Deborah Bloomfield

The northern and southern lights are beautiful electromagnetic phenomena. Electrically charged particles from the Sun slam into the atmosphere, exciting the gas there, producing waving curtains of light. As the Sun is around the peak of activity in its 11-year-long cycle, there is a lot more space weather, with more active aurorae.  ADVERTISEMENT The astronauts […]

Imagine you’ve woken up with an absolute stinker of a cold. You’ve got a stuffy nose, thumping headache, all your limbs hurt – but the only medication in the house is a pack of cold and flu pills that are way, way, out of date. Should you take them? Or will that do more harm […]

Officials from the Central Utah Water Conservancy District have begun sending around 87 billion liters of water from Utah Lake to the Great Salt Lake in an ongoing managed release. The plan will send around 1 billion liters of water each day along the Jordan River as part of an effort to keep water levels […]

The Great Wall of China may be even older than we once thought. Newly discovered ruins in Shandong province – home to some of its oldest sections – suggest that parts of the grand structure were built 300 years earlier than previously believed. ADVERTISEMENT The breakthrough emerged from recent excavations near Guangli Village, not far […]

It’s surprisingly easy to lose a species: from golden moles to tap-dancing spiders, some species are so secretive they are seen once and then never heard from again. The same was true for the Galápagos rail, a shy bird species seen on Floreana Island by Charles Darwin in 1835 and then never again – that […]

For many millions of years, our planet has experienced glacial periods followed by warmer periods. A crucial role in these changes might come from the orbital motion of our planet. By studying how our planet moves and wobbles, researchers have been able to independently reconstruct the glacial periods over the last million years and even […]

For the first time in its nearly 250 years of history, the US is set to get an official language. President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order that declares English the official language of the US, as first reported by the Wall Street Journal on Friday. ADVERTISEMENT The White House reportedly claims […]

This week on Break It Down: the curious tale of a lump of glass that turned out to be a human brain, the US sees its first measles death in 10 years, rats make great sommeliers, the evolutionary origins of feathers in dinosaurs, AI bots start speaking a secret language to each other, and could […]

Narwhals are infamously mysterious creatures and perhaps their most elusive attribute is their long, spiral tusk (which technically is an elongated tooth). Now, for the first time, scientists have captured unprecedented footage of narwhals in the wild, revealing that they use their tusks not just to investigate their surroundings, but also to stun prey and […]

A team of researchers in Japan has created the world’s smallest shooting game, played by manipulating nanoparticles less than 1 billionth of a meter in size. ADVERTISEMENT The project, led by Professor Takayuki Hoshino of Nagoya University’s Graduate School of Engineering in Japan, allows players to control a small triangle shooting at enemy blobs on […]

Pop superstar Katy Perry is set to blast off into space this spring as part of a historic all-female crew on Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket.  ADVERTISEMENT The singer – whose hits aptly include Firework and E.T. – will be joined by former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, bioastronautics research scientist Amanda Nguyen, CBS Mornings […]

With the ongoing outbreak of measles in Texas, vaccines are on a lot of people’s minds – and in particular, whether or not they need another one. Measles is just one of the diseases vaccinated against in childhood, but do any of those vaccines need a boost when you get older? ADVERTISEMENT The answer to […]

The speed of light in a vacuum, clocking in at a showy 299,792,458 meters per second (98,3571,056 feet per second), plays a pretty darn important role in the laws of physics as we understand them – so it might surprise you to learn that we haven’t ever actually measured the one-way speed of light, only […]

Scientists have provided an unprecedented glimpse into the lives of denning polar bears, becoming the first to combine GPS satellite collar data with remote-operated cameras to study the first few months of cubs’ lives. Conducted by researchers from Polar Bears International (PBI), San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, the Norwegian Polar Institute, and the University of […]

This year marks 25 years of humans living continuously in space. As eyes turn increasinlgy towards the potential for settling Mars, we’ve discussed the challenges of a settlement on another world, how to create your own space settlement, and even what humans might look like on Mars. Another thing that is not settled is the […]

In the last two months, we’ve seen four commercial airplane crashes. Three of those were fatal. Include private aircraft, and the number of accidents rises to 113 since the beginning of 2025; 15 were fatal. It feels like a lot. ADVERTISEMENT But, well… is it? Are we seeing more air disasters recently, or are we […]

Using descriptive language and explaining the way something tastes or smells might be a uniquely human trait but that doesn’t mean that other animals are capable of distinguishing between different types of food or drink. While discriminating between different wine varieties is a challenge even for people, for nine rats it seems their careers as […]

Over the last month, the US flag has been spotted flying upside down outside the State Department, and now during firefall at Yosemite National Park.  ADVERTISEMENT On Sunday, visitors flocked to the park to watch the waterfall at El Capitan glow an eerie orange at sunset, as the waning Sun lights it up. While there, […]

The first ever case of human tissue being turned into glass has been identified within the skull of an unfortunate young man who died during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE. Originally spotted in 2020, the strange obsidian-like lump had not been reliably identified until now, yet new research confirms that it is […]

Timbuktu is often evoked as a symbol of an impossibly distant, almost mythical place. The phrase “from here to Timbuktu” conjures the image of a journey stretching endlessly beyond the horizon, a long way from home. ADVERTISEMENT In a surprising number of people’s imaginations, it is just that: a fictional, indeterminate land. A 2006 survey […]