Deborah Bloomfield

Ongoing excavations at the ancient Roman city of Pompeii, Italy, has recently unearthed a darker feature of the city’s past. Archaeologists have found a structure where enslaved people and donkeys were confined and forced to grind grain to make bread, a painstaking process that could take hours. The bakery-prison, as it is being referred to […]

A scientific review and meta-analysis has examined the potential for psilocybin, the active compound in “magic mushrooms”, to treat major depression and depressive disorders. The evidence shows that psilocybin could be a safe and effective treatment that needs further study. Despite advances in treatments for depression and other mental health therapies, there are still many […]

Earlier this year, we were surprised to learn that people (falsely) believed that the stone bodies of Pompeii were real bodies, and ancient in origin. Of course, they are accurate representations of the bodies of people caught up in the eruption of 79 CE, but in reality they were created by pouring plaster of Paris […]

The secretive X-37B space plane is set to blast off today onboard a SpaceX rocket. Its mission? As ever, it’s not quite clear.  For its seventh mission, the robotic plane will be launched on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket for the first time, according to the US Space Force. The launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space […]

When amateur aurora photographers noticed a type of light in the sky no one had reported before most people assumed they had found a new sort of aurora. However, an alternative explanation attributes it to such different causes the scientists responsible see it as something separate, not a subtype of what we already know. Some […]

Chimpanzees have been spotted engaging in some extremely rare scavenging behavior in the wild. In Tanzania, researchers watched on as an alpha chimp appeared to snatch the body of a young antelope away from an eagle, before eating its meat with other chimps, stripping the body down to just a skull.  The unusual observation was […]

Is there life beyond Earth? The question has turned out to be one of the hardest to answer in science. Despite the seemingly boundless expanse of the universe, which implies there’s potential for abundant life, the vast distances between stars render the search akin to locating a needle in a cosmic haystack. The Search for […]

A picture is worth a thousand words. And a film probably a thousand pictures. When it comes to the science of the very small and fast, for a long time what scientists got was just a snapshot of an interaction – if they could get that at all. And then over the last 36 years, […]

Just in time for the holiday season, a super-rare snow-white alligator with ice-blue eyes has just been hatched at a Florida reptile park.  Weighing in at a hefty 96 grams (3.4 ounces) and measuring 49 cm (19 inches) tip to tail, the baby gator is about as long as a newborn human, but only as […]

At our level, things remain the same color no matter the size. A gold ring is the same color as a gold crown. But at nanoscales, size matters when it comes to color. The idea of quantum effects in nanostructures was a well-established prediction even though, for decades, nobody could make those structures happen. But […]

Buried beneath the oceans surrounding continents is a naturally occurring frozen form of methane and water. Sometimes dubbed “fire-ice” as you can literally set light to it, marine methane hydrate can melt as the climate warms, uncontrollably releasing methane – a potent greenhouse gas – into the ocean and possibly the atmosphere. Colleagues and I […]

For the sushi lovers of the world, there’s nothing quite like the burn that comes from a dab of wasabi on top of your sushi roll. Except, as it turns out, most of us can’t legitimately make that comparison – because most of us have never had real wasabi. “The extent to which we’re eating […]

The Great Wall of China might’ve been able to hold off ancient enemies, but time and weather eventually come for even the sturdiest of constructions. With up to 30 percent of the Ming-era wall disappearing over the last 500 years, some have put this down to the cyanobacteria, lichen, and moss residing within the wall. […]

Quite possibly the most famous comet of them all, Halley’s Comet is about to begin its nearly 40-year-long journey back towards the Sun, passing by our planet on its way. The comet reaches its aphelion today (December 9), the point at which it’s furthest away from the Sun, taking it beyond the orbit of Neptune. […]

READER QUESTION: My understanding is that nothing comes from nothing. For something to exist, there must be material or a component available, and for them to be available, there must be something else available. Now my question: Where did the material come from that created the Big Bang, and what happened in the first instance […]

There has been increased interest in unidentified flying objects (UFOs) ever since the Pentagon’s 2021 report revealed what appears to be anomalous objects in US airspace, dubbed unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP). Fast forward to 2023, and Nasa has already formed a panel to investigate the reports and appointed a director  for UAP research. A newly […]

Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Jonathan the 191-year-old tortoise, happy birthday to you! The world’s oldest living land animal, a Seychelles giant tortoise (Aldabrachelys gigantea hololissa) named Jonathan, who has captured hearts across the world with his longevity and antics, has reached the grand old age of 191. In […]

The last meal of a Tyrannosaur has been discovered for the first time in a fossil that shows a juvenile Gorgosaurus with its stomach contents in situ. The picky eater only ate the legs of two small feathered dinosaurs that were likely a popular and abundant menu item around 75 million years ago, and the species […]