Deborah Bloomfield

Astronomers have cast their nets wide searching for habitable planets, and a team at the University of Georgia, Athens, argues that may be too broad to be useful. What we need, they suggest, is not simply to find planets that could support life, but to seek out those that could support the life we can […]

A video on TikTok has been circulating that claims to show how to make radiation visible to the naked eye. Although it might be tempting to conclude that this video is some sort of hoax, the phenomena being demonstrated is actually well documented using a piece of equipment called a “cloud chamber”. Not only are […]

Introverts across the world would likely understand the desire to isolate themselves for long periods of time, but a recent archaeological discovery shines light on a little-known medieval practice that would make even the most austere introvert blush. Researchers with the University of Sheffield and Oxford Archaeology have unearthed the remains of a 15th century […]

Deep beneath an unassuming corner of Tennessee, you can find America’s “Lost Sea”: the largest non-subglacial underground lake in the US, and likely the second largest in the world. Found in Craighead Caverns, this colossal body of underground water is so large that no one’s actually sure how big it is.  It’s located amidst the […]

A peculiar and mysterious yellow glass can be found in the desert of Egypt and Libya. It has been known for thousands of years and was famously used to make a scarab for the pectoral of 18th-dynasty pharaoh Tutankhamun. For a long time, people were uncertain of its origin, but researchers think they have found […]

Scientists have identified the murder weapon used to massacre 34 people in a German cave 5,000 years ago, as well as another person in Spain around the same time. To figure out how the ancient victims were slain, the researchers built and then smashed a series of fake skulls using popular Neolithic “weapon-tools”, noting the […]

With an estimated three million shipwrecks littering the ocean floor, chances of stumbling across one during your routine deep-sea scuba dive are higher than you might think. So, what should you do if you find a shipwrecked treasure trove, and can you keep the booty? The laws surrounding the discovery of shipwrecks, and who’s entitled […]

Beloved Hollywood actor Bruce Willis has been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, according to a statement released by his family. The 67-year-old, known for his roles in movies like Pulp Fiction and the Die Hard franchise, had decided last year to take a step away from acting after developing aphasia. Now, his family have sadly confirmed that his […]

We wouldn’t normally expect milk to be used in many medical procedures today, least of all in blood transfusions – but for a brief period of history, this substance was actually transfused instead of blood.  For as long as humans have been injuring themselves, there has been a need for blood replacements. According to some, […]

A mystery from the deep just got a little bit less mysterious thanks to the first scientific paper to arise from the Viking Expedition Team. While drifting through Antarctic waters, they spotted the scyphozoan (fancy word for jellyfish) Stygiomedusa gigantea, commonly known as the giant phantom jellyfish. Looking a bit like an errant piece of […]

Experiments have shown that ChatGPT is capable of passing a theory of mind test with the ability of a 9-year-old child. The question is: is artificial intelligence (AI) truly understanding the task at hand, or are we just being tricked by some super-smart mimicry?  Theory of mind is the ability to understand the unobservable mental […]

A study looking at penis sizes from 1942 until 2021 has found that the average erect penis length has increased significantly in the last 30 years, while flaccid penis lengths remained the same. While this may sound like good, or at least neutral, news, the lead researcher says that it could be caused by factors […]

In 1921, the first effective tuberculosis (TB) vaccine was used on human subjects to help protect against this lethal disease. Yet, 100 years later in 2021, more than 1.6 million people died from TB across the world, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), making it the top killer infection once again. There is now […]

Thor’s Well is among the oceans’ most perplexing natural wonders, appearing like a bottomless sinkhole that looks as though it’s draining the sea of its water. In actual fact, Thor’s Well is the remains of a sea cave, carved out by water, whose ceiling collapsed. Found in the Cape Perpetua Scenic Area along the Oregon […]

British Olympic athlete and former American footballer Lawrence Okoye went on TikTok recently to show his followers an interesting but “nasty” symptom he’d developed. In the video, he teased, “Looks like a normal leg, right? Watch this,” then pressed down on his leg with his thumb, leaving indents that remained for the remainder of the […]

Back in the heyday of reality TV not really giving a hoot about ethics, one reality show in the UK placed 10 boys and 10 girls in separate houses to look after themselves, without adult supervision. The children, all aged 11 or 12, were provided with food, money, toys, and cleaning equipment for the “experiment”, […]

On the largest scales, the Universe is ordered into a web-like pattern: galaxies are pulled together into clusters, which are connected by filaments and separated by voids. These clusters and filaments contain dark matter, as well as regular matter like gas and galaxies. We call this the “cosmic web”, and we can see it by […]

A lot has changed for humanity over the last 5,000 years. We invented writing, and built Stonehenge; we survived wave after wave of deadly plagues and even worse medical procedures; we’ve become so technologically advanced, in fact, that it’s probably going to be our own downfall before too long.   But some things are exactly […]

Astronomers have been left stunned by a perfectly spherical explosion produced by a collision between two neutron stars 140 million light-years from Earth. Known as a kilanova, the enormous radioactive fireball was first detected in 2017 and is currently being analyzed by multiple teams of scientists, yet the latest revelation about its shape challenges our […]

Embedded in a cave wall deep underneath Kentucky, archeologists found the remains of a colossal shark that cruised some 330 million years ago. The cave might be a long way from the ocean today, but the discovery shows that this part of North America was once riddled with sharks. In 2020, a field team from Maryland-National […]