Deborah Bloomfield

In 1929, Hungarian author Frigyes Karinthy wrote the short story Chains, containing a concept you’re probably familiar with thanks to the star of My Dog Skip and Footloose. In the story, a group is chatting when the narrator has a minor revelation about how the world has shrunk due to quickening communication and transport. During […]

Some Mars rovers have friends, while others have foes, and unfortunately for NASA’s Curiosity, it falls into this latter bracket. The rover’s nemesis comes in the form of Gediz Vallis Ridge, which has been dubbed Mars’ “Bermuda Triangle” due to several thwarted efforts to reach it. Now, Curiosity is set to make another, hopefully less […]

Particle accelerators are either built, like at CERN, or happen naturally around extreme cosmic objects. A new study suggests that the first particle accelerators might have happened at the very beginning of the universe, a mere fraction of a second following the Big Bang. They were caused by bubbles created by the rapidly changing universe, […]

Rare earth metals are set to take center stage in the “green revolution” as they provide high-performance magnets used in renewable infrastructure like wind turbines, high-tech appliances, and electric cars. However, getting our hands on these much-sought-after materials is not always easy. Fortunately, there might be a solution in the form of a mysterious metal […]

Artificial intelligence (AI) has already passed a hefty test, proving they are better than humans at passing those online “I am not a robot” CAPTCHA tests. But can they pass the Turing test?  The Turing test (which renowned mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing originally and much more modestly called The Imitation Game) involves separating […]

When humans were busy pummeling the Earth with atomic bombs in the latter half of the 20th century, turtles and tortoises across the world were quietly (and very slowly) getting on with their lives. Unbeknownst to them, the legacy of the dreadful explosions was becoming deeply imprinted into their shells. New research has studied the […]

India did it. The lander and rover of the Chandrayaan-3 mission reached the surface of the Moon, landing as expected on Wednesday, August 23 at 12:34 pm UTC (8:34 am EST). This makes India the fourth nation to successfully soft land on the Moon, after the Soviet Union, the United States, and China. Chandrayaan-3 has […]

In Roman Spain, some 2,000 years ago, people may have been dousing themselves with the musky scent of patchouli, recent research hints. The study marks the first time that the composition of a Roman perfume has been identified, offering us a rare whiff of a bygone empire. The perfume, which has solidified after two millennia […]

Supermassive black holes can weigh millions if not billions of times more than the Sun. They lay at the center of galaxies where they accumulate mass over billions of years. But how did they start? Astronomers are not so sure. They could begin as relatively small black holes formed in supernovae, and then somehow accumulate […]

Nature is pretty good at coming up with clever color patterns to help animals hide from or deter predators, keeping them camouflaged against a backdrop of rainforest trees or tall grasses. Sometimes, however, genetic mutations can throw a spanner in the works, creating unusual variations of typical animal colors. Now, a new giraffe calf has […]

A cyberattack on the National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory (NOIRLab) research center for ground-based astronomy has left several large telescopes unable to operate for weeks. The attack took place on August 1, when NOIRLab say they detected a “cyber incident” in their computer systems, requiring them to suspend astronomical observations at the Gemini North telescope […]

A historic referendum has seen the people of Ecuador vote in favor of halting new oil drilling projects in the Amazonian Yasuní national park, signaling a major victory for the uncontacted tribes who call this forest their home. The vote took place on Sunday, August 20 in the first round of the country’s presidential elections. […]

Researchers examining fossilized remains in the La Brea Tar Pit, Southern California, have come to a disturbing conclusion. According to a new, in-depth analysis, changing temperatures and human activity led to more wildfires at the end of the Pleistocene era, which caused the extinction of megafauna species that once thrived in the area. The results […]

A new study has run simulations of colonies on Mars to determine the ideal number of Martian residents needed for such a settlement to survive, also finding that certain personality types should probably steer clear of such a mission. Should humans ever decide to create a permanent outpost on another planet (and remember, humans have […]

Earlier this year it was announced that Lolita the orca, also known as Tokitae or Toki, was finally set to be released back into her Pacific Northwest home after more than 50 years in captivity. However, as preparations were being made, it was announced that the elderly orca passed away on Friday afternoon from a […]

Do you ever spare a thought for your yolk sac? Of course not, you’re too busy thinking of yourself (or possibly never knew that it existed), but new research has discovered we have a lot to thank human yolk sacs for. It might sound like a vestige of evolution left behind by our distant relatives, […]

People who start smoking in their mid-teens may have less gray matter in two brain regions that play a central role in pleasure-seeking, self-control, and risk-taking. Analyzing brain imaging data from over 800 people aged 14, 19, and 23, researchers discovered that both the left and right ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) appeared smaller in those […]

Google “the Mediterranean diet” and you’ll find search results suggesting it has numerous health benefits tied to the gut microbiome, improved pregnancy outcomes, and even erectile dysfunction. While a diet claiming to be a cure-all is nothing new, what makes the Mediterranean diet stand out is that some of its alleged perks are actually backed […]