Deborah Bloomfield

Africa is far bigger than you may think. If you look at a map or globe, the continent looks pretty large compared to other land masses, but this representation is not accurate. In reality, Africa is enormous. In fact, you could fit China, India, all the states in the contiguous US, and most of Europe […]

Flossing – of the dental variety – is one of the most mundane parts of a person’s day, but any dentist will tell you it’s vital to maintaining good oral hygiene. Unfortunately, it seems a lot of us are probably doing it wrong, as new research has revealed a vastly superior flossing technique: AHVFT. The […]

The African black-footed cat has a ferocious reputation as the deadliest cat in the world, but if you saw one on a suburban street, you’d probably mistake it for an extremely cute tabby kitten. Along with being the world’s deadliest feline, the black-footed cat (Felis nigripes) also happens to be Africa’s smallest cat. Weighing between 1 to 2 […]

On the South Pole of the Moon, there are craters that never see sunlight. Images of them are usually just a dark abyss, but there is interest in getting to the bottom of them. There is ice there, and the Artemis astronauts will explore the region when humans return to the Moon later this decade. […]

Scientists have achieved a long-standing dream to genetically modify silkworms to produce a material stronger than the Kevlar in bulletproof vests. Not only could the product save lives and have a host of industrial uses, but it could also be more environmentally friendly than existing manufacturing techniques for high-strength fabrics. Silkworms have been put to […]

A big phallic mushroom recently put on quite a show in eastern Germany, where its short life cycle was captured on camera. The fruiting body of the stinkhorn fungus, Phallus impudicus, it looks as NSFW as its species name would have you assume, and the video is really something. The starring mushroom is the visible […]

A man in Bulgaria has been found in a “stage of complete mummification” just 16 days after last being seen alive. Describing this incredibly rare occurrence, the authors of a new case report say that the dead man’s brain, guts, and other organs had shriveled up into “structureless masses”, yet are unable to explain how […]

In a recent Ted Talk, the creator of the Bird Aren’t Real movement Peter McIndoe spoke about the work he does “deprogramming” the public from the “bird lie”. “We live in a pro-bird civilization drenched in propaganda,” McIndoe told the audience, explaining that once he realized that he had to act, going from city to […]

Most species in the Rafflesia genus, also known as “corpse flowers” (not to be confused with Amorphophallus titanum), are in danger. An estimated 60 percent of species are at severe risk of extinction, and 67 percent of their known habitats are outside of protected areas, a new study has found. These parasitic plants are famous for […]

In 1866, astronomers were astonished when a star that previously required telescopes to see quickly rose to be the second brightest in the Coronae Borealis constellation for weeks. It seems, however, that the event was not unprecedented: a medieval manuscript reveals a brightening of what may be the same star. If so, it would add […]

Life is surprisingly persistent in the Mariana Trench, the deepest place on Earth. Whether or not you subscribe to the idea that viruses count as “life”, little is known about the ones that make it their home. In a new study, researchers have identified a previously unknown bacteriophage residing in the trench, and in doing […]

Blue is one of the rarest colors found in nature – along with the fact there are no green mammals, of course. Now a new species of tarantula has been discovered in Thailand with a blue-violet hue that researchers say resembles the color of electrical sparks.  In Phang-Nga province in Thailand, researchers collected a new […]

Last week, Frank Rubio reached the milestone of spending the longest time in space of any NASA astronaut. Now, he has broken another record. He’s the first US astronaut to have spent a whole consecutive year in space, and he’s still got a few more days to go before he comes down to Earth on […]

Coffee drinkers out there will be familiar with the phenomenon of coffee poops, the poops you suddenly have the urge for after drinking your morning macchiato. The phenomenon is generally accepted amongst coffee drinkers, despite not a lot in the way of scientific investigation. In a small survey, 29 percent of people said that coffee […]

The emergence of life on Earth is a mystery. What were the conditions that made it possible for life to happen here? We do not know. We also don’t know if those conditions are an absolute requirement or if there are different ways for life to come out of the inorganic universe. A group of […]

Tiny blob-like sea creatures could hold the keys to the origins of our nervous systems. A new study put placozoans under the microscope – literally – and discovered that they contain cells that look a little bit like our neurons, something scientists haven’t seen before this far back in evolutionary time. Placozoans have been around […]

Archaeologists believe they have found evidence of a 476,000-year-old wooden structure in Africa. If their work is correct, this would be the earliest known wooden structure ever discovered, marking a mind-blowing milestone in the development of ancient humans. The wooden remains were discovered around the Kalambo River basin of Zambia near to Kalambo Falls. Describing […]

Beefalo are a domesticated breed of cattle that was created with a little bit of encouragement from humans in the 1960s. Made up of part bovine, and part bison, the goal was to create a “superior” cattle that combined the milking ability and general ease of domestic cows, with the hardiness and meat quality of […]

RNA from a Tasmanian tiger (thylacine) specimen preserved more than a century ago has been sequenced. This marks the first time the feat has been achieved for any extinct species, including those whose demise was much more recent. The fact the specimen had been stored at room temperature demonstrates RNA sequencing should be possible for […]