Deborah Bloomfield

Klerksdorp spheres, found inside pyrophyllite deposits mined in South Africa, are weird. Looking like tiny ancient cricket balls, with seam-like lines around their middle, it’s easy to see why they became the subject of conspiracy theories involving aliens and ancient, forgotten civilizations. In articles in the 1980s, they were speculated to be made by “a […]

Banking giant JP Morgan Chase was left pretty disappointed after discovering their large haul of nickel was just plain old rocks, according to a new report.  As a result of an apparent warehouse mix-up, an operator weighing bags containing 54 metric tons of the metal found the supposed briquettes of nickel were not what they […]

When Voyager 2 swung past Uranus 37 years ago, it sent back radiation data that mystified astronomers. A forthcoming paper attributes the observations to water molecules escaping from one of Uranus’s moons. This could indicate the presence of an internal ocean, and therefore a chance of life, along with the possibility of sampling these waters […]

Looking at nutmeg, brown ball that it is with a telltale title to boot, you might find yourself wondering: is nutmeg a nut? As is often the way with kitchen staples, there’s sometimes confusion over where nutmeg comes from and what it actually is. The good news for people with nut allergies is that no, […]

Google has finally launched its artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot Bard for the public to play with. While the large language model may be fun to play with, users have noted that so far it lags behind competitors, making a number of basic and amusing errors on simple tasks. One user discovered that the chatbot believed […]

People have used poisons throughout history for a variety of purposes: to hunt animals for food, to treat diseases and to achieve nefarious ends like murder and assassination. But what is a poison? Do all poisons act in the same way? Does the amount of the poison matter in terms of its toxicity? Advertisement I […]

Ludwig van Beethoven shared his health problems with the world towards the end of his life, but despite this, exactly why he died remains a mystery. Now, new research has shed some light as to what might have contributed to his demise after sequencing his entire genome from a lock of hair. The German composer […]

With the release of GPT-4, it seems to have finally convinced many that the future of work has probably changed forever, with AI being at the forefront of this seismic shift. Bill Gates is under no illusions as well, and has now produced a seven-page report on what he believes will be the future of […]

Back in the mid-1800s, a chemist called Angelo Mariani created Vin Mariani, a cocaine-infused wine – and it was loved by Presidents and Popes alike. The Andean coca leaf had been used by Indigenous Aymara people for thousands of years. To isolate the substance, users had to chew the leaves, which of course limited the […]

Some time between 3,000 and 5,000 years ago, prehistoric shepherds in Catalonia covered the walls of a remote cave in doodles depicting their vision of the cosmos. Announcing the discovery of these ancient sketches, researchers say the artwork is unmatched by anything in the archaeological records and appears to be composed around some sort of […]

New observations from JWST have revealed intriguing details of the atmosphere of a relatively nearby exoplanet. The world is called VHS 1256 b and orbits not one but two stars. The system is located 40 light-years away and is an ideal target for JWST. VHS 1256 b is the planetary-mass object with the biggest change in […]

Four impact craters a million years old or less may be substantially larger than previous measurements. If this is true, and some scientists have already expressed doubts, it would mean the asteroid that made them, and the energy released, was much larger than we thought. This in turn would suggest current estimates of the risk […]

Very few rock features in the world can compare to the Wave in Arizona. With its swirling layers and undulating forms, this trippy rock formation is not only an Instagrammable sight, but also a geological wonder that’s been 190 million years in the making.  The Wave can be found in the Coyote Buttes North area […]

The Cold War saw all kinds of scientific, militaristic, cultural, and technological peacocking between the US and the Soviet Union, from sending tortoises around the Moon to the development of preposterously powerful bombs. But of all these muscle-flexing exploits, few remain more obscure than the Soviet’s feat of drilling the deepest human-made hole on the […]

It’s sometimes difficult to imagine how the planet we call home, with its megalopolis cities and serene farmlands, was once dominated by dinosaurs as big as buses and five-storey buildings. But recent research has helped deepen our understanding of why dinosaurs prevailed: the answer may lie in their special bones, structured like Aero chocolate. Brazilian […]

It takes balls to contemplate the sheer enormity of the North Atlantic right whale’s gargantuan gonads. Weighing in at around 450–500 kilograms (992–1,100 pounds) each when fully grown, the combined weight of their testicles is about the same as  Volkswagen Beetle. North Atlantic right whales (Eubalaena glacialis) have the largest testicles in the animal kingdom, […]

In just a few days, we will witness a planetary procession across the early evening sky. Five planets and the crescent moon will be aligned, and you should be able to see four out of five without the help of a telescope. So from March 25, eyes to the sky after the Sun has set. […]

Deep beneath the surface of the Earth, there is a massive reservoir of water. It is estimated to contain three times the amount of water of all the oceans on our surface. In 2014, a team from the US used 2,000 seismometers to study seismic waves from over 500 earthquakes. By examining the speed of […]

Antarctica might look like a frozen desert populated only by penguins on shore leave, but parts of it are ice-free. More than a century ago, explorers were surprised to learn that while life may not thrive there, it survives in the form of algae, bacteria, and even small animals such as springtails. These creatures’ ancestry […]

It might not have a place in a fairytale like the goose that laid golden eggs, but there’s a bacterium that can absorb compounds rich in toxic metals and extract gold from them, producing tiny gold nuggets. The bacterium in question is called Cupriavidus metallidurans and lives in soil rich in toxic elements. As reported […]