Deborah Bloomfield

An insect invasion in the trillions sounds like the stuff of sci-fi – but as early as next month, the US is set to see two mega-broods of cicadas rise up from the soil in a rare double emergence event.  If that sounds like your worst nightmare (or you’re hoping to witness the phenomenon), the […]

The ancient Egyptians are famous for their reverence of celestial bodies, yet the role that the Milky Way played in their cosmology remains poorly understood by Egyptologists. However, according to a new analysis, the band of stars that streaks across the sky may have had a number of mythological functions, acting as a path to […]

NASA engineers have discovered the source of Voyager 1’s mysterious glitch, which left it sending back a repeating pattern of 1s and 0s rather than useful data. Voyager 1 has traveled further than any human-made object, crossing the heliopause and heading into interstellar space. While doing this, it has continued to send back useful data […]

Male blue whales have been witnessed battling for the chance to mate with a female off the coast of Australia in arguably the most formidable combat on Earth. When male whales sense a female is fertile, they start to follow her. In many whale species, the female leads the males on a dance. The males […]

Sometimes we get a glimpse of extremely rare animals that can’t fail to delight. From underwater cuties like the dumbo octopus to a rare pink elephant calf in South Africa, catching a glimpse of something that special brings an extra sense of joy. That is exactly what happened to the Kanyirninpa Jukurrpa (KJ) Martu rangers […]

The northern white rhino faces a biological puzzle: with just two infertile females left, how can the species survive? Scientists might just have the answer, as they say the cells of dead individuals could bolster the northern white rhino gene pool, giving rise not just to more animals, but to a genetically robust population.  While […]

There are so many awesome things about math, but one of the most reassuring is its certainty. If something can be proven – not always a given, we grant you – then it’s proven forever; no going back a few centuries later and realizing you were wrong all along because nipples exist. Take pi, for […]

Up to 80 percent of carbon emissions pumped out since 2016 can be traced back to just 57 companies, according to a new report.  Published by the independent think tank InfluenceMap, the report was produced using the Carbon Majors Database. Among the 57 entities they name and shame, there’s an array of nation-states, state-owned firms, […]

If we ask you to imagine a henge, we’d bet your mind instantly goes to the now-iconic Stonehenge in Wiltshire, UK. This prehistoric megalithic structure is, in the minds of many people, the quintessential example of a henge. It’s even in the name, right? Well, not quite. Stonehenge isn’t actually recognized as a true henge, […]

A “coywolf” is the nickname given to eastern coyotes, a hybrid of wolves and coyotes that also contain a fair share of genes from domestic dogs. This remarkable canid mutt has enjoyed a population boom over the past century and can now be found in plains, parks, and back alleys across much of eastern North […]

Ancient hunter-gatherers in South America may have kept foxes as pets before domestic dogs arrived on the continent. Evidence for this unexpected alliance comes from a 1,500-year-old burial site in Patagonia, Argentina, where a human skeleton appears to have been buried alongside a fox, suggesting that the pair may have shared a special bond during […]

A fish tanker truck transporting around 102,000 young Chinook salmon smolts overturned on the way to the Imnaha River on March 29. While you might think that that would be the end of all of the salmon on board, the fish did something rather extraordinary and began leaping into the nearby creek. The truck, which […]

Elsewhere on the Internet, you may have read of a “mystery” object photographed orbiting the Moon, which has been identified by NASA. The photos, which are real, show a thin dark streak above the lunar surface, moving at an apparent great speed. The image was captured by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) – but despite […]

You’ve probably seen by now all of the spectacular images of Monday’s (April 8) eclipse taken from the ground. But what about those taken from space and sky? We’ve got you covered. Total solar eclipses happen when the Moon passes between the Sun and Earth, temporarily blocking the Sun’s light and plunging those in the […]

An African leopard hunting yellow baboons at night is the dramatic scene that kicks off Mammals, the latest series from Sir David Attenborough and the BBC. The world-first footage demonstrates how these animals’ incredible sight adaptations have enabled them to proficiently stalk and kill prey under the cover of darkness, even when they’re 20 meters […]

A huge reservoir of helium has been found in Babbitt, northern Minnesota. After exploratory drilling found the store of gas hundreds of meters below the earth, further tests have found it to be in “mind-bogglingly” high concentrations. Helium has uses that go far beyond balloons, being used in everything from MRI machines to separating hot […]

A coyote hunt in Michigan’s Calhoun County had a major mishap recently after a hunter accidentally shot the first gray wolf seen in this part of the state in over a century. During a legal coyote hunt in January, a Michigan hunter and their guide encountered what was initially believed to be a large coyote. […]

An extremely rare sighting of a gazelle has caused a stir since the animal has more than the expected number of limbs.  It was first spotted by Nir Liechter during a stop at Nahal HaBashor nature reserve in the western Negev in Israel. Liechter then sent a photograph to the Society for the Protection of […]

Nobel Prize-winner Professor Peter Higgs has died. While Higgs made many contributions to physics, his name will always be inextricably linked to the particle he predicted. His theoretical demonstration that such a particle could resolve many problems in physics sparked a search lasting almost 50 years. This became one of the major reasons for the […]

If you look up into the clear night sky in the Northern Hemisphere, you will see the star Polaris, more commonly known as the North Star.  Sitting around 1 degree away from the geographic North Pole, Polaris has been used in navigation (of the Northern hemisphere) for centuries. But it hasn’t always been our North […]