Deborah Bloomfield

Ten millennia ago, a bunch of teenagers in what is now Sweden chewed up and spat out pieces of birch resin, in much the same way that modern kids might stick their used gum to the underside of a school desk. Little did these ancient adolescents know, however, that their discarded chewings would one day […]

New research has revealed a grave historical error at Palacio de Cortés in Mexico. It was long assumed that a skeleton on display at the palace was that of a Spanish monk – but a new analysis has shown that it actually likely belonged to an Aztec woman. Palacio de Cortés in the city of […]

Some memories are best forgotten. Granted, this observation is unlikely to make you feel better if you’re running late for work because you can’t remember where you put your keys… but when we’re talking about memories associated with addictive substances, the possible issues around this become clearer. A new study has uncovered the mechanism that […]

This week, water flows freely down the Klamath River for the first time in 100 years, the oldest known supermassive black hole was found at the center of GN-z11, and a 14,000-year-old woolly mammoth tusk tells the tale of the animal’s huge journey. Finally, we ask what will be happening on the surface of the […]

Snake fangs get a lot of attention, from their use in creating anti-venom to figuring out how they evolved. One area of research has now gone beyond just the fangs, looking at the way that all of the teeth and their morphology are related to the whole of the snake as it moves in response […]

Call it Botox, Dysport, or Jeuveau – there’s no denying that injections with botulinum toxin A are popular. In fact, over 8.7 million cosmetic procedures were carried out with them in the US in 2022. But does their regular, long-term use make any real difference to the faces of those who receive them? A case […]

If you are someone who has a child, plays some other role in a child’s life, or are simply near one at a bus stop, at some point you are going to be asked how clouds stay in the sky by a toddler. Science lessons from your youth fade pretty quickly, we get it. There’s […]

This is the computer that helped secure the Allied victory in the Second World War and sent the Third Reich to the trash can of history. GCHQ, the UK’s intelligence agency, has unveiled never-before-seen images of the code-cracking computers that played a crucial role in the Second World War. They’ve been released to mark the […]

Honey is enjoyed by humans and animals alike the world over, but if stories about it being delicious bee barf have put you off your breakfast, you can rest assured it’s not vomit – but it’s also not much better. There are around 20,000 species of bees in the world and, of these, less than […]

In I898, Olof Öhman, a Swedish immigrant living in Minnesota, claimed to have found a huge 90-kilogram (200-pound) slab of stone, hidden in the roots of a tree. The slab was covered in characters of the runic alphabet used by peoples of northern Europe, Britain, Scandinavia, and Iceland before the 17th century. A translation of […]

Humans are too recent arrivals on Earth to have taken advantage of a time when Antarctica was habitable, let alone when continental drift made it possible to walk there. Nevertheless, humans have visited many places they found too forbidding to stay, raising the question of whether humans saw, or even set foot on, Antarctica before […]

Tomorrow is a big day for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The space agency will attempt to land its Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, or SLIM, on the Moon. If the mission is successful on a soft touch down, Japan will become the fifth nation to land on the Moon and the third this […]

In 2017, researchers used a virtual telescope the size of our planet to image the shadow of a supermassive black hole for the first time. The image was of M87*, the black hole at the center of galaxy Messier 87, and was the first image of the shadow of the event horizon and bright accretion […]

Those of you who are chronic users of TikTok (welcome to the gang) may have seen an unusual animal video doing the rounds this week: a two-headed calf. It’s a condition known as polycephaly, and although it’s widespread in mythology, it’s much rarer in reality.  What is polycephaly? The term polycephaly stems from the Greek […]

Planetary scientists believe they have found an enormous deposit of water ice near the Mars equator. Almost two decades ago, researchers discovered some peculiar deep deposits underneath the Medusae Fossae Formation (MFF). The latest data suggest these deposits are extremely rich in ice. The MFF is made of many wind-sculpted features and has an area […]

Following years of activism from Indigenous communities and environmentalists, the removal of dams along the Klamath River is allowing water to flow freely once again, marking a new hope for the region’s iconic salmon.  The Klamath River, which trails for 414 kilometers (257 miles) between Oregon and northwestern California, was once the third-largest salmon-producing river […]

If anywhere is going to be cursed, it’s the ancient Roman city of Pompeii, where thousands of bodies are perfectly preserved by the volcanic ash and pumice from an extraordinarily powerful eruption that wiped out everything, including neighboring town Herculaneum, thousands of years ago. Even rational people who know curses are Not A Thing might […]

If you received an invitation to get tested for the “Celtic Curse”, you might think you’d stumbled back in time, or through an enchanted piece of furniture to some fantasy realm. But the condition that goes by this nickname is very much a reality, and many sufferers are walking around without realizing they have it. […]

Most of us experience some sort of trauma during our lifetime, yet only about 25 to 35 percent of people who are exposed to severely disturbing events go on to develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). According to a new study, a person’s vulnerability to the condition may be determined by their responsiveness to stress hormones, […]

A marsupial that has sex until it drops dead has been found to cannibalize the spent remains of males that died in the frisky fray. Before you question their stamina, you should know that these animals embark on mating marathons that can go on for over 10 hours, resulting in an attack of hormones that […]