Deborah Bloomfield

Few prehistoric animals are more iconic than the woolly mammoth: gigantic tusked beasts covered in shaggy hair, wandering the steppes of Eurasia and North America, occasionally doing battle with early humans or getting annoyed with the odd ground sloth. But like any species, their looks were the result of eons of evolution – and a […]

As one of the most useful minerals on Earth, gold is favored for its conductivity, inability to tarnish, workability, and of course its good looks. But despite its seeming abundance, might our gold supplies one day run out? History has seen a number of “gold rush” periods around the world, with major deposits being found […]

This week, melting permafrost reveals a 13th-century Mongol Empire graveyard, we reveal the many ways in which we know the Moon landing clearly wasn’t faked, and we take a look at ancient Egyptian engineering methods to establish just how they built the pyramids. Giant, Stinking Blob Reaches Record-Breaking Size, Now It’s Headed For Florida Coastlines […]

The Walls of Jericho are one of the most iconic sites mentioned in the Bible. While most scholars say the Bible’s famous account of the war that took place there cannot be verified, the massive stone walls of this Neolithic settlement have been found by archaeologists, many of whom believe it’s one of the oldest […]

Before humans started heating the planet by burning fossil fuels in the 19th century, Earth had experienced centuries-long widespread cool period known as the Little Ice Age. Scientists believe this cold spell may have been triggered, in part, by volcanic eruptions which made the atmosphere hazier, blocking some incoming sunlight. Advertisement Records of these eruptions […]

If you’ve ever had the eerie sensation there’s a presence in the room when you were sure you were alone, you may be reluctant to admit it. Perhaps it was a profound experience that you are happy to share with others. Or – more likely – it was something in between the two. Unless you […]

If you believe some people, the key to a good relationship is “electricity” or “chemistry”. Listen to others, and they’ll have you believe it all comes down to biology instead. According to a new study, though, they’re all way off: the true science of friendship, it turns out, is math. “Past research has shown that […]

It might not look like it, but you’re going to have to trust us on this one: human skin is covered in stripes. Called the lines of Blaschko, or Blaschko lines, it’s thought they map the movements of cells from when the body was developing in the womb. This mysterious pattern only becomes visible under […]

Researchers claim to have bulk-produced cultivated fat tissue with tunable amounts of fat molecules, potentially allowing lab-grown meat to finally replicate that true meat taste. The lab-grown fat has the same molecular makeup as natural fat and can be produced at scale, making it have the potential to be used in the same processes currently […]

Fantasy fans rejoice, we’re here to tell you that dire wolves actually do exist! Well, existed is more accurate, since these ancient enormous predators roamed around in the Pleistocene North and South America. A specimen of one of these wolves found in Medicine Hat, Canada was never fully described, but research into the dentition of […]

Humans may be the dominant species on the planet right now, but it wasn’t all that long ago, relatively speaking, that we were little more than a bunch of apes with a tendency to fall out of trees more than their cousins. Back in those days, the biggest numbers we had to deal with were […]

A seemingly simple but extremely puzzling mirror experiment has gone viral on TikTok and other video platforms. Place a sheet of paper on a mirror and place an object behind it. As you move, the object will appear in the mirror even though it is separated from the mirror by the piece of paper. TikTok […]

The longest snake in the world is the reticulated python, Malayopython reticulatus. While they typically stretch to lengths surpassing 6 meters (12 feet), the longest ever recorded was a whopping 9.75-meter (32-foot) reticulated python that was found on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi in 1912. Unfortunately, that lengthy specimen was also shot, so the record […]

High above the Peruvian Amazon, the forests beam with gold. While the glittering pits might look pretty from low-Earth orbit, the image actually highlights a worrying problem back home on planet Earth. An astronaut on board the International Space Station (ISS) took this photograph of gold prospecting pits while drifting above eastern Peru on Christmas […]

In 2012, a group of archaeologists were digging at a site in Italy in the hopes of rediscovering a lost Etruscan tomb, known as the Tomb of the Sun and Moon, that had once been a popular tourist destination in the 18th and 19th century. Unfortunately, they were not successful, but their failure led to […]

A 200,000 light-year-long trail of bright stars has been found stretching between a distant galaxy and a curious formation. After close examination astronomers have concluded what we are seeing is a hyper-fast black hole plowing through intergalactic space. The black hole’s passage is compressing the diffuse gas that exists even between galaxies enough to start […]

Incredible new footage from the depths of the Atlantic shows an extremely rare sighting of a bigfin squid, a scarcely seen cephalopod known for its alien-like appearance and freakishly long tentacles.  The video (below) was captured by Schmidt Ocean’s remotely operated sub that was snooping around the “Lost City hydrothermal vent field” found along the […]

Cassiopeia A is a supernova remnant. From our point of view, 340 years ago, a massive star collapsed in on itself and turned into a supernova, flinging material out into the cosmos. This material has expanded greatly in the last three centuries and a half, the expansion shell moving at thousands of kilometers per second […]

Crab libidos can be curbed by shipping traffic, according to preliminary research that deployed crustacean sex dolls to see if noise pollution threw male green shore crabs off their game. The dolls were pheromone-soaked sponges that were convincing enough to get the crabs on board, but exposure to ship noise proved to be enough to […]

Priam’s Treasure may be some of the most famed and controversial archeological relics ever recovered. The cache of gold and other stunning artifacts was discovered in the 19th century by German businessman and amateur archeologist Heinrich Schliemann, who professed they belonged to the ancient king of Troy from Homer’s epic poem Illiad. His claim, however, […]