Deborah Bloomfield

Pink diamonds are rare among Earth’s precious stones, and the exact recipe to their formation has puzzled scientists. Now, a ground-breaking discovery from Western Australia’s Argyle has identified a crucial event that needs to take place for pink diamonds to form and appear near Earth’s surface, and it may make them easier to find in […]

In February 1987, a star went supernova in the Large Magellanic Cloud, one of the small galaxies that orbit around our own galaxy, the Milky Way. It was the closest known supernova since 1604 and it has been studied with so many telescopes in so many different wavelengths. The latest taken to this task was […]

If we are going to find life in the universe, it makes sense to look at conditions on the only planet we know has life (you haven’t missed anything big, that’s still Earth) to see what sort of conditions to look for. One of these factors, thought to be important to the development of life, […]

JWST continues to deliver on the promise of incredible images. The latest one is of the protostellar outflows of Herbig-Haro 211. Said like that, even with the image above this text, might not tell you much. So let us put it another way: you are looking at what an extremely young and tiny star throws […]

Almost three years after touching the surface of asteroid Bennu, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx is coming back to Earth. The spacecraft is bringing back a sample collected during that incredible encounter and is scheduled to drop its precious cargo in the Utah desert on Sunday, making it the first-ever US mission to bring a piece of an […]

Archaeologists at an old mining site in Dürrnberg, near Salzburg, Austria, have recovered a perfectly preserved child’s shoe that is thought to be over 2,000 years old. The specimen is so well preserved that remnants of the fine materials used to lace it have also survived. Since 2001, researchers with the German Mining Museum Bochum, […]

Between plagues, wars, and freakishly cold weather, the early modern period was not the best time to be a human in England. For women in particular, there was another ever-present threat to contend with: allegations of witchcraft. But why were so many more women than men accused of practicing the dark arts? A new study […]

Physicists suspect the universe contains magnetic monopoles – north or south poles without their counterpart. They’ve yet to find them, but new data from the world’s most powerful particle collider has allowed them to tighten the limits on where in energy-space they may lie. Every magnet we know, from the Earth itself down to tiny […]

You’ve probably been told at some point that oil is made from dinosaurs, thinking that when you are at a gas station you are pumping refined velociraptor directly into your Volvo. As widespread as the belief is, it’s not true. Oil is not made from the decomposed bodies of ancient dinosaurs.  “For some strange reason, […]

We’re only three-quarters through this year, but scientists in China are already forecasting that 2023 is likely to see the hottest global surface temperatures in recorded history. Moreover, there’s a good chance we’ll see record-smashing temperatures in 2024 too if current trajectories are anything to go by. There are a few factors driving this trend. […]

In a step towards a Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs-esque future, 3D-printed vegan salmon can now be found on the shelves of Austrian supermarkets. The alternative fish fillet, dubbed “THE FILET – Inspired By Salmon” by its creator, the food tech startup Revo Foods, is thought to be the first 3D-printed food to reach […]

There are few things more sinister than a parasite that hijacks the brains of infected ants and effectively turns them into zombies. But new research has shown that these tiny worms are even more sophisticated than we gave them credit for, altering the behavior of their unwitting hosts in response to temperature to maximize their […]

Teeth, claws, enormous silhouettes: that’s what a lot of us see when we imagine the prehistoric planet. However, there was a whole host of animals living it up before the rise of the dinosaurs that saw them dominate the Earth until Chicxulub crashed the party. The same dino fever that led some people to think […]

Archaeologists have uncovered 14 arrowheads that are changing our understanding of how bows and arrows were developed and used in pre-Hispanic South America. The research not only provides new insights into how these tools for hunting and warfare were used, but also helps uncover their symbolic significance for the surrounding region. A unique find  The […]

With scarcely any living relatives and a lineage dating to the age of the dinosaurs, the Wollemi pine (Wollemia nobilis) has been described by many as a “living fossil”. Botanists have now sequenced the genome of the Wollemi pine, revealing how the plant has remained relatively unchanged for millions upon millions of years.   It […]

The JWST has turned its attention to Saturn, and captured images of a season we’ve never observed there before: the end of the northern hemisphere’s summer. This means the space telescope is able to see what has been one of the highlights of the ringed planet in recent years, the enormous polar vortex, for what […]

Despite it happening year after year, and attempts in the US to establish a permanent time zone, changing the clocks twice a year remains an annoyance to morning people, night owls, and anyone with a circadian rhythm. But what if there was a place where you can select which time zone you are in, perhaps […]

Untold millions of years ago, a meteorite fell from the sky and hit a mountain range in northeastern China, causing it to split into two peaks. New research claims reveal the structure of the impact site for the first time. The crater is located in Jilin province, near China’s border with North Korea. The impact […]

As a young kid, you were no doubt told by your teachers how many continents there are on Earth. However, the answer you were given most likely depends on where (and when) you were taught. In the US, students are generally told that there are seven continents: North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, […]

It’s mid-September, which means the amount of sea ice surrounding Antarctica should be reaching a healthy level as it hits its annual maximum extent. However, according to satellite readings from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), the quantity of ice is currently way below anything that has ever been seen before at this […]