Deborah Bloomfield

Dream Chaser Tenacity, a next-generation reusable spaceplane, is set to undergo testing at NASA ahead of its maiden voyage to the International Space Station (ISS) scheduled for 2024. Sierra Nevada Corporation, the aerospace company behind the spaceplane, has just delivered the first Dream Chaser spaceplane, called Tenacity, to NASA’s Neil Armstrong Test Facility in Ohio. […]

Sea turtles of different species have become somewhat of a poster child for all things climate change and plastic pollution-related, with dramatic pictures and rescue videos flooding our news feeds. However, conservationists have some good turtle-based news for once. In Cambodia, nine green turtle (Chelonia mydas) and hawksbill turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata) nests have been found along […]

Lots of things changed during the global COVID-19 pandemic – and while the effect of restrictions was felt keenly by the world’s human population, the animal kingdom was also affected, with some surprising outcomes. On a small island along the Thai Gulf in Koh Ped (KPE), eastern Thailand, a group of common long-tailed macaques (Macaca […]

Death is a natural and necessary part of life. As Chris Packham explained in Earth, even extinction has its upsides as it clears the way for new life. However, having a bunch of corpses lying around is a nightmare for disease spread, but fortunately life… uh… found a way, to take care of all the […]

There are quite a few examples of materials on Earth more expensive than gold. From glittering diamonds to shiny rhodium, the world’s precious natural resources can fetch high prices. But what about iridium? What is iridium? Iridium is a chemical element that has the atomic number 77 and is classed as a transition metal. Iridium […]

If you’re not excited about 2024 yet, this video is certain to fill you with optimism and inspiration for the coming year. NASA has shared a video outlining the space exploration missions they have in store for 2024 – and oh man, it’s going to be an action-packed year.  There will be the launch of […]

A woman with two uteruses and two cervixes has recently given birth to two baby girls, each of whom was carried in a separate uterus. Kelsey Hatcher delivered the babies at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital, with Roxi born at 7:45 pm on December 19 and Rebel born at 6:10 am on December […]

Physicists using lasers to cool atoms close to absolute zero have produced an electron orbit so large it barely seems possible. By placing a conventional atom inside this giant, they produced a bizarre shape reminiscent of fossil trilobites, arthropods that once dominated the oceans. The element rubidium is little known outside those who can perform […]

Human blood is the preferred meal of the East African jumping spider, Evarcha culicivora, but the “vampire spider” doesn’t feed directly on humans. Described as an indirect vampire, it preferentially selects mosquitos with a full belly of blood meal, and it’s a diet that makes them more attractive to their vampire spider mates. The curious […]

The modern world is so marked by sharp political divides and rampant misinformation that it’s led to the creation of a new term to describe the phenomenon: the “reality gap.” But even if we can’t agree on things like whether the entire country is being run by a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles or not, there are some things […]

Cetaceans are a group of animals containing whales, porpoises, and dolphins, including some of our planet’s most iconic aquatic mammals. However, despite living their lives in water, these creatures must breathe air to survive. This seems like a pretty inconvenient way of going about things – especially considering the fact that their ancient ancestors actually […]

Hyperloop One, the company behind a futuristic transportation system once touted by Elon Musk, is calling it quits.  Hyperloop One merged with a shell company earlier this year, according to documents seen by Bloomberg. As part of the merger, the company will reportedly sell off its remaining assets, shut its offices, and sack its remaining […]

Locals watched in awe as a fireball exploded and hundreds of meteorite fragments rained down on the city of Tatahouine, Tunisia, on June 27, 1931. Fittingly, the city later became a major filming location of the Star Wars movie series. The desert climate and traditional villages became a huge inspiration to the director, George Lucas, […]

Over 240 years ago, famous mathematician Leonhard Euler came up with a question: if six army regiments each have six officers of six different ranks, can they be arranged in a square formation such that no row or column repeats either a rank or regiment? After searching in vain for a solution, Euler declared the problem […]

“Why does gravity pull us down and not up?” – Gracie, age 9, Brookline, Massachusetts Gravity is the reason things with mass or energy are attracted to each other. It is why apples fall toward the ground and planets orbit stars. Advertisement Magnets attract some types of metals, but they can also push other magnets […]

Giant fissures have been appearing in the ground across the southwest US. In southcentral Arizona alone, 272 kilometers (169 miles) of these cracks have been mapped, while they have also appeared in Utah, California, and Texas. The cracks are not natural formations, according to Joseph Cook of the Arizona Geological Survey, who told Insider that […]

Here’s some good news: the mortality rate in the UK, and maybe the world, should be down in 2024 thanks to some intervention from the BBC and Disney. Admittedly, to believe that you need either a very poor understanding of statistics or a very optimistic faith in the influence of television, but that’s most people, […]

As the mathematician De La Soul famously stated, three is the magic number. But if physicist Richard Feynman is to be believed, that figure is off by a factor of about 400. For Feynman, you see, the “magic number” is around 1/137 – specifically, it’s 1/137.03599913.  Physicists know it as α, or the fine structure constant. […]

Many terms get mentioned when it comes to animal conservation, especially in regard to species that are under threat from habitat loss, pollution, the illegal wildlife trade, and even extinction. But what do all those terms really mean? We break down the scale from Near Threatened to Extinct. The International Union for Conservation of Nature […]