Deborah Bloomfield

The superb lyrebird (Menura novaehollandiae) of south-eastern Australia has been found to farm its habitat, changing the environment in ways that increase its food supply. Although examples of similar behavior from non-human animals have been found before, known examples are from invertebrates, or in very restricted locations. Lyrebirds instead farm an ecosystem that once covered much […]

For the first time in Canada, surgeons have successfully carried out the first stage of a procedure involving implanting a tooth into the eyes of people with a type of severe blindness in the hopes of restoring their vision. ADVERTISEMENT The operation o known as osteo-odonto-keratoprosthesis, or “tooth-in-eye” surgery – was recently carried out at […]

Quantum computers hold the promise to revolutionize modeling and calculations. By employing the peculiar laws of quantum mechanics, they can perform calculations that would take even the fastest supercomputers billions of years to complete. Building and operating quantum computers has many challenges, and while these devices are still a long way off, some components are […]

Thousands of years before Stonehenge was completed – and thousands of kilometers from southern England – another culture built a strikingly similar ring of stones in another possible attempt to track the Sun’s movements and the changing seasons. ADVERTISEMENT Nabta Playa is an ancient site nestled within a basin of the Nubian Desert near Egypt’s […]

For the first time, a flat telescope lens has been produced that represents colors accurately, offering a way to make less bulky lenses that could be sent into space cheaply. ADVERTISEMENT The first telescopes used lenses, known as refracting telescopes. Small instruments – whether for amateur astronomers starting out or people keen to look at […]

How far would you go to prove you’re right? At the dawn of the 20th century, American scientist Jesse William Lazear made the ultimate sacrifice in the pursuit of biomedical knowledge. He allowed an infected mosquito to bite him and succumbed to yellow fever within weeks. In his tragic death, he helped to establish that […]

A private mission on its way to deep space has encountered “massive issues” shortly after departing the Earth. ADVERTISEMENT On February 26, space firm AstroForge launched its new spacecraft, Odin, into space on board SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. The plan for the spacecraft was ambitious: to send it further than any private craft has ever […]

There’s a giant clone hidden underneath the waves of the Baltic Sea. Yes, really – scientists have just discovered that some forests of what was thought to be a unique species of seaweed in this region is actually another species entirely, and one that may have spread to become the world’s largest clone. ADVERTISEMENT The […]

An international team of researchers from China, Japan, and the US has taken an important step in the 3D printing of organs, an intriguing but extremely challenging aspect of biomedical engineering. The organ of choice was the penis, part of which was reconstructed in the lab using a hydrogel showing realistic functionality. The artificial organ […]

While many new species are discovered in remote jungles or hidden in the depths of the sea, some are right under our noses. A research trip to the Alto Mayo area of Peru has revealed 27 new-to-science species – including a bronze salamander and an incredibly rare semi-aquatic mouse – in a region bustling with […]

Homo sapiens can seem like a bit of a mystery. It’s easy to think we stand apart from the rest of the animal kingdom, even from our closest primate relatives. In recent centuries, science has begun to piece together our long and winding evolutionary history, but many parts of the story remain missing and hazy. […]

Where the Earth’s core meets the mantle, there are two giant regions that have baffled geologists for fifty years. A new piece of the puzzle has now emerged with the discovery that they have different compositions from each other, challenging models that assumed they had similar origins. ADVERTISEMENT Most of what we know about the […]

According to our best current theories, the matter that makes stars, planets, and everything we see is just a small fraction of the total matter in the universe. Outweighing this regular matter five-to-one is dark matter, an invisible substance that doesn’t interact with light. We do not know what this dark matter is, but many […]

Getting a tattoo could increase your risk of developing skin cancers or lymphoma later in life, according to the results of a new study. Looking at pairs of twins, the researchers found that siblings with more ink tended to have higher rates of these illnesses. ADVERTISEMENT “The unique aspect of our approach is that we […]

NASA has released a new image showing the moment Boom Supersonic’s XB-1 jet broke the sound barrier without producing an audible sonic boom. ADVERTISEMENT Boom Supersonic, the company aiming to create commercial planes that can travel faster than the speed of sound, have successfully tested their XB-1 jet. According to the company and NASA, the […]

As part of their ambitious goal to bring back the woolly mammoth by 2028, Colossal Biosciences has created what they’ve named the “Colossal woolly mouse”. By pinpointing gene families linked to mammoth woolliness, their team used advanced multiplexed genome engineering to target seven genes, creating mice with some of the mammoth’s core phenotypes. ADVERTISEMENT Those […]

Imagine swimming through the waters of Bali when you spot a bouquet of donuts shuffling along, the ghostly-white tissue of its squashy body seemingly coiled into six perfect ringlets that line the alien-like critter’s back. You’ve just encountered Doto greenamyeri, and it’s a real weirdo. ADVERTISEMENT Nicknamed the donut sea slug for obvious reasons, this […]

A study on young adults in love by the Australian National University (ANU) has found four distinct groups of romantic lovers, according to the researchers involved. ADVERTISEMENT Researchers looked at data from the 2022 Romantic Love Survey, the largest cross-cultural study of people experiencing romantic love, spanning 33 countries. For the new study, the team […]

James Harrison – also known as the “man with the golden arm” – died in his sleep on Monday, February 17, in a nursing home in New South Wales, Australia, aged 88. ADVERTISEMENT When Harrison was 14 years old, he underwent major chest surgery, requiring an impressive 13 liters of transfused blood to keep him […]

Imagine you’re taking a delightful stroll through a wooded area, it is idyllic and peaceful… until you get a sharp pain. You look down and realize that you have just been stung by a ferocious insect that is already flying away. Already, the sting site is getting warm and beginning to throb. Being stung by […]