Deborah Bloomfield

A study of almost a billion stars in infrared light has revealed many currently invisible to us at other wavelengths, including new categories of rapidly changing objects. One of these, dubbed “old smokers”, are aging red giants that can suddenly release clouds of dark material that prevent light from escaping. Dust blocks our view of […]

The speed of light in a vacuum is the same wherever you measure it in the universe, according to Einstein’s special theory of relativity. Whether you’re sat on Earth, Mars, or Zoozve, if you measure the speed of light you’ll find it chugging along at a cool 299,792,458 meters per second (983,571,056.43 feet per second), […]

Forget nuts and bolts. Japanese scientists have created a two-legged “biohybrid robot” that combines living biological muscle with an artificial skeleton.  To create the robot, researchers at the University of Tokyo grew skeletal muscle in molds to create strips. They then fashioned the lightweight skeleton out of styrene board, a flexible silicone-based body, acrylic resin […]

Archaeologists from the Université Bordeaux have constructed a continent-wide database of personal ornaments worn by Europeans 34,000-24,000 years ago, a period known as the Gravettian technocomplex. Combining the locations at which these were found with genetic data revealed nine distinct cultures. “We demonstrate that Gravettian ornament variability cannot be explained solely by isolation-by-distance,” the authors […]

Spiral galaxies, like our own Milky Way, are fairly common in the Universe. And – without showing too much favoritism – they are also insanely pretty. New observations from JWST on relatively near galaxies have provided even more insights into the spiral structures in images that are beyond spectacular. The observations were conducted as part […]

When it comes to the information that we’re faced with every day – be that scientific or otherwise – it’s not always easy to know what information to trust, and which sources are reliable. Fortunately, some of the ideas and thought processes that underpin the scientific method can actually help us to navigate the news, […]

We’re often told to pay attention to the color of our urine as an indicator of factors like dehydration – but as you gaze into the toilet bowl, have you ever wondered how exactly pee gets its yellow color? A recent study has answered that long-standing question, pointing to a newly discovered enzyme produced by […]

A video showing the Menkaure pyramid at Giza in Egypt undergoing renovations has sparked criticism online, with people comparing it to straightening the Leaning Tower of Piza. The project, aimed at restoring the pyramid’s outer casing to the state it was originally built in, began work earlier this week. The Menkaure pyramid is located next […]

On July 2, 1937, while attempting to become the first woman to circumnavigate the globe, Amelia Earhart’s plane disappeared somewhere between Lae, New Guinea, her last known location, and Howland Island where she was headed next. And thus started a mystery that has never properly been answered. Despite an initial 16-day search involving 66 aircraft […]

For the first time in the history of robot dogs and space travel, a four-legged robodog has been controlled by a human outside of the Earth’s atmosphere. Only robots with wheels have been controlled remotely from space before now.  The “Surface Avatar” test carried out in January saw European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Marcus Wandt […]

In a massive step forward for Elon Musk’s controversial Neuralink project, the tech billionaire announced yesterday that the startup has implanted a brain chip into a human subject for the first time. Revealing the news in a post on X (formerly Twitter), Musk gave little detail but did say that the recipient is “recovering well”. […]

Ten days after its soft landing on the Moon, Japan’s history-making Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) is back in action. The lander had a slight mishap while carrying out its precision landing, ending up on its side, which prevented its solar panels from powering up and left the lander running on batteries. Crucially, the […]

It might not be as cute as most baby animals, but the suspected first-ever images capturing a newborn great white shark could be highly scientifically significant. Great white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias) are the largest surviving fish that prey on anything larger than krill, and the inspiration for films such as Jaws and Sharknado. Scientists refer […]

This article first appeared in Issue 16 of our free digital magazine CURIOUS.  Were you to stare into the eyes of a tiger, you might clock that it has round pupils – just like ours – moments before it severed your carotid. It could be assumed it’s a predatory adaptation, then, but look into the peepers […]

While investigating the many microbes that have colonized the human body, a team of researchers stumbled upon something strange: a previously unrecognized class of virus-like objects, which they have dubbed “Obelisks”. The newly described entities are thought to inhabit human mouth and gut bacteria and have circular RNA genomes, sequences of which have been found […]

This article first appeared in Issue 16 of our free digital magazine CURIOUS.  A dramatic sight awaits anyone drifting near the shores of the Isle of Staffa where a unique sea cave is carved into the rugged coastline. Known as Fingal’s Cave, its name comes from an Irish myth in which Fionn MacCumhaill, nicknamed Fingal for “white […]

Five people with Alzheimer’s disease developed the condition as a result of a medical procedure decades earlier, a new study reports. While the procedure that has been implicated is no longer in use, the findings could provide important insights into how the disease progresses, and represent the first evidence of Alzheimer’s being transmitted to living […]

A donkey-ass hybrid from Bronze Age Mesopotamia is the earliest known example of a hybrid animal bred by people. The bones of the horse-like creatures date back 4,500 years and put to bed decades of dispute surrounding the ancient equids’ identity. After meticulous DNA sequencing, the team from the Institut Jacques Monod (CNRS/Université de Paris), […]

If you’ve ever dreamed of going on safari to see Africa’s big five, allow us to present a different kind of opportunity. The government in the Indian state of Odisha has announced the world’s first black tiger safari in a bid to provide tourists with a chance to catch a glimpse of the only black tigers […]

In recent years, the once-hypothesized landmass in the Southern Hemisphere, now known as Zealandia, has become increasingly popular for scientific research. In fact, as of the end of 2023, Zealandia became the first continent to be completely mapped out, even though 95 percent of the newly identified continent is underwater. And yet Zealandia is not […]