Deborah Bloomfield

A new study indicates that men who take part in hobbies like golf, gardening, and woodwork are at a higher risk of developing a progressive, incurable neurological disease known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The results add to a growing link between this disease and exposure to toxins in the environment. ALS is a fatal […]

In 2021, the Chinese and Russian space agencies signed a joint agreement to build a research base on the Moon. In a new announcement, the space agencies say they are hoping to build an automated nuclear reactor on the lunar surface to power the International Lunar Research Station by 2035. You may have noticed that […]

A big-ass berry has just earned the title of the world’s heaviest blueberry, weighing in at a whopping 20.40 grams (0.71 ounces) and measuring 39.31 millimeters (over 1.5 inches) in diameter. The ping pong ball-sized berry was picked in November 2023 at a farm operated by Costa Group in Corindi, New South Wales, Australia.  Advertisement […]

The third test flight of Starship was successful. The spacecraft and its booster went up to space and successfully performed the main goals for this test. Not everything went according to plan but neither component exploded, which is an improvement on the previous two flights. Starship launched from SpaceX’s Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas at […]

In the waters off the coast of Cambodia, scientists have witnessed a truly incredible event for the very first time. The coral has begun to spawn, representing the first time a mass coral reef spawning event has been observed in this area.  The event began in the first week of March. Coral spawning is not […]

A wild criminal case has unfolded in Montana involving an 80-year-old rancher, illegal insemination, cloned animals, forgery, trophy hunting, and the dream of creating a huge hybrid sheep. Arthur “Jack” Schubarth, the owner of an 87-hectare (215-acre) ranch in Montana, was the mastermind of a money-making scheme that created giant sheep hybrids with the hope […]

Blue cod in New Zealand’s Marlborough Sounds were feline frisky during a recent research project in which scientists were using lasers to research the species (Parapercis colias) in the region. Reviewing the footage, the team discovered that the blue cod were doing something strangely cat-like – they started chasing the lasers. “When trying to count and […]

The world is building three gigantic optical telescopes whose size will dwarf anything we have today. It is hoped these three collectively will answer some of the big questions of the universe that have proven beyond existing instruments. However, a proposed National Science Foundation (NSF) budget cap puts one leg of the stool in danger. […]

The Japanese city of Fukuyama is on high alert after a cat fell into a vat of hazardous chemicals before scampering off into the night. Residents have been warned to keep their distance should they come across the unfortunate feline, which is covered in the highly acidic carcinogen hexavalent chromium. According to the Japanese newspaper […]

The US House has just passed a bill that could lead to a nationwide ban on TikTok unless its Chinese owner ByteDance sells it within six months. Known as the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, or H.R.7521, the bill passed by a vote of 352-65 on Wednesday March 13 and now makes […]

It’s March 14 – Pi Day as the date format used in the US and only a handful of other countries reads 3/14. And 3.14 is usually what you need to know when you are doing calculations that involve circular things. For example, working out how much more pizza you get by ordering one 18-inch […]

A new species of giant freshwater turtle has been described by scientists who discovered the aquatic beast’s enormous jaw bone in the Brazilian Amazon. Its shell would’ve been around 1.8 meters (5.9 feet) long, making it larger than any turtle alive today. Stephen King was the inspiration for the ancient turtle’s species name, Peltocephalus maturin.  […]

2024 is a pretty great year for gawping at celestial events. As well as a possible once-in-a-lifetime chance to see a nova, there is a total solar eclipse taking place across North America on April 8. While emergency officials warn that you should stock up on food, water, and fuel ahead of the eclipse, and […]

As far as astronomers studying the observable universe can tell, only around 5 percent of it is made up of matter. The rest, or the overwhelming majority of it, is made up of dark matter (around 27 percent) and dark energy (around 68 percent).  Dark matter is invisible matter that doesn’t emit its own light […]

US citizens are worryingly poor at differentiating between fact and political opinion. This may not be the news you wanted to hear in an election year, but is the finding of new research led by scholars from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s Department of Political Science.  “The capacity to differentiate between a statement of opinion […]

The clouds surrounding two protostars are rich in complex molecules including some that would not be out of place in your kitchen or behind a bar. Observations with JWST reveal the presence of ethanol, acetic acid, formic acid, and more around protostars IRAS 2A and IRAS 23385. Ethanol is the alcohol found in liquors; acetic […]

Why do some families see more than their fair share of twin births? Identical twins are a random surprise, but scientists know that non-identical (or fraternal) twins have a genetic link. Finding the specific genes involved, however, has been another story. Now, new research has picked up on seven genes, and a test for them […]

Actress Olivia Munn has shared that she was diagnosed with luminal B breast cancer in April 2023 and has since undergone surgical removal of both of her breasts. “[Munn’s OBYGYN] looked at factors like my age, familial breast cancer history, and the fact that I had my first child after the age of 30. She […]

A giant volcano taller than Mount Everest has been detected on Mars – but perhaps the most extraordinary thing is that it was sitting right there in images collected by Mariner 9 in 1972. A sheet of glacier ice is suspected of lying beneath it, and the likely combination of water and heat mean that […]

The big news recently broke that gars’ genetic history reveals they are “living fossils“, evolving significantly slower than any other jawed vertebrate. The breakthrough in our understanding of living fossils revealed why they’ve remained largely unchanged for tens of millions of years, and it means they can create viable hybrids with other species – even […]