Deborah Bloomfield

Get ready icy moons of Jupiter, Europe is coming for you. Today the first-ever European mission to Jupiter, JUICE, successfully launched from French Guiana, and is now on its peculiar flight towards the Jovian system. It will reach the gas giant in July 2031 and once there will provide new insights into its three large […]

In 1900, three lighthouse keepers posted on a remote Scottish island in the Outer Hebrides went missing and were never seen again. The account of the crew of the Flannan Isle Lighthouse has become a popular story that evokes all the tropes of a gothic mystery, and has generated a plethora of explanations ranging from […]

In an unexpected and unintentional ode to Aquaman, a rather unusual biomaterial has been trialed in Brazil, where it’s been used to great success in the treatment of burns. If something seems fishy to you, that’s probably because it is: the secret ingredient in all this is tilapia, the freshwater fish native to Africa but […]

The Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST), sometimes called China’s “artificial sun”, has broken the world record for the longest confined plasma reaction, according to reports. The researchers claim to have maintained an ultra-hot plasma for 403 seconds, breaking their previous record of 101 seconds in 2017, and hope the milestone is another step towards the […]

Childhood in Ancient Egypt was something of a mixed bag, with some kids enjoying the luxury of becoming Pharaoh before turning ten while others struggled with iron deficiency and poorly oxygenated blood. According to a new analysis of child mummies, anemia was a common problem for the Egyptian youth, leading to high rates of skeletal […]

Since humans (and our ancestors) began traversing the waves thousands of years ago, we’ve been mapping islands and landmasses along the way. But many of the islands discovered centuries ago seem to have disappeared from the oceans without a trace. Termed “phantom islands”, these landmasses may have vanished for a number of reasons, or never […]

James Cameron, acclaimed director of the film Titanic, explorer of the actual Titanic, creator of The Terminator and countless other classic movies, and finder of Jesus Christ’s bones??? In 2007, Cameron launched a documentary he had produced with Canadian documentary maker Simcha Jacobovici, which aired on the Discovery Channel. In it, the filmmakers claim that […]

The potential and possible downsides of artificial intelligence (AI) and artificial general intelligence (AGI) have been discussed a lot lately, largely due to advances in large language models such as Open AI’s Chat GPT.  Some in the industry have even called for AI research to be paused or even shut down immediately, citing the possible […]

The oldest therizinosaur fossils found to date have been identified in Britain using machine learning models to analyze mystery teeth. The toothy remains were found in Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire and Dorset, and are the first time therizinosaurs have been identified from fossils found in the UK. The findings follow an analysis of individual teeth using machine […]

Researchers at ETH Zürich, Switzerland, have developed a model to detect the levels of stress someone is experiencing at work based on how they type and move their mouse. The results may help prevent chronic stress before it becomes too serious. In Switzerland, a third of workers experience workplace stress. In the US the figure […]

A massive new analysis of tumor growth has highlighted just how adept they are at evolving to new challenges, suggesting that a universal treatment may be significantly harder than once thought. Spanning seven different studies across nine years, the analysis found that lung cancers have an “almost infinite” ability to evolve, shocking the researchers and […]

Pugs, boxers and chow chows may be all the rage these days, but a new discovery proves that the popularity of flat-faced dogs is far from a modern trend. Analyzing the remains of a canine skull at a Roman-era site in Türkiye, researchers have determined that the ancient pooch had a brachycephalic skull similar to […]

We regret to inform you that right now, as you read this, an artificial intelligence (AI) program is attempting to establish global dominance and destroy humanity.  ChaosGPT, as it has been named, is based on a large language model (LLM) called “Auto-GPT”. According to the makers of Auto-GPT, the program “driven by GPT-4, chains together […]

A curious conundrum that’s surrounded the sunken wreck of Blackbeard’s pirate ship has potentially been solved by new research. It’s been a longstanding mystery as to how the ship contained heaps of coal, considering this was before there was any coal mining in America, but scientists may now have an answer.  The tale of Blackbeard’s […]

Everyone has played The Sims at some point in their life, but – like many games – the computer artificial intelligence (AI) has something to be desired. Luckily, the world has gone through somewhat of an AI revolution in the past few years, and it has finally made its way into video games.  Google, in […]

In April 2019, astronomers revealed one of humanity’s greatest achievements in science – the first-ever image of a black hole. (Of course, the photo wasn’t directly of the black hole itself, that would be impossible. More on that later.) Now, thanks to a new machine-learning technique that has sharpened the image, a new version has […]

As hackers go it doesn’t get much more insidious than Sacculina carcini, the parasitic barnacle. In its adult form it’s barely recognizable as a barnacle, spending its life protruding from the underside of the crustaceans that unwillingly host it.  It’s a bit of a bum deal for the host, as once the crab hacker barnacle […]

The human body contains 78 organs – at least, that’s the most widely accepted figure – but we know that not all of them are absolutely necessary. Take the appendix: many have asked what it’s even for, particularly when some studies have suggested you may be better off without it. So, we asked ourselves, what’s […]

The animal kingdom is full of species with the muscle power to make rapid movements. Some species have even evolved latch-mediated spring-actuated (LaMSA) mechanisms that help them move even faster, letting them catch prey, jump higher, and close their jaws faster than ever. These types of LaMSA actions are usually found in invertebrates but now […]

The oldest bat skeleton found to date has been retrieved from Wyoming, US, and is a shiny new-to-science species to boot. Chipped away from the early Eocene Lagerstätte of the Green River Formation in the American Fossil Quarry northwest of Kemmerer, it’s believed to date back a staggering 52 million years. The fossil lake deposits […]