Deborah Bloomfield

It’s been a rocky road for Japan’s SLIM lunar lander ever since it touched down on the Moon’s surface. Having made a record-breaking landing with a bump that jeopardized its entire mission, it made a comeback, rejuvenated by the Sun’s rays. But now, it faces its toughest challenge yet: surviving the freezing lunar night. This […]

The next time you sit down to tackle a jigsaw puzzle, bring your calculator – you just might need it. Math kind of has a reputation for being a dry topic, suitable only for boffins and… uh… FBI agents? But the truth is, mathematicians are fun, cool people, who enjoy maximally efficient parties and humorous […]

The waters of the St. Lawrence River are flowing with antidepressants, simulants, painkillers, and many other kinds of drugs, according to a new study. Scientists have recently studied the pharmaceutical pollution of the river and concluded that some of the compounds could pose a threat to the aquatic organisms living in the environment.  The entire […]

One of the most notorious “forever chemicals” is perfluorooctanoic acid or PFOA. By their very design, these substances are extremely difficult to degrade, which makes them very useful in industrial applications but also bad for our health and the environment as they tend to accumulate. A couple of years ago, researchers worked out that using […]

This week the first cases of penguins dying from bird flu were observed in Antarctica, a new “blood battery” powered by haemoglobin can run for 20 to 30 days, and world-first footage shows a parrot swinging from its beak like a monkey. Finally, we ask why some champagne bottles on the Titanic never imploded. Subscribe […]

Most of us think we know what a “midlife crisis” is. It’s the shiny new sports car, the questionable combover, and all those other barely-concealed penis metaphors, all culminating in one big “I only get to see the kids every other week now.” But hang on. Time and time again, science has shown us that […]

When searching for alien civilizations in the universe, we often look at the development of life on Earth for clues as to what to look for.  It makes sense to do so. We have only found intelligent life (ish) life on this planet, so it’s sensible to look for the sort of signatures emitted from […]

Maritime archaeologists have recently returned to the site of a sunken medieval shipwreck to carry out a new geophysical survey, hoping to uncover more of the vessel’s long-lost story. Known as the Avaldsnes ship, the 600-year-old wreck is found in a shallow body of water less than 1 meter (3 feet) deep in an intertidal […]

In 2010, researchers at Google estimated that a total of 1,022,000 words existed in the English language and that the number grows by around 8,500 every single year. It all seems a bit much. Could it be possible to communicate effectively with, let’s say, just 120 or so words? That’s the idea behind Toki Pona, […]

A planet with a radius 55 percent larger than Earth’s has been found in the habitable zone of a relatively nearby star. A second planet, closer in size to the Earth, is suspected to also lie within the habitable zone of the same system – which would make it the smallest habitable zone planet yet […]

Brace yourself folks this is not good news. King and gentoo penguins on islands between the Antarctic mainland and South America have been found dead from bird flu for the first time. Bird flu has been spreading across the globe, even causing the death of a polar bear in Alaska, and has now been reported […]

There are plenty of conspiracy theories available on the internet. If you want to believe the world is flat and that if you walk off the edge you simply teleport your way to the other side like Pac-Man, you’d better believe that there’s someone on the internet who will support you in your weirdly specific […]

The Yellow Emperor of China and the Scorpion King of Egypt are two elusive figures from the ancient past that inhabit the foggy world between myth and history. Is it possible that they are the same person? It’s a sensational theory, but one which a Chinese researcher believes they have proof for.  In a new […]

Scientists at the University of Córdoba in Spain have come up with a way of incorporating hemoglobin – the key component of red blood cells – into a battery, creating a prototype that kept working for between 20 and 30 days. Zinc-air batteries are one of the most sustainable alternatives we have to the ubiquitous […]

Supermassive black holes can certainly be messy eaters. They are not exactly plugholes that devour every last drop. In fact, they are more like toddlers. Sure, they might be gluttons and try to get a lot of food in their mouths, but they will also make a mess. So imagine finding a mess even when […]

Around 9,000 years ago, during what’s known as the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, the ancient inhabitants of the Middle East developed the curious custom of plastering the skulls of their dead. Often, these coated crania were then decorated with colorful pigments and other adornments to make them appear more lifelike, although historians are unsure exactly why and […]

The test results are in and it’s not a clean bill of health for the US. Statistics released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Tuesday have revealed what’s been described as an “out of control” epidemic of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in the country. The findings come from the CDC’s most […]

The beauty of Northern and Southern Lights is undeniable, and it is always wonderful when they are caught doing something weird – stunning peculiar behavior that hints at the cosmic forces that make these events possible. Have you ever seen the aurorae do little curls? Well, now is your chance. Taken by astrophotographer Jeff Dai, […]

One of the last people to live inside an “iron lung” has recently joined TikTok and uses the platform to share fascinating insights into his very unique story.  Paul Alexander contracted polio at the age of six in 1952 when an outbreak swept through his hometown of Dallas, Texas. Polio is an infectious disease caused […]

Behold the X-ray sky as you have never seen it before. The space telescope eROSITA has been observing the sky for several years and researchers have now published the map of half of the sky. It is the largest map of high-energy sources ever created. The data was collected between December 2019 and June 2020 […]