Deborah Bloomfield

It’s often said that to know your enemy, you must become your enemy – and when that enemy happens to be fake news, a new study of a game where players become “fake newsmongers” suggests it really does help. Advertisement The game in question is Bad News, developed by Dutch media platform DROG and scientists […]

Cetaceans have long been famous for their communication abilities. From the impressive clicks and whistles of dolphins to the magical sound of humpback whale song. Sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) have been known to communicate too, and new research has made a big leap forward in understanding the structure of their vocalizations.  Advertisement Sperm whales are […]

A new study has suggested that a gene variant thought only to increase the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease could actually be one genetic cause of the condition. Advertisement The gene is called APOE, and the specific variant in question is called APOE4. The gene, present on chromosome 19, codes for a protein called apolipoprotein E […]

Cometary globules have nothing to do with comets. They are nebulae with long tails of gas and dust being shaped and stripped by the hot ionized material around them – and the Dark Energy Camera has found a spectacular example of one. Advertisement Located in the constellation of Puppis – translating in Latin to “poop […]

Physicists might have found a glueball. This is not something you get by rubbing vinyl glue between your fingers. It is a curious interaction between the carriers of the strong nuclear force, called gluons – hence the name “glueball”. Advertisement Gluons carry the nuclear force between quarks, a force that is a lot weirder than […]

In the search for extraterrestrial civilizations, it’s difficult to know what to look for. During the pursuit, we have tended to search for detectable signals and signs that we ourselves would emit (on purpose, or by accident) on the assumption that aliens will use similar technology, given that they have access to the same physics.  […]

Are you an introvert or an extrovert? Some people will be able to answer this question immediately, but for others, it’s a little trickier to know which group they fit into best. If that’s you, then you might resonate with the term “ambivert” – basically, a little bit introvert and a little bit extrovert. Advertisement […]

If you have ever dreamed of flying into a black hole, but the idea of your body getting spaghettified (yes, this is a real scientific term) into plasma is not appealing, NASA has a solution. Dive into an incredible new 360° visualization of what it would be like going around a black hole before plunging […]

You do not bet against the universe. In any isolated system, entropy – the order of the system – can never decrease. In classical systems, this is as firm a law of reality as it is possible to be. It’s the second law of thermodynamics. But when it comes to quantum mechanics, things are not […]

Here’s a question that surfaces on the Internet every now and then (and not from the usual suspects of conspiracy theorists and cranks): why are there so few photographs of Neil Armstrong on the Moon? Advertisement There are people under the belief that there are no photos of Neil Armstrong on the Moon. This is […]

Scroll through social media during the summertime and it wouldn’t be unusual to come across plenty of people enjoying the sunshine and warmth. But in the last few years, there have also been those putting out warnings that antidepressants can make you more vulnerable to the effects of heat – so how true are these […]

If you look at a current version of the periodic table, it appears complete. Since 2010, the entire seventh period has been filled, but the eighth period has not been started. It’s easy to wonder if we have discovered, or created, every element possible. Even if this is not the case, one might wonder whether […]

Like a cuckoo laying its eggs in the nest of an unsuspecting host, the ancient Greeks are said to have infiltrated the city of Troy by hiding inside an enormous wooden horse. From Homer to Hollywood, the tale of this military masterstroke has been told for thousands of years, yet there’s little evidence to suggest […]

The Earth is currently moving around the Sun at around 107,000 kilometers per hour (66,500 miles per hour), while the Sun hurtles through the galaxy at 828,000 kilometers per hour (514,500 miles per hour). Advertisement We know this through centuries of observing the planets and the stars, and observing their motion relative to our planet. […]

Among its other hellish conditions, Venus is bone dry, despite having once had plenty of water. Where did it all go? A new analysis attributes it to “dissociative recombination”, which caused a loss of hydrogen atoms at twice the rate of previous estimates. Advertisement Science fiction writers once set their works in the oceans of […]

Humans are social animals whose web of relationships is convoluted and often changing. Understanding these social networks and their changes has been the remit of different sciences and various theories. One of them was proposed in the 1940s, called social balance theory. Now, researchers have been able to corroborate it using statistical physics. Advertisement The […]

The southern Plains of the US are now in the midst of “tornado season”, but this year’s peak of violent storms has already brought with it one of the most unusual types of twister – one that spins clockwise. On the evening of April 30, a powerful thunderstorm known as a supercell made its way […]

There are plenty of venomous and poisonous species across the different habitats of Earth. Some slither, some crawl, and some fly through the sky – but one group takes the title as the most venomous species to swim in the planet’s seas. Meet the stonefish. Advertisement The name “stonefish” refers to five species in the […]

Hooray! We bring good conservation news from the world of fish biology. Devils Hole pupfish (Cyprinodon diabolis) are one of the world’s most endangered fish species, living in Death Valley National Park. Biologists have recently completed their annual spring season count and recorded the most fish seen in 25 years. Advertisement Devils Hole pupfish live […]

Around 200 million years ago, Earth’s last supercontinent Pangea began to break apart, with plate tectonics slowly moving the continents into the world we recognize today. Plate tectonics is by no means done, and there are several suggested models as to how our future world will look like. Advertisement Plate tectonics were only discovered relatively […]