Deborah Bloomfield

Rice is a staple food for billions of people in Asia and Africa. It’s also a versatile ingredient for many iconic dishes from around the world, including dolmades from Greece, risottos from Italy, paella from Spain and rice puddings from the United Kingdom. Despite its universal appeal, the question asked in every kitchen, be it […]

Diamonds come in all shapes and sizes, from impressive pink jewels to rare ancient black diamonds thought to have formed in outer space. The rarest and most prized of all these diamond types is the elusive red diamond with only 20-30 specimens thought to exist in the world. Mostly found in South Africa, Australia, and […]

The Basque language is one of the most unique languages still spoken today in Europe. Separated by millennia of evolution, the language is unrelated to any other existing language on the planet, making it a treasure trove for linguists wishing to understand the past.   Also known as Euskara, the language comes from the Basque […]

The lone star tick isn’t afraid of latching onto humans, and when it does its bite can launch a nasty and peculiar disorder known as Alpha-gal Syndrome (AGS). Its symptoms range from a cough, to nausea and breathing difficulties, but curiously it can also cause you to become allergic to meat. Anaphylaxis in AGS isn’t […]

Have you ever wondered where our ancestors, a bunch of highly specialized primates, first came from and how they managed to spread to pretty much every corner of the planet? If so, then you have entertained a question that has occupied many minds for centuries – and although various ideas have been suggested in that […]

During the first billion years or so, the universe was opaque. Starlight was absorbed by the neutral hydrogen that existed in intergalactic space. But the light of the most massive stars ripped the electrons from the hydrogen atoms, making the universe transparent. This is known as the Epoch of Reionization. Bubbles of transparent hot gas […]

Astronomers have spotted a very distant supernova, much brighter than it ought to be given how far away it is. And they did not only see it once. They saw it four times. Don’t worry, the laws of physics have not gone haywire. It is simply that the light of this event passed near the […]

After the first humans set foot on the Moon and successfully splashed back onto Earth, their mission wasn’t quite over. While it may seem a strange idea now given what we know about the lifelessness of the lunar surface, at the time there were a lot of unknowns. Upon their return,  the crew of Apollo […]

Human fossils found in Tam Pà Ling cave in northern Laos have been dated as 68-86,000 years old. The fossils’ finders are confident these came from Homo sapiens, rather than a near relative like Denisovans, making these the oldest reliable evidence of humans in East Asia and answering some big questions about humanity’s great migration […]

From skull lichen usnea to “mummy brown” paint, humankind is said to have found all sorts of unlikely uses for strange materials, but our latest favorites are the Moss Men of Béjar. Their legendary and unique use of moss would put them alongside insect larvae and weevils when it comes to camouflage approaches, and they’re […]

The Beatles are set to release one final record, using artificial intelligence (AI) to isolate John Lennon’s voice.  Paul McCartney told the BBC that Lennon’s voice had been “extricated” and used to complete the song, which will come out later this year. Though McCartney did not explicitly name the song in the interview, the BBC […]

You wouldn’t think molecules could be left- or right-handed – they’re too tiny to have limbs, after all. However, they absolutely can be, and it’s all to do with a property called chirality. Chirality is defined by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) as “the geometric property of a rigid object (or […]

“Keep absolutely still. Its vision is based on movement.” That’s the line delivered by a petrified Dr Alan Grant in a memorable sequence of Jurassic Park that sees the resident Tyrannosaurus rex, evidently no longer satisfied with tethered goat, escape its enclosure and set upon some stranded human guests.  Frozen, Grant and chaotician Ian Malcolm […]

For all the variation in science teaching worldwide, classical Newtonian physics is almost always taught before 20th-century discoveries. For a decade, however, some schools in Western Australia have been trying a radically different approach. This idea, known as “Einstein-First”, has been so successful it’s now being taken nationwide, accompanied by a newer program called Quantum Girls. […]

Mexican jumping beans are seed pods that are inhabited by the larvae of a small moth. Due to the tiny larvae flexing and flickering around inside the pod, the seed jumps around. This strange phenomenon is often used as a novelty joke or magic trick, but it’s a perfectly natural part of the bugs’ life […]

A 52-year-old man in the US has developed a flesh-eating bacterial infection after being bitten by a relative during a family get together. Donnie Adams, from Riverview, Florida, noticed a pain in his left thigh as well as a small raised bump. According to Tampa Bay Times, he assumed that the mark was probably from […]

A 15-centimeter (6-inch) stone penis has recently been unearthed during excavations at a medieval fortress in southwest Spain. While phallic objects were not uncommon in the ancient world, most notably in the lands of the Roman Empire, it’s pretty strange to find one dating from the European Middle Ages. However, unlike similar artifacts from the […]

We’ve all seen images of volcanoes spewing out rocks and smoke into the sky – but is the glowing red rock running down the side of the mountain magma or lava, and how can you tell which one you are looking at? Here, we break down the science behind these molten rocks. According to the […]

There is a place in Turkey where strange vapors issue from the ground, which ancient Greco-Roman people used in their rituals to the gods of the underworld. The place, known as Pluto’s Gate, is very much a deadly portal between two worlds.  Pluto’s Gate is a great example of a ploutonion, a religious temple dedicated […]