Deborah Bloomfield

We could soon be catching criminals using an entirely different kind of DNA sampling approach that tests for evidence in the air. Forensic-savvy criminals may know to wipe down the scene if they want to get rid of damning DNA evidence – but both the air itself and air conditioner units can still hold incriminating […]

Welcome to the wonderful world of thunder eggs. They might look plain from the outside, but can be cut and polished to reveal a whole range of colors and crystals within, and are popular with the rock collecting community.  Thunder eggs, also known as lithophysae, are spherical objects formed in silica-rich volcanic rock, often a […]

A lot of cool things are going to happen when the Moon obscures the Sun on Monday. If you are in the path of totality, which extends from Mexico to Canada, this celestial encounter will bring a few minutes of darkness to your day. Your eyes will obviously be on the sky but they will […]

A six-legged mouse embryo, with extra limbs in place of genitals, has been engineered by scientists. It sounds like sci-fi, we know – but the curious creature, which also has several of its internal organs outside of its body, wasn’t created intentionally. Rather, it was an unprecedented outcome of research that has, in turn, revealed […]

The temperature at which a material melts, subject to pressure, follows a single parabolic equation, one scientist has claimed, providing a surprisingly simple solution to a long-standing problem. If you want to turn a solid to liquid the usual approach is to add heat. However, the temperature at which melting occurs depends not only on […]

The Namib desert is named for what it is: “an area where there is nothing,” in the local Nàmá language. And at first glance, the region lives up to the title, covering around 1,600 kilometers (990 miles) along the western coast of Africa – straddling three countries as it does so – in some of […]

Throughout the ups and downs of Earth’s climatic history, forests have moved in response to changing environmental conditions. As glaciers retreated after the last Ice Age, trees swooped in to fulfill the freed-up real estate, but climate change in the modern era is happening too rapidly for their shifts to keep up.  Enter, the DREAM […]

At first glance, this might just look like strangely symmetrical rock. However, researchers have recently taken a deeper look at the object and speculate that it may be a prehistoric sand sculpture of a stingray. If that’s true, it would make the relic the oldest known artwork of another animal.  It was discovered in 2018 […]

Prisoners held in New York are attempting to sue the state’s corrections department over a decision to lock all inmates indoors during the total solar eclipse on April 8. Ahead of the eclipse, Jeremy Zielinski, a prisoner held at Woodbourne Correctional Facility, was granted permission to view the eclipse, after he argued that the event […]

Tidal locking is such a common phenomenon in the universe that we only need to look at the Moon to notice it. Our satellite only shows us its near side face as its rotation on its axis and revolution around the Earth are synchronized. Planets too can get in this state of behavior if they […]

A person in Texas has tested positive for H5N1 bird flu after coming into contact with dairy cows that are presumed to be infected with the virus. Fortunately, the patient is recovering and their only reported symptom was red eyes, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). They’ve been told to […]

The ancient hominin Australopithecus anamensis is thought to be one of our oldest known relations – but what do we actually know about the species? How long ago did they live? Though arguably not the most famous of the australopiths – that title probably goes to A. afarensis, thanks to Lucy – A. anamensis is estimated […]

The US state of Arizona has taken the unusual step of naming a state planet. Even more unusually, they have chosen Pluto – which is not a planet – as their representative in the solar system. A surprising number of astronomical bodies have been discovered by observing Uranus. Observing the planet in the 19th century, […]

Megaliths, those large stone structures that point to the heavens or form larger gravity-defying arrangements, have been a source of speculation and mystery for generations of people. And while you may be able to think of one or two famous examples, such as Stonehenge, they are surprisingly common across the world. In fact, there are […]

A preprint paper has made the case that humans owe our existence to gravitational waves – and that in a purely Newtonian universe, advanced life forms might not exist. As far as we know, just a few elements are needed for life: hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and phosphorus, with sulfur almost as ubiquitous. Some simple […]

Eclipse fever is not just for those looking forward to spectacular sights next week. NASA will launch three sounding rockets to see how the temporary blocking of sunlight affects the upper atmosphere as part of APEP (Atmospheric Perturbations around Eclipse Path, but also the name of the Egyptian Sun God’s nemesis). Starting 90 kilometers (55 […]

Despite being the last continents on Earth to be inhabited by humans (excluding Antarctica), the Americas are thought to have been home to around half of all language families ever spoken. Tracing these dialects back to their prehistoric roots, the author of a new study has revealed that every North American language can be linked […]

Interstellar space is not too far. We have already sent two probes beyond the heliosphere – the region where the Sun dominates with its solar wind. Our foray into the space between the stars has brought crucial new insights but remains too limited to provide a deep understanding of our place in the galaxy. One […]

April 1 is a great day on the internet. Suddenly, people start to apply critical thinking before sharing news, memes, and posts – after all, you do not want to be caught believing something silly, do you? It is also a day for scientists to share funny papers that can range from total BS to […]

When it comes to the biggest egg the world has ever seen, it’s a close fight between reptiles and birds. The elephant bird claims the top spot with an egg big enough to make the extant ostrich’s look average-sized, but “The Thing” discovered by scientists in Antarctica was a close second, and it came from […]