Deborah Bloomfield

A series of statements attributed to British astronomers and astronauts have sparked speculation the JWST has found evidence for alien life. Those quoted are respected names, but since at least one of them has been misquoted, there’s probably more smoke than fire. Even if something has been found, it’s almost certainly hints of little green […]

What did the galaxies in the early universe look like? Researchers now think they have a clearer idea, and like many of us in the Northern Hemisphere are battling with freezing temperatures and dreaming of summer. So, in their beach-themed analogy, galaxies at the edge of what we can see are close in shape to […]

Here’s a fun fact to annoy people with; depending on how pedantic you are as a person, you could call the Sun blue-green. In fact, you have NASA’s permission to do so. “So, the sun actually emits energy at all wavelengths from radio to gamma ray. But,” NASA explained ahead of the 2017 eclipse, “it […]

It’s almost four years since COVID-19 was officially declared a pandemic. Although the state of emergency has now passed, and vaccines and treatment advances have helped turn the tide, the virus is very much still out there. The latest variant, JN.1, has brought with it some unexpected new symptoms – but how worried should we […]

After thousands of years of cohabiting with domesticated dogs, it’s surprising to think that we still don’t fully understand why our furry companions wag their tails. Hoping to finally crack this canine conundrum, the authors of a new opinion piece speculate that the behavior may have arisen to satisfy humans’ intrinsic sense of rhythm. While […]

Salmon is a great source of protein, omega-3 fatty acids, and various important nutrients – it also makes a great hat (if you happen to be an orca in the late 80s), but that’s neither here nor there. When buying it in the grocery store you have two options: wild caught or from the farm. […]

You may recognize Choriaster granulatus from such subreddits as r/mildlypenis, r/intentionallypenis, and r/oddlyarousing. The starfish is famous for its penis-like “arms” – but what you’re really looking at is a whole lot of head. C. granulatus, commonly known as the granulated sea star, is found across the Indo-Pacific. It enjoys warm waters and chilling on […]

When astronauts head to Mars, they will experience time dilation. That’s to be expected. In fact, your feet and your head experience time dilation, with your head aging ever so slightly faster than your feet. But how much time dilation will they experience (relative to Earth observers)? First off, let’s check we’re all on the […]

NASA’s Stardust mission to Comet Wild 2 has revealed its secrets very slowly. They’re finally coming together, however, and the results are showing that the outer Solar System in its early days was not the simple place previously thought. How one comet came to have dust from widely separated parts of the early Solar System […]

Have you ever heard of Jesus being called Jesus H. Christ? This is, in fact, not a little-known middle name like Hector, but a relic of the Greek alphabet and Christian symbolism. Dr Dan McClellan, Biblical scholar at the University of Birmingham and keen TikTokker, explains that the most widely accepted theory of the middle […]

The ancestors of frogs and toads were armed with large fangs and thousands of hook-like denticles, making their modern counterparts look a bit gummy by comparison. Do frogs have teeth? Yes, but exactly what kind of teeth and where they’re found varies significantly. Frogs have a complex history with teeth, estimated to have lost them […]

Scientists in China have successfully cloned a rhesus monkey that has managed to survive for more than two years after its birth. Off the back of this feat, the researchers claim their newly refined methods could provide a “promising strategy for primate cloning” in the future.  His name is “ReTro”, named after one of the […]

A pod of fossilized eggs has been found in John Day Fossil Beds National Monument in east-central Oregon, helping to solve a mystery of what creature had laid them (and others like them) millions of years ago. Eggs had previously been found at the site, but only as individuals, and had been misidentified as ant […]

As winter rages, and viruses continue to spread, you might find yourself wondering: Can I catch two at once? What about three, or four, or (gulp) more? And, perhaps most importantly, what happens if I do? It’s a question that was posed a lot back in 2022 when fears of a so-called “tripledemic” of COVID-19, flu, […]

A new study in mice has raised the tantalizing possibility that memory loss after a head injury could be reversible. Repeated head trauma, such as that experienced by professional football players and other sportspeople, is known to be a risk factor for neurodegenerative disease down the line. Taking heavy blows to the head over a […]

Scientists have found a mineral in lunar rocks that suggests there was a lot more water in the Moon’s crust than previously thought. The mineral in question is apatite, the most common phosphate, which is also found in our bones and teeth. The mineral contains volatile elements in its structure and tends to form in […]

The Indian Continental Plate could be splitting in two, a new study proposes. However, instead of breaking vertically, like east Africa, to form a new microcontinent, India could be sheering horizontally as it runs into Eurasia, separating into two layers each about 100 kilometers (60 miles) thick. The Himalayas form the world’s mightiest mountain range, […]

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has scrapped its plan to end the use of mammals for the safety testing of chemicals by 2035. First announced back in 2019, the plan was considered pretty controversial – and it seems the move to ditch it is no different. Chris Frey, assistant administrator for R&D at the […]

The year is 2075. The place: the Neil Armstrong International Lunar Base in Henson Crater, some 30 kilometers (19 miles) southwest of the moon’s South Pole. Chinese electrical engineer Liu Mei and American astronomer David Scott IV sit side by side inside a pressurized, six-wheeled, fuel cell-powered lunar transporter. They have just exited the station’s […]

Despite its popularity among horror-movie mad scientists, electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is actually a legitimate treatment for certain mental health disorders, and is effective for up to 80 percent of depressed patients who receive it. Strangely, however, researchers have until now been unable to explain how the procedure works, yet a pair of new studies has […]