Deborah Bloomfield

If you only ever saw the leaves or flowers of the Decaisnea fargesii shrub, you might not be tempted to give it a second glance – they look a lot like plenty of other leaves and flowers do. But come the fall, something happens to this plant that you’d be hard-pressed to miss. It grows […]

The Earth’s magnetic field has a giant weak spot roughly aligned with the south Atlantic, and 11 years of observations show it has grown dramatically in that time. The cause of the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA) is still debated, but the changes show it is dynamic on a relatively short timescale, considering evidence it has […]

In 1965, the US Air Force and the Lincoln Laboratory at MIT launched two Lincoln Experimental Satellites (LES) into orbit around the Earth: LES-1 and LES-2. These were the first super-high-frequency satellites, using the X-band of the electromagnetic spectrum. “Lincoln Laboratory’s space communications program after Project West Ford began in 1963 with a charter to […]

Declared extinct in the wild decades ago, a newborn Spix’s macaw hatchling at a European zoo is offering the species fresh hope. The Spix’s macaw (Cyanopsitta spixii) is a brilliantly blue parrot once native to the dry tropical forests of northeastern Brazil. With its vivid cerulean plumage and paler gray-blue head, this striking bird is […]

Interstellar object 3I/ATLAS is a comet and an extremely interesting one at that. Despite the overwhelming amount of evidence of its cometary nature, however, erroneous claims that it could be an alien spacecraft and even that the aliens have nefarious intentions* are getting a lot of media coverage. We thought, hey, if they are rolling […]

Every now and then, somebody with a lot more self-belief than is warranted will set out to the “end” of the Earth in order to “prove” we are living not on an oblate sphere, but a pancake. They have traveled to Antarctica for a “final experiment” and attempted to sail to the edge, always ending […]

Earth has reached its first climate tipping point, according to an official new update, marking a “new reality” for our natural world. The tipping point concerns the world’s warm-water coral reefs, which have recently been facing repeated, unprecedented die-offs due to relentlessly rising ocean temperatures. With global temperatures already about 1.4°C (2.52°F) above pre-industrial levels, […]

What do you get when you propose to someone at a cheesemaking facility? Hopefully a yes, if they’re not too put off by the smell – but as a new study has shown, you might also end up with the ability to witness evolution in real time. That’s what happened in 2016, when Tufts University […]

Human embryo models capable of synthesizing their own blood have been developed, in an advance that could lead to new treatments for blood disorders as well as the production of stem cells for transplants. The 3D structures, named “hematoids”, are similar to embryos but differ in several important ways. They don’t have the capacity to […]

Sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing – these are the senses we’re probably all familiar with. But we humans may not be limited to just five: some scientists argue for a “sixth sense” – though there are several contenders for what this might be – while others suggest we have way more. One candidate for […]

Viewed from space, modern Earth looks like a blue marble, decorated with swirls of wispy clouds and slabs of green and brown land. But in our home planet’s freshman years, it might not have been dominated by greenish-blues, but soft purple hues.  This is what’s known as the “Purple Earth Hypothesis”, an idea first proposed […]

These days, the humble hippo is found exclusively in sub-Saharan Africa, but that hasn’t always been the case – thousands of years ago, the river horse also inhabited central Europe, for far longer than we once thought. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full […]

The list of animals pushed into extinction has grown even longer. In its latest update, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has officially declared several species extinct, including a charismatic bird, Australian marsupials, and a couple of plants. The update, part of the IUCN’s Red List of Threatened Species, tracks the conservation status […]

Of all the ghostly creatures lurking in our oceans, a recently spotted deep-sea cusk eel species cosplaying as a giant phantom tadpole might just be our new favorite. This bizarre creature was seen during E/V Nautilus’ latest expedition, which aims to explore the previously uncharted deep-sea areas of the Cook Islands in the South Pacific. […]

All manner of deep ocean creatures live beneath the waves, from funky disco worms to octopuses and just about every manner of tentacled creature you can think of. Off the coast of Uruguay, a deep-sea chanchito, or sea pig, was recently recorded zooming past an underwater camera. The rest of this article is behind a […]

NASA astronaut Don Pettit has helped YouTuber Steve Mould with the final step in his “weird chain theory”: testing the idea in space. In 2013, YouTuber and science communicator Steve Mould brought the “chain fountain”, an unsolved problem in physics, to the attention of the wider public. The effect, sometimes referred to as the “Mould […]

Did you know that organisms that live exclusively in caves are known as troglobites? It’s not the most appealing name in the world, but it seems fitting. Brings to mind images of wet, cold, and dark places where unknown liquids drip from the ceiling (some of which has been discovered to be the oldest water […]

Thousands of volunteers recorded bird behavior in response to the total solar eclipse of 2024, revealing a diversity of bird responses.  For some, the wonder of total solar eclipses is enhanced with reports of animals responding as if night has come early. In 1932, New England cattle were reported heading to their barns, while frogs […]

Since we became a (semi) intelligent species and started studying the cosmos, humanity has been on a long journey to realizing we are not the center of the universe, the galaxy, or even the Solar System. While disappointing for an egotistical species, this realization has led us to discoveries about the real nature of our […]

October is Nobel Prize season, an annual period when scientists in the fields of physics, chemistry, and medicine eagerly await to see who will win a giant gold coin in Stockholm later that year. Even economists get their turn in the spotlight in these. But mathematicians, much to their dismay, are left out in the […]