Deborah Bloomfield

South Korea has reported its first ever case of, and subsequent death by, the brain-eating amoeba Naegleria fowleri. The patient, who died on December 21, had been suffering from meningitis symptoms, which were caused by the pathogen, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) confirmed Monday. In a statement, the KDCA said the patient […]

For the first time, researchers have demonstrated that human brain organoids are able to form functional connections with mouse brain tissue and respond to visual stimuli. After implanting the human “mini brains” into the animals’ cortices, the study authors used a variety of imaging techniques to confirm the formation of “human-mouse synapses.” In recent years, […]

‘Tis the season for winter viruses. If you’ve not succumbed to the lurgy yourself, chances are you know someone who has. We’re all used to the idea of testing for COVID by now, but it’s not always easy to get hold of a test kit, and if your symptoms are mild, you might be forgiven […]

This is the story of Captain Schlitt, a sunken submarine, and a very unfortunate bowel movement. In April 1945, just weeks away from Germany’s unconditional surrender in World War Two, a soldier’s trip to the toilet resulted in a Nazi submarine suffering a dramatic – and highly unpleasant – demise. The U-boat 1206 was cruising […]

A widely believed theory about the origins of Native Americans has been dealt a huge blow by a new genetic analysis of ancient teeth, implying the ancient inhabitants of what is now America were not who we thought they were. The theory, largely based on archaeological evidence found at Native American sites, claims that the […]

There’s a massive lump of liquidized, carbon-rich material hiding hundreds of kilometers beneath Yellowstone’s supervolcano and the greater Western United States area. It’s truly massive – 1.8 million square kilometers (about 700,000 square miles) in size – and it’s bubbling inside the upper region of the mantle, the region of the planet that’s a partly-molten churning mass […]

A TikTok video has recently gone viral, and it is of a forensic pathologist (an expert in determining the cause and manner of deaths) who explains what she thinks are the most preventable deaths. Dr Judy Melinek has had a long and extensive career in forensics and is a forensic pathologist in New Zealand. She […]

Were it not for the stellar flares, the TRAPPIST-1 star system would look like the perfect place to hunt for life. With three rocky planets in the “habitable zone” where temperatures are right for liquid water, TRAPPIST-1’s worlds have fascinated astrobiologists since their discovery. At just 39 light years from Earth, it is also close […]

A giant “water battery” in the Swiss Alps is finally operational, 14 years after construction began. The Nant de Drance Hydropower Plant can store enough power to charge 400,000 car batteries. Until fusion (fingers crossed for the next few decades/centuries) is capable of solving all of our power needs, we have a problem to deal […]

The menu of life just grew a little as researchers have discovered that certain organisms can not only eat viruses, but thrive on them too. As a testament to the fact that life, uh, finds a way, it seems some living things have evolved to eat something that’s plastered just about everywhere – viruses. The […]

If you look up into the sky over the next few months, you can see an object last seen when Neanderthals walked the Earth. On March 2, 2022, astronomers at the Zwicky Transient Facility discovered a comet using a wide-field survey camera. The comet is estimated to complete an orbit of the Sun once every […]

In 1943, Thomas Watson, the president of IBM, famously predicted the world market for computers would top out at “maybe five” of the machines. He was wrong – you likely have more than that in your own house, let’s face it – but at the time, it made sense. After all, if computers were still […]

The world’s oldest lake can be found in southeastern Siberia where it’s believed to have existed for around 25 million years. As well as being the great great grandad of lakes, Baikal is also the deepest at 1,700 meters (5,600 feet). The impressive accolade means it’s home to around 20 percent of the world’s unfrozen […]

Depression is a difficult illness. Not only does it make you feel like crap, but like so many primarily mental illnesses, it also comes with a bucketful of misinformation and misconceptions surrounding it. Even medical specialists, whom you’d expect to be the authorities on the matter, are stumped by some aspects of the disease – […]

Despite all the talk about the need to curb our climate impact, carbon emissions from fossil fuels are set to reach a record high this year. So while 2022 may have resembled the trailer for a disaster movie, some experts believe we may have already bought a ticket for the feature film. Climate scientist Robert […]

In Greek mythology, Prometheus suffered appalling torment for stealing fire from the gods. So it’s slightly ironic that those gods, or at least the planets identified with their Roman counterparts, don’t actually have any fire. That applies to Apollo too. While the Sun is often referred to as fiery, the process of fusion that provides […]

When a boy and girl are conceived together, the female twin is exposed to more male hormones in the womb than when both twins are girls. This has allowed researchers to test the much-debated impact of these hormones prior to birth. They have found that there is a small, but statistically significant, negative impact on […]

Director James Cameron says he has conducted a scientific study, finally proving that (SPOILER ALERT) Jack had to drown at the end of the movie Titanic. In the movie, protagonists Jack and Rose fight against the odds to survive as the titular Titanic sinks into the Atlantic Ocean. Having fought off an angry fiancé, escaped […]