Deborah Bloomfield

Many of the ocean’s great whales were almost hunted to extinction in the 19th century at the hands of the commercial whaling industry. Unbeknownst to many, this multi-million-dollar industry was not driven by demand for meat, but by a strange commodity that became integral to the Industrial Revolution. Whale oil is sourced from the blubber of […]

What if we told you there was a way to go back to the year 2016, before all [gestures vaguely at the past seven years] this happened? You could just hop on a plane and find yourself in 2016, ready to warn the world about something terrible, like COVID or Elon Musk’s Twitter acquisition.  Well, […]

More than 90 meters (295 feet) below the surface of the Indian Ocean, global warming has made its mark, with scientists discovering the deepest known evidence of coral reef bleaching. We generally think of deep-sea corals as being relatively safe from the clutches of climate change, so when a team of scientists from the University […]

In the southwestern Indian Ocean, the volcanic island of Anjouan is home to a strange geological mystery. On the island, residents and geologists keep finding a type of rock that shouldn’t be there. The island formed on an ocean basin, when tectonic plates shifted away from each other and magma moved up and cooled to […]

On TV and in movies, relationship breakdowns tend to come with a hefty side order of tears, ice cream, and questionable haircuts. Out here in the real world, things can be a little less black-and-white. A breakup isn’t always the worst thing, and sometimes it can actually leave you feeling better – so why is […]

It’s a daily battle each time we’re rudely awoken by our alarms – do we drag ourselves out of bed, or do we hit snooze and remain a cozy little cinnamon bun for another 5 (let’s be honest, more like 25) minutes? It’s easy to feel guilty for the latter – but according to new […]

Measuring in at a tongue-blistering 2,693,000 Scoville Heat Units (SHU), “Pepper X” has been awarded the title of the world’s hottest chili pepper. It dethrones the infamous Carolina Reaper chili, which averages at a comparatively mild 1.64 million SHU. Someone pass the milk.  Pepper X scooped the title as the new Guinness World Record holder […]

Teamwork doesn’t always make the dream work – it can give some people cause to relax, whilst others pick up the slack, in what social psychologists have dubbed “social loafing”. But what happens when your teammate is a robot? The same thing, according to a new study.  “Teamwork is a mixed blessing,” said Dietlind Helene […]

With two and a half months still to go, projections on how this year has been for the climate are exceedingly bleak. It is expected that this year will be the hottest on record, exceeding 1.5°C (2.7°F) above pre-industrial levels in global average temperatures. And carbon dioxide pollution levels are expected to be up between […]

In the mid-19th century, German physician Carl Reinhold August Wunderlich set about establishing the average temperature of the human body. He believed (correctly) that fever is a symptom of a disease, not a disease in itself, and introduced temperature charts at the general hospital at Tübingen, of which he was head. Building on the work […]

The natural world is full of useful materials and organisms that inspire these designs. Scientists have always been interested in the amazing properties of spider silk, and have now successfully produced it from another species, the humble silkworm. Previously, synthetic materials have often had to compromise between high tensile strength and toughness – tensile strength […]

Along the icy shores of Antarctica, scientists stumbled across the ancient preserved remains of penguins that have remained remarkably fresh thanks to the chilly conditions. Some of these penguin mummies may date as far back as 5,000 years ago, centuries before the Ancient Egyptians started to perform mummification using embalming. Several ancient penguin boneyards were […]

We don’t want to come across as some sort of conspiracy theorist raging about how they’re putting 5G in birds, but did you know that they (farmers) are putting magnets in cows? Known as cow magnets, the devices are placed inside cattle to deal with “hardware disease”, or traumatic reticuloperitonitis. Cows, like myself at an […]

Pop a pill (of the legal variety, of course) and you’ll most likely be left with a nasty, bitter taste in your mouth. Trivial as it may seem, this is a pretty substantial problem in medicine, but one that exists for good reason. Why do medicines taste so bad? As explained by the American Chemical […]

One of the great joys as a child is learning about magnets, the seemingly magic objects that make metal fly away from the floor. Modern magnets are commonly manufactured by taking ferromagnetic materials such as iron or nickel, heating it before subjecting it to a strong magnetic field, aligning the magnetic field in a uniform […]

Over the last few hundred years, the human population of Earth has seen an increase, taking us from an estimated 1 billion in 1804 to 7 billion in 2017. Throughout this time, concerns have been raised that our numbers may outgrow our ability to produce food, leading to widespread famine.  Some – the Malthusians – […]

A program that uses easily available data and no more than 10 seconds of speech is capable of identifying whether someone has diabetes seven times out of eight, a study has found. Better still, it should soon be possible to get it as an app on any smartphone, providing a cheap and accessible option for […]

If you had to choose between your favorite food or your favorite toy (we’re talking PlayStation or phone if your mind was in the gutter), which would you pick? If you said food, then you’re not alone in the animal kingdom – a new study has found that dogs show a preference for their favorite […]

Adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are almost three times more likely to develop dementia than those without the condition, according to a new study. It highlights the need for more attention to be paid to a group that has historically been excluded from this kind of research. For many years, ADHD was considered […]

Identical twins, or to use their proper name, monozygotic twins, are generally thought to be indistinguishable aside from their fingerprints (although research has found this to be untrue – even among these siblings there can be some differences).  This type of twin occurs when a single egg, fertilized by a single sperm, splits into two. As a […]