Deborah Bloomfield

Researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) believe they have made an unusual and surprising discovery: Light appears to be capable of evaporating water without the involvement of heat. The team were interested in making desalination – removing salts and minerals from water by evaporating it and then cooling down the vapor into liquid once […]

If you’ve always wanted to save the world, but don’t have the right skills to invent a carbon-free energy source or antiviral drug, now might be your chance. Astronomers have created a system where almost anyone can help them spot near-Earth asteroids, and this month scored their first success. It’s a little surprising that in […]

The uncontrollable desire to consume human flesh is usually seen as a sign of insanity, yet the authors of a new study suggest that cannibalistic urges may in fact be triggered by a more nuanced set of factors than mere derangement. Highlighting the example of Wendigo psychosis among certain Native American communities, the researchers reveal […]

Wolves are famously pack animals, living and hunting together in family groups, they are famous for working together to take down prey items like caribou (Rangifer tarandus) and moose (Alces alces). Now, observations of wolves in Katmai National Park have shown they have developed a taste for a new kind of prey: marine mammals.  Scientists […]

Plants are not just able to survive in low gravity such as on the Moon, two new papers suggest – they may prefer it, at least based on the only species to sprout. When Chang’e 4 landed on the Moon in January 2019 it carried with it a payload that could dictate the future of […]

A new study has investigated what the team call “The Grandmother Hypothesis” when it comes to washing your skin, finding that people tend to miss several key areas, and their microbiome is less healthy as a result. Researchers from the George Washington University Computational Biology Institute wanted to investigate the skin microbiome – that is, […]

Issue 16 (November 2023) of CURIOUS is out now, bringing you science highlights for the month plus deep dives into intriguing topics, interviews, exclusives, diary dates, and explanations for some of Earth’s most perplexing natural phenomena and landscapes. In This Issue… Advertisement OUR COVER STORY: Does IQ Matter? Is it time to hang up the […]

Earlier this year, a study using satellite data found that New York City is sinking at the relatively fast rate of 1-2 millimeters per year across the city, with some urban areas sinking much faster than others.  According to the team, one contributing factor is the sheer weight of the city’s high-rise buildings. While concerning, […]

A pair of identical twins who were raised in separate countries have displayed unexpectedly large disparities in cognitive abilities while exhibiting highly similar personality traits. A comparison of the monozygotic sibling’s characteristics sheds new light on the age-old nature/nurture debate. Born in Seoul, South Korea, in 1974, the sisters became separated at the age of two when one […]

There is a widespread perception of old people having distinctive smells, expressed by less tactful children as, “grandpa smells funny”. Researchers decided to test if the scent was an intrinsic part of growing older, a product of the environment, or a trick of the mind. Although they found the smell is mostly an effect of […]

There are thought to be 7,000 living languages on our planet today. For fans of obscure facts, that means there are as many different ways of saying “Pass the cheese, please,” as there are species of lizard. But the scientists working on a recent study were far more interested in what we have in common […]

For those who find themselves wincing whenever they hear a “could of” instead of a “could have”, or a “less” when it should be “fewer”, it may not just be a passing annoyance. A new study has revealed that our bodies can show physical signs of stress upon hearing grammatical violations. As Dagmar Divjak, principal […]

Nature is often portrayed as a brutal dog-eat-dog world where only the fittest individuals are permitted to survive and thrive. Deep in the forests of New Zealand, however, there is a tree stump that shows it isn’t always that straightforward.  This stump of a kauri tree should have died long ago as it has lost […]

There is a lot about the Sun that we do not understand and even things that we do have a good idea of can surprise us. Chief among them is the solar cycle. Our star goes through cycles of activity of roughly 11 years, but how active the cycle gets at its maximum or when […]

It may be tempting to leave your Halloween pumpkins in the woods to feed wildlife after October 31, but it could actually do more harm than good, wildlife experts warn.  Thousands of discarded pumpkins are left in woods across Britain, according to The Telegraph. While well-meaning pumpkin carvers might think they are doing the local […]

More than 10,500 satellites are circling Earth as of late 2023, according to the European Space Agency (ESA). Out of these spacecraft, 8,600 are currently in service. This number, however, keeps growing, and experts fear that maintaining order in space may become nigh impossible in just a few years. It’s a situation that could lead […]

Some 160 million years ago, no fish belly was safe from the scourge of blood-sucking vampire fish. Two freakishly large fossil lamprey species have been discovered in China that help explain how these peculiar sea beasts became some of the prime parasitic predators of the Jurrasic oceans. Lampreys are primitive fish with an eel-like appearance […]

Back in 2016, the world played matchmaker to Jeremy, a rare left-coiling snail that became something of an internet “shellebrity” on his quest to find a mate. Seven years later, there’s another lefty looking for love, and this time you might get to name it too. Although it was something of a tumultuous journey, Jeremy […]

An international team of researchers has worked out a way to take highly secured and highly precise snapshots of the contents of any room. Using radio antennas and mirrors, it is possible to create “radio fingerprints” so precise to notice an object displacement of just a few millimeters. This tech could have a lot of […]

Life was tough for our medieval ancestors. Between weapons, wars, and a general lack of health and safety legislation, serious injuries were not uncommon. Thankfully, medicine was coming on leaps and bounds, and while we still had a lot to learn about curing disease, the doctors of the day had been making inroads in the […]