Deborah Bloomfield

Last year, Artemis I successfully flew around the Moon putting the Orion capsule that will one day carry humans to the test. The first human-grade capsule to go into deep space in 50 years needs to be as safe as possible, so since coming back to Earth in one piece NASA has been looking at […]

And the winner of the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2023 goes to… Jason Moore for his timeless photo “Air Guitar Roo” showing a kangaroo rocking out.  Jason captured the image (below) of the female Western grey kangaroo in the outer suburbs of Perth. He was out with his camera in the early morning, hoping to […]

The material purple bronze has a never-before-seen capacity to change between electrical states, becoming an insulator or a conductor depending on small shifts in physical conditions. Purple bronze sounds like a contradiction in terms – isn’t part of what defines the mix of copper and tin it’s distinctly non-purple color? More confusingly still, the compound […]

Seychelles is a dream holiday location for many, but early in the 20th century, it was a popular hunting ground for whalers. Luckily, in 1978, the Republic of Seychelles successfully lobbied to protect the Indian Ocean from whaling. Until now, it was unknown if blue whales even came back to this area, but scientists have […]

The World Health Organization (WHO) is looking for more information about a reported cluster of outbreaks of respiratory illnesses and undiagnosed pneumonia among children in northern China. News of the surge in illness first came to light on November 13 when officials from the Chinese National Health Commission reported an increase in the number of […]

The universe, already impressively big compared to say, a planet or Tom Cruise, is expanding. According to the cosmic microwave background, this expansion is happening at the rate of about 67.5 kilometers (41.9 miles) per second per megaparsec (3,260,000 light-years). Meanwhile, measuring the distance of Cepheids stars leaves us with an estimated expansion rate of […]

Something weird is washing up along the Gulf Coast. Numerous sealed bottles with unusual contents have been found on beaches in Texas. But while your mind may jump to romantic ideas about messages in a bottle, what’s appearing in this instance is far more sinister and most certainly should not be opened.  Witch bottles, as […]

In January 2031, the International Space Station (ISS) will come to an end. NASA plans to deorbit it, with the station burning up in Earth’s atmosphere over a very remote area of the Pacific Ocean. It will be the end of an era; there have continuously been humans in orbit since its launch in November […]

A team of researchers believe they have found a previously unidentified gigantic mass of water in the Atlantic Ocean. Within oceans, there are different bodies of water with their own distinct physical properties (such as temperature, salinity, formation history, and chemical makeup). For instance, think of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and the better […]

As much as 1.1 million gallons of oil may have leaked into the Gulf of Mexico, according to the US Coast Guard (USCG), after an oil sheen was spotted off the southeast coast of Louisiana last Thursday. Whilst a task force overseen by the USGC is attempting to mitigate the impact of the spill, there […]

Adorable jumping spiders that aren’t considered to be social critters may be able to remember one another. The curious finding comes from a pre-print into Phidippus regius, a big-eyed spider species that behaved differently towards jumping spiders it had “met” before, compared to those that were total strangers. Individual recognition is considered to be a […]

Bacteria, despite lacking neurons, synapses, and a nervous system, are capable of forming something akin to memories, new research has discovered. What’s more, they can pass these “recollections” to their progeny for at least four generations. Now, we don’t mean that bacteria are prone to taking a trip down memory lane, reminiscing about the time […]

We’re not quite sure why, but there seems to be a resurgence in people attempting to play amateur volcanologist and asking, “Why can’t we just pour concrete into a volcano to stop it from erupting?” The suggestion has popped up on Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit in recent months as a way of preventing deaths. Advertisement […]

It’s easy to laugh at the alchemists of yesteryear, with their spotty understanding of science and dogged determination to discover nuclear transmutation five centuries before the discovery of the nucleus. But can we really blame them? After all, it’s only now, after 400 years of advancements in chemistry and physics, that we’ve finally solved the […]

The cargo of a Stone Age ship that sank off the coast of Capri in the Bay of Naples has been discovered by a team of underwater archaeologists. Among the scattered freight, the researchers located a large chunk of obsidian, although the identity of the sailors remains a mystery. Obsidian is a type of volcanic […]

Humans are inquisitive by nature. It’s why we went to the Moon; it’s the reason we stuck that fish in the giant magnet that one time – heck, it’s responsible for like 90 percent of Florida Man. And, Florida Man aside, we tend to call that inquisitiveness “science”, and the people who follow it are […]

The humble trilobite may be long-extinct, but even as fossils, there’s much they can teach us about the history of our planet. In fact, ancient arthropods – including 10 newly discovered species – that lived nearly half a billion years ago could provide the missing pieces to the puzzle of where Thailand fitted in the […]

Outer space is not an environment that is very welcoming to us Earthlings. Microgravity wreaks havoc with our bones, muscles, and blood availability and distribution, and increased radiation is seen as a constant and present danger. Adding to heart and vision problems, there could be something else that might affect some of the astronauts who […]

For humanity to expand into space, we need to know how reproduction and gestation will happen in microgravity. From reproduction to birth, we do not know what is safe for parents and offspring in such conditions. But new research is slowly challenging our ignorance on the subject – a recent experiment on the International Space […]

Picture a skunk. Bit of an odd request, but go with us here. You’re probably seeing the common striped skunk: a small, furry mammal with a pattern of white stripes along its black fur. As it turns out, though, those characteristic stripes are far from universal. There’s a huge amount of variation in skunk markings […]