Deborah Bloomfield

When you are firing a spacecraft at an asteroid, touching the spacecraft down on that asteroid very briefly to collect a sample, and then returning the sample to Earth, there are a lot of opportunities for problems. Despite the difficulty of the task, NASA successfully returned a sample of asteroid Bennu to Earth in late […]

Gravity affects the trajectory of light. This was a crucial test of Einstein’s theory of general relativity and it has been proven time and time again. Cosmic objects that pack a large mass in a relatively small space produce the most dramatic effects, gravitational lenses. Space-time is warped so much that it acts like a […]

Three heavy elements have been observed in the aftermath of a gamma ray burst (GRB), the first time synthesis of these elements has been observed, helping fill in the origins of more of the periodic table. The origin of elements with atomic masses heavier than iron has been something of a mystery for a long […]

While insects are perhaps the most overlooked animal group in the world, they are also by far the most numerous. From butterflies to beetles, they inhabit almost every ecosystem on Earth and there’s one group that might have created the largest civilization right under our feet. The Formicidae family contains roughly 12,000 species of ants. […]

New research on deepfake videos about the Russian invasion of Ukraine has shown they are distorting people’s perception of reality, creating a dangerous atmosphere where many users do not trust any media they see. Fueled by this deep distrust, conspiracy theories and paranoia are being allowed to flourish. Manipulated images in political propaganda are nothing […]

Scientists may have found the culprit behind the death of hundreds of African elephants back in 2020: an obscure bacterium known as Bisgaard taxon 45 that’s never been seen in wild elephants before. In May and June 2020, a total of 350 elephants in Botswana mysteriously dropped dead. Following this mass die-off, a further 35 […]

If a skunk had a baby with a scorpion, you might just end up with something like a giant vinegaroon. These bizarre arachnids are named after the potent acid they spray that stinks to high heaven of acetic acid, the same thing you get a whiff of from vinegar. Now, three new members have joined […]

Earth is the only planet we know of that has ever had a fire. While there may be volcanos pushing out hot magma on the surface of Venus, the hottest planet in the Solar System, there has never been a fire there. Nor on Mercury, nor Jupiter, nor any of the other planets surrounding our […]

The planet 55 Cancri e has puzzled astronomers who have observed evidence of an atmosphere during some secondary eclipses, but not others. Geochemical outgassing from its magma ocean may provide the answer.  Most of the planets we have found would be pretty unpleasant places for humans, but few are quite as bad as the super-Earth […]

The mighty moa was an avian giant that stalked the Earth as the tallest bird in history. Despite its enormous size, it’s believed to have gone extinct before Europeans first reached its native home of New Zealand, and yet alleged sightings of the bird endured long after their arrival. Cryptozoology is a fantastic field of […]

A team of cybersecurity experts say they have figured out how to access a Bitcoin wallet worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The only problem is that the owner isn’t interested. In 2011, programmer Stefan Thomas created an animated video titled “What Is Bitcoin” for a Bitcoin enthusiast in Switzerland. For his trouble, he was […]

The world’s largest offshore wind farm under construction in the North Sea has started pumping out electricity for the first time. Just one wind turbine is operating so far, but one swoop of its giant blades is enough to power an average UK home for about two days. Known as Dogger Bank, the giant wind […]

Throughout history, twin studies have yielded some incredible scientific insights – NASA even sent one of a pair of identical twins to space. The opportunity to study this unique group is too good to pass up, and now a new analysis of twin data has drawn a fascinating link between autism and the mysterious phenomenon […]

We don’t want to sound completely unhinged, like someone yelling “sharks have been around the galaxy twice” (they have) or “McFlurries look the way they do because of hedgehogs” (they do), but around 10 percent of the Internet is encrypted via lava lamps. Encryption, in its most basic form, is scrambling data (be that text, […]

A surprise fertilization event in a fish nursery stunned scientists in 2020 when American paddlefish and Russian sturgeon successfully bred to create a hybrid group of animals dubbed “sturddlefish”. Cooked up by the gametes of seven individuals, the proceeding group exhibited different ratios of features from the two species, with some looking more like their […]

Having sex regularly could contribute to improved health and a longer life in people with high blood pressure, according to new research. In a study of over 4,500 people, scientists found a significant link between less frequent sex and greater mortality in younger and middle-aged patients in the US. High blood pressure, or hypertension, is […]

An ancient landscape that has remained hidden beneath the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) for at least 14 million years has been revealed by a new satellite data and radar imaging study. According to the researchers, the preservation of this primordial scenery attests to the fact that the EAIS has remained relatively unchanged for eons, […]

A team of planetary scientists believe they may have found a super cryovolcano on Pluto, after reviewing images and data from New Horizons’ flyby of the dwarf planet in 2015. When NASA’s New Horizons probe made that visit, before going onwards to the Kuiper belt, it revealed a number of signs of volcanic episodes in […]

There’s something strange happening in the world of fungi – rather than solely dining upon the dead, bonnet mushrooms have now been found to invade living plants. Bonnet mushrooms, also known by their genus name Mycena, have long been thought to be saprotrophic organisms, living exclusively off nonliving organic matter, like dead trees. However, when […]

A distinctive, unusually shaped, or intricately textured glass bottle can be an interesting collector’s item or decoration – but for those in the past, these aesthetically pleasing vessels were made for a life-saving reason. It can’t have been easy staying alive in the Victorian era, from arsenic-tinged wallpaper and books and sweets to… unusual methods […]