Deborah Bloomfield

It’s well known they’re incredibly sensitive and intelligent pets, but dogs do not cry – at least, not in the sense of shedding tears. However, there are a few telltale signs that your canine companion is feeling blue. Just like cats and most mammals, dogs have tear ducts in their eyes, but they are only […]

Every now and then on the Internet, people discover something about food that you thought everyone already knew. Hey, we’re all learning, right? A few months back it was the turn of paprika and allspice, but now it’s our old friend the crab stick which is under the spotlight. A video posted to Reddit shows […]

Here’s a weird thing: a study in 2012 found that humans are able to tell whether someone is young or old based on smell alone. In the study, researchers collected the body odors of different age groups by asking them to wear T-shirts in bed for five nights with underarm pads to soak up their […]

An international team of astronomers has found a way to make disagreeing estimates of the age of the Moon’s surface finally agree with each other. It turns out some features, such as the maria, which in many countries is referred to as the “Man in the Moon” are now estimated to be millions of years […]

Falling into water inside a car is something that doesn’t happen to a lot of people, but still happens a surprisingly frequent amount: in 2004-2007, 384 traffic fatalities in the US listed drowning as a cause of death. Knowing what to do should it occur can be the difference between life or death, but there’s […]

The must-have accessory for fashionistas living in Ice Age South America was a polished pendant carved from giant sloth bone, it seems. Archaeologists have recently found artifacts made of giant sloth bones in central Brazil that date to over 25,000 years old, providing evidence that humans arrived in the Americas way earlier than once thought. […]

Music lessons have a positive impact on brain health in older adults and can even lead to an increase in gray matter, according to a recent study. The findings spark hope for a new non-pharmaceutical intervention to help protect the brain from gradually declining over time. Many of us are concerned about what will happen […]

After seeing the sheer size of Niagara Falls, it is almost impossible to think that such a volume of water could ever stop, but it has – twice, in fact, and one of those was entirely down to humans.  The first was a simple tale of unfortunate timing. On March 29, 1848, local people woke […]

Mysterious octagons stamped across the seabed of the Fram Strait between Greenland and Svalbard had scientists scratching their heads. Some were mini while others were bigger than a basketball, but what was causing them? Remote-operated vehicles (ROV) were able to get to the bottom of the peculiar prints, discovering that they appear to be the […]

A man presented to his doctors with an unusual and slightly worrying symptom: his tongue had turned green and hairy.  The 64-year-old had noticed the change to his tongue over the few weeks prior to his appointment at the clinic. Advertisement “On physical examination, the tongue had elongated filiform papillae and green discoloration. No other […]

If you’ve planned a relaxing summer vacation by the edge of a lake you might think your chances of running, or rather swimming, into a shark are pretty low. Surprisingly there are several places around the world that are home to sharks capable of surviving in freshwater. Guess you’re going to need a bigger boat […]

Researchers have extracted genetic data from fossilized teeth belonging to an ancient species of human that lived over two million years ago in South Africa. By far the oldest genetic information ever recovered from any hominid, the data helps scientists understand how this long-extinct creature fits into the human family tree. Presenting their findings in […]

At a rockshelter in Oregon, archaeologists have unearthed an animal tooth that’s been dated to be over 18,000 years old. If their interpretation of the artifact and other relics at the site is on point, this could suggest the shallow cave is one of the oldest sites of human occupation in North America. The Rimrock […]

Every 36 million years, the planet’s marine ecosystems experience surges in biodiversity. New research has discovered the cycle is indirectly triggered by geological changes led by plate tectonics influencing sea levels, paving the way for new life to thrive. When continents dry up and then flood again, barren stretches of land can become extensive shallow […]

First up, here is your usual reminder that penis size doesn’t matter and you should stop worrying about it or comparing yourselves to others, as they are probably lying anyway. That said, in 2021, a team of scientists studied the noses and genitals of fresh corpses to determine if the “big nose big hose” hypothesis […]

It’s easy to see why the Great Sphinx of Giza – a giant stone statue in the middle of the desert resembling ancient pharaoh Khafre but with the body of a lion – has been the subject of a number of crank theories over the years. Among the pseudo-scientific theories and conspiracy theories are some […]

We know a great deal about aging in humans – we even have some idea of how to slow the process. But what about plants? Do they have a predetermined lifespan? Can they die of old age? As you may have found out if you’ve ever dabbled in horticulture: plants die. Too much water, too […]

Belly button stones can be found hiding in the navels of humans, sometimes popping out as an extra surprise during pregnancy. These rare lesions are normally asymptomatic, but sometimes they can encourage an infection which can be serious if left untreated. A case study of a 96-year-old woman describes how a suspected urinary tract infection […]

A team of researchers has developed a test to measure people’s susceptibility to misinformation, finding that on average, US adults fail to classify one-third of real or fake headlines into their correct category. The test, which is takeable online, asks the user to rate 20 headlines as real or fake. Ten of the headlines were […]

In recent years a growing movement has arisen to argue that humans have changed the Earth so much we should consider ourselves in a geological timescale known as the Anthropocene. Geologists use markers in rocks at specific sites to define when these epochs begin, so if the Anthropocene is to get general recognition it needs […]