Deborah Bloomfield

For as long as humans have walked this Earth, we have been using chemicals to alter our state of mind. Drugs and alcohol have been used in rituals and medication, for inspiration and escapism, as well as a way to cope with the world. Only in more recent decades have we begun to appreciate the […]

The Guinness World Record for the largest mouth gape has been awarded to USA teen Isaac Johnson. Receiving the prestigious accolade in February of this year on the set of Lo Show Dei Record in Milan, Italy, the 17-year-old’s impressive cakehole measures a whopping 10.196 centimeters (4.014 inches). In a tumultuous tug-of-war for the title, the […]

It’s all very well thinking about what Henry VIII or Tutankhamun would look like if you could yank them into the modern day – but what about going the other way? What would it look like if you hopped into a time machine and met them on their own turf? A new AI tool from […]

During the 13th and 12th centuries BCE, many of the “great ancient civilizations” fell like dominoes. Once-grand cities around the Eastern Mediterranean, North Africa, and the Near East fell into ruin; writing systems were extinguished; rebellions sprung up; wars raged; and cultures were seemingly wiped from the planet. The late Bronze Age has been described […]

Orion has just completed half of its mission and got the furthest it will ever get away from Earth. And in these last two weeks, it has brought us stunning views of the Moon – some up close and some of the whole Moon-Earth system, all of them spectacular. NASA has shared some of them […]

You may have heard of phantom limb syndrome, a particularly odd condition that 80-100 percent of people experience after going through an amputation. Amputees can experience sensations, discomfort, and pain that feels like it’s coming from a limb or appendage that is no longer there. Though common after limb amputation, the condition can also affect […]

If you ask any North American resident “what is the most fearsome, savage animal on Earth?”, you may be surprised by the answer. It’s not lions, tigers, or bears, nor is it crocodiles or 32-foot snakes. No. It’s the Canada goose.  Born in the fiery pits of hell and sent to Earth for pure chaos, […]

Most species are transitory. They go extinct, branch into new species or change over time due to random mutations and environmental shifts. A typical mammalian species can be expected to exist for a million years. Modern humans, Homo sapiens, have been around for roughly 300,000 years. So what will happen if we make it to […]

Mauna Loa erupted for the first time in nearly 40 years on the Big Island of Hawai’i on Sunday night, releasing a flurry of red-hot lava that trickled down its side. This spectacular sight has since been captured from the vantage point of low-Earth orbit by satellites.  Maxar Technologies captured the shots on Monday night […]

Falling from a cruise ship is something you might expect to be a fatal accident, and it seems even less likely that you could then survive being lost at sea overnight. In what’s being reported as a “Thanksgiving miracle”, a man cruising in the Gulf of Mexico has done just that as he was pulled […]

“Drink more water” is something that’s drilled into us as adults partial to salty food and hangovers. There’s been a lot of debate of late as to how much water you should drink – but did you know that for babies, the life elixir can be dangerous? While most people are aware that babies need […]

What if you could find a way to speak to yourself as a child, without creating an unsolvable time travel paradox, of course? Well, one person has done the next best thing, creating an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot of herself as a child by training it on her childhood diary entries. Twitter user Michelle Huang […]

Death metal fans just got a new mascot, as it’s been revealed that bats can vibrate folds in their larynx in a way similar to death metal singers to make sounds. Exactly what these roars are meant to communicate isn’t yet clear, but it demonstrates the vast range of these animals who are better known […]

Fashions rise and fall, styles change, but when it comes to looking good, one law has held depressingly strong throughout history: pain is beauty.  Whether it was 18th-century French noblewomen wearing dresses so heavy and restrictive that they needed a boot camp just to walk in the things, Naomi Campbell turning her ankle in a […]

Astronomers have discovered the farthest-ever tidal disruption event (TDE). A Sun-like star was ripped apart by the tidal forces of a supermassive black hole. This dramatic event was also the brightest ever TDE seen so far, by a fair bit. Its light came to us from 8.5 billion light-years away. Thanks to a chance alignment, the […]

Twitter announced it has stopped enforcing its COVID-19 misinformation policy on November 23, not taking action on any tweets breaking their rules in this area. The platform previously held a staunch anti-misinformation stance against the spreading of false information due to the inherent health risks – but under new direction from Elon Musk, Twitter is […]

The field of genomic science is rapidly advancing, with commercial genetic tests becoming affordable and popular. Taking these tests is simple. The company sends you a collection kit. You send it back with a saliva sample or cheek swab. The sample is sequenced and analysed, and before long you have your results. Advertisement However, upon […]

Attachment theory is almost everywhere. In magazines and books, in the news, on social media and in our conversations with each other. Originally rooted in developmental psychology, the theory explains how we form and maintain close relationships in order to survive and thrive in the environment we are born into. It was quickly picked up […]

The time fathers devote to child care every week has tripled over the past 50 years in the United States. The increase in fathers’ involvement in child rearing is even steeper in countries that have expanded paid paternity leave or created incentives for fathers to take leave, such as Germany, Spain, Sweden and Iceland. And […]

Anil Seth is a neuroscientist, author, and public speaker who has been conducting research into the brain basis of consciousness for more than 20 years. He is a Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex and Founding Co-Director of the Sussex Centre for Consciousness Science. He is also Co-Director of the […]