Deborah Bloomfield

We’re not quite sure why, but there seems to be a resurgence in people attempting to play amateur volcanologist and asking, “Why can’t we just pour concrete into a volcano to stop it from erupting?” The suggestion has popped up on Twitter, Facebook and Reddit lately as a way of preventing deaths. Advertisement First off, […]

Over the last century, the world has benefitted from countless health research breakthroughs and many advancements in medical knowledge. Just in the last few years, these have ranged from poop transplants and regenerating livers to lab-grown blood and a malaria vaccine. You name it, scientists have probably dissected and analyzed it with the aim to […]

If you have been looking west at dusk over the last few days you may have spotted two bright lights in the evening sky. Those are not stars, but planets: Venus and Jupiter. The two celestial bodies are going to be in conjunction over the next few days, appearing their closest on Wednesday, March 1. […]

Over three weeks after the toxic train derailment on February 3 in East Palestine, Ohio, a reel of strange and unusual symptoms has started to be reported among local residents. It’s still not clear if and how many of the symptoms are linked to the recent environmental disaster, but the Centers for Disease Control and […]

Over the past few years, images have circulated of kangaroos sitting in shallow water with their heads above the surface, seemingly inviting you in for a beer to chill. Unfortunately, this is Australia we’re talking about, so a betting person would say that it’s trying to kill you in one way or another.  Following the […]

A female orca has been giving a newborn long-finned pilot whale an easy ride in the waters off western Iceland, as if the youngster was her own calf. However, the biologists who observed the event are cautious as to whether this is a case of cross-species lifeline for an animal that would have died otherwise, […]

Whales and dolphins have long captivated humankind but our planet’s biggest animals still retain some mystery about how and when they sleep. Here, we take a deep dive into the world of cetacean sleep patterns. How do whales sleep? First of all, whales, dolphins, and porpoises are collectively known as cetaceans, they are mammals (not […]

The presence of archaic genes within the modern human genome tells us that Homo sapiens once interbred with other hominin species such as Neanderthals and Denisovans, although where and when these ancient rendezvous occurred is difficult to say. Seeking to solve the mystery, the authors of a new study have retraced the potential dispersal routes […]

A new study looking at the effects of carbonated beverages on mice has found that feeding them Pepsi and Coca-Cola increased the size of their testicles and boosted their testosterone concentrations. However, as the authors note, this goes against previous findings that have found harmful effects of carbonated drink consumption on reproductive health. One survey […]

One winery in the South of France has an especially unique selling point that has been bottled up for decades: it lies within the impact crater of an ancient meteorite. After over 70 years of speculation, the discovery was made thanks to a new analysis of the rock and soil, which contained so-called “microdiamonds”. The […]

At the center of the Milky Way sits Sagittarius A*, a supermassive black hole that weighs 4.6 million times our Sun. It is orbited by several stars and a few peculiar objects including the mysterious X7. It’s possible X7 is not long for this world and could become food for Sagittarius A* within the next […]

A rare fossil has revealed new insights into the evolution that saw some of the oldest dinosaurs give rise to the ancient ancestors of birds, telling us that some of them may have been making bird-like vocalizations back in the Cretaceous. It’s the oldest laryngeal fossil known to science, say researchers on a new paper, […]

Kids who experience frequent nightmares are more likely to be diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease later in life, according to a new study. While the research shouldn’t cause parents to freak out – after all, up to 50 percent of children experience nightmares from time to time – it’s not the first time that bad dreams […]

The Southeast US will soon be springing with genetically modified (GM) trees that have been tweaked to turbocharge their ability to photosynthesize. The idea is that the fast-growing trees will become even more efficient at soaking up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and help ease the climate crisis. The project is the brainchild of the […]

The planet is teaming with top-of-the-food-chain predators, and while humans are easily the biggest consumers we are by no means the most impressive hunters. For this, we must look to the cunning behemoths of the animal kingdom as Kodiak bears and Siberian tigers make us look like puny naked monkeys. But who is the greatest […]

New intelligence has led the US Department of Energy to conclude that the coronavirus pandemic was likely caused by a Chinese laboratory leak, but the White House claims that American intelligence is still deeply divided on the subject.  The conclusions, which were first reported by The Wall Street Journal, represent a change in the Department […]

The president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (who goes by AMLO), has posted a photo of what he believes to be an “alux”; small mythical creatures believed in folklore to be invisible in general, but that occasionally take on physical form, dressing in tiny traditional Maya clothing when they do so. “I share two […]

For decades, astronomers’ estimations for the rate at which new stars are being formed in the Milky Way have been ponderously slow, but a new study argues the true value is ten times that. If so, it would overturn the way we view our galaxy and how it compares to others. Astronomers divide galaxies between […]

Suffering from long COVID can dramatically increase your risk of cardiovascular complications, a new study and meta-analysis have revealed. More than three years into the COVID-19 pandemic, we’re starting to get a much better handle on the disease which has so far claimed the lives of over a million people in the US alone. Advertisement […]