, well, a pretty mammoth cave system. In fact, at 686 kilometers (426 miles) in length, it’s the longest cave system in the world – and within it, researchers are making all sorts of discoveries. The latest is two new species of ancient sharks, thought to […]

One of the most important and enigmatic Bronze Age discoveries appears to have incorporated meteoritic iron. The discovery could resolve confusion about the ages not only of the iron items, but the hoard of gold with which they were buried. The Treasure of Villena was discovered in what is now eastern Spain in 1963. The […]

Gold has long been the go-to element for money. However, with gold coins now rarely used in circulating currency, it’s down to mints to produce these impressive promotional hunks of cash – many of which are legal tender. The largest gold coin in the world is the Australian Kangaroo One Tonne Gold Coin ,produced by […]

A team of researchers in California may have achieved something many of us could only dream of. According to a new preprint study, which has been approved for publication, the researchers claim to have created the first two-way control of a virtual object through lucid dreaming. It is probably safe to say that, for as […]

A new and immersive way of learning about heart health is tackling bias in medical teaching by putting the spotlight on female heart disease. The symptoms of female heart attacks are often very different from those experienced by males, sometimes confused for things like acid reflux or the flu. Built by Elsevier’s 3D4 Medical team, […]

A submersible studying the underneath of the so-called “doomsday glacier” in Antarctica has gone missing during its latest expedition.  The uncrewed underwater vehicle (AUV) named Ran uses sensors to investigate the surrounding water, during sometimes long explorations underneath ice. On its latest trip to the Thwaites Glacier – sometimes known as the doomsday glacier as […]

Let’s travel back in time before Just Eat, five different supermarket chains within a 2-mile radius, or even agriculture. There, you’ll find foraging, one of the most ancient practices there is. Though it’s never truly gone away since then, foraging has seen something of a resurgence in recent years, and with it, a curiosity about […]

Quantum computers have the potential to outperform even the most powerful supercomputers by leveraging the laws of quantum mechanics for their computation. The qubits (quantum bits) that perform those operations are in quantum states that are susceptible to environmental effects, which can lead to errors. For this reason, error correction is a big focus in […]

What we know about the birth of the Sun comes from the many stellar nurseries that we can observe elsewhere in the Universe. Direct evidence is rare, the elements and molecules that were present there have been changed into what the Solar System is like now. But some of those molecules persist and we have […]

China’s answer to the Hyperloop, an ultra-high-speed maglev train, has recently broken its own speed record by achieving speeds over 623 kilometers (387 miles) per hour at a full-scale test track. The project is being run by the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC), a state-owned aerospace company that makes everything from rockets and […]

Have you ever wanted to push your partner out of bed as their snoring was so loud that it seemed to rattle the windows? You are not alone, as a third of US-based people opt for a “sleep divorce” (sleeping in separate rooms at night), partly thanks to snoring. Alongside relationship woes, snorers can experience […]

Four underwater mountains have been discovered in the Pacific, one of which towers for 2,681 meters (8,796 feet) – that’s over three times the height of the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest skyscraper.  The collection of seamounts was identified last month by Schmidt Ocean Institute’s research vessel Falkor (too) while making a voyage between Golfito […]

Engineers have developed a new lithium battery with better electrodes that could change charging speed significantly. Their new battery charges in under five minutes, which is faster than any current battery available on the market, particularly when it comes to electric vehicles’ batteries. The researchers looked at a system that had an asymmetry between charging […]

Traces of dust particles in Antarctic ice are 2.3-2.7 million years old, analysis suggests. This would make them the oldest legacy of an airburst: an asteroid that exploded in the atmosphere, rather than hitting the ground while large enough to leave a mark. The discovery could be the first step on a path that enables […]

The Seikan Tunnel in Japan is the longest tunnel with an underwater section in the world, measuring a total of 53.85 kilometers (33.4 miles) in length, around 23.3 kilometers (14.5 miles) of which is under the seabed. With the underwater section located 100 metres (328 feet) below the seabed of the Tsugaru Strait, the Seikan […]

Nobody likes being sprayed with toilet juice (we assume) – and yet every time we flush away our waste, those miracles of modern engineering suddenly turn into raging sewage volcanoes. “No problem,” you might think, “my toilet comes with a fancy-pants lid, I can just close it!” Well, boy do we have bad news for […]

In a world first, scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have successfully 3D-printed human brain tissue that can grow and function like the real thing.  “This could be a hugely powerful model to help us understand how brain cells and parts of the brain communicate in humans,” said professor of neuroscience and neurology at the […]

A video from everyone’s favorite engineer and cartoonist Randall Munroe has pondered what would happen if you were able to throw a baseball towards a batter at 90 percent of the speed of light. The creator of the XKCD webcomic and author of several books pondering fun hypothetical questions ignored how it would be possible […]

Pistachios are so delicious that people are willing to suffer the indignity of breaking their shells apart, like a little squirrel. In fact, we love them so much we’re willing to risk them spontaneously combusting on their journey to our nut bowls. Before we go any further, pistachios are of course “drupes” rather than nuts, […]