Deborah Bloomfield

The term “warfare” is scary at the best of times and whether it’s applied to humans or animals it’s usually implied that nothing good is going to happen as a result. However, there is one species that actually depends on the acts of warfare for its very survival. Meet the mongoose. More specifically two species […]

Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, the Solar System’s most infamous storm, is the smallest it has been in observational history. The reasons behind its shrinking fortunes are not fully understood, but it’s been suggested this gargantuan pool of storm clouds isn’t going anywhere soon.  The Great Red Spot is a giant swirling storm in Jupiter’s southern […]

SpaceX has officially got its license to attempt a second launch for its megarocket Starship tomorrow. Starship, the transport system that will take Artemis astronauts to the Moon, launched for the first time back in April but suffered several problems shortly after liftoff, resulting in SpaceX intentionally blowing the rocket up. If it fails again, […]

Seeds are superheroes – they can grow into our forests and crops, get extracted for oil, and be used in pharmaceuticals. In fact, they’re so important that there’s even a “doomsday” seed vault. But when it comes to the seed of the coco de mer, the biggest seed in the world, things get a little […]

In Ancient Egypt, life was precarious. Without modern science or medicine – or at least, few methods you’d want to try out – people invariably turned to magic for protection against the dangers of the world. And, according to a recent find by archeologists from the Czech Institute of Egyptology (CIE) at Charles University in […]

Although Uranus and Neptune are full of gas, their compositions have important differences from Jupiter and Saturn, while being quite similar to each other. Planetary scientists are keen to send a spacecraft to at least one of them, but the funding is uncertain, and it will take many years to get there even if approved. In […]

The tropical regions of our planet are home to a plethora of colorful and unusual bird species, but our vibrant friends may be in danger. A new study has uncovered some of the highest-ever concentrations of mercury found in tropical birds. The source? Gold mining. Until now, little was known about mercury pollution in the […]

Dinosaurs might seem like the most monstrous-looking prehistoric animals, but best believe Mother Nature cooked up all sorts of other terrifying creatures. The example we’re bringing to you today is definitely one we wouldn’t fancy seeing up close – plenty of distance and a pair of binoculars would do just fine. It’s time to meet […]

Anemones are the first animals known to follow the Sun, wiggling their tentacles east at dawn and west at dusk in what is known as heliotropism – a phenomenon that’s previously only been seen in plants. In a new preprint paper, yet to be peer-reviewed, snakelocks sea anemones (Anemonia viridis) have been observed tracking the […]

Cybersecurity experts have shared the most commonly used passwords of 2023 – and they are as spectacularly stupid as ever. Coming in at number 1 is the old-favourite “password”, followed by “123456”, and then “123456789”.  As per the new analysis, the top 20 most commonly used passwords worldwide are as follows: Advertisement password 123456 123456789 […]

Astronomers have detected exceptionally bright but brief flares of a type never seen before. Their conclusions are still tentative, but they suspect that we witnessed twitches from the corpse of a star that died months before. However, the exact nature of the cadaver in question remains uncertain. In 2018 astronomers witnessed a strange type of […]

The idea that feminists are man-haters has a long and sticky history, but is it true? Well, not according to a massive new study conducted by an international team of researchers. According to the study, which involved nearly 10,000 participants from various Western and non-Western cultures, feminists tend to hold positive attitudes towards men in […]

Eggs come in all shapes and sizes, from brightly colored to those in large clutches, and everything in between. While most eggs are smooth and fragile, dinosaur eggs might not have been quite the same. Research suggests that dinosaur eggs, like some modern reptile eggs, might have been leathery and more fabric-like to the touch. […]

They say all’s fair in love and war, but when it comes to Black Death Bombs and sending donkeys infected with deadly pathogens hurtling into the enemy, we’re not sure we agree. Long before Oppenheimer became Death, destroyer of worlds, with the atomic bomb, humans were coming up with creative ways to maim and kill […]

Within the Earth, there is a thin layer just around the molten metal of the outer core. Its origin has been uncertain for decades, but researchers now believe that the cause of it is to be found right here: It’s the water on the surface that caused that differentiation to take place in the first […]

Around 71 million years ago, a small theropod dinosaur curled up to snooze one final time before becoming a part of the fossil record. Retrieved from the Barun Goyot Formation in what we now call Mongolia’s Gobi Desert, it’s become a central part of new research that states its curled-up position suggests they slept like […]

Sand and dust storms – described by UN officials as “one of nature’s most intimidating spectacles” – have become dramatically more common in many world regions. While these colossal forces of nature are a seasonal natural phenomenon, up to 25 percent of them can now be attributed to human-driven factors, such as poor land management […]

M87 is a relatively close elliptical galaxy and M87*, its supermassive black hole, was the first of these gargantuan objects to be photographed. The black hole is known for the release of a jet of material stretching for millions of light-years – and researchers believe that the jet is powered by theft. Its energy is […]

The latest advances in 3D printing have been put to good use by scientists at ETH Zürich, who have now unveiled an incredibly human-like robotic hand. What makes this hand unique is that it’s made up of bones, ligaments, and tendons – all the building blocks of a human skeleton – created from different flexible […]

The building blocks of life have been found on comets, asteroids, and in interstellar space. But how they end up on the surface of planets is not exactly clear. One idea is that comets and asteroids can ferry these molecules to worlds where life can emerge, but they need to travel relatively slowly for molecules to […]