Deborah Bloomfield

Elephants were on the menu for hominins living in Italy 400,000 years ago, and a rare fossil reveals the tools they used, as well as those they got out of the process. It’s no secret that our ancestors, and some other branches of the human family tree, liked a big meal. There’s evidence, for example, […]

On July 1 this year, astronomers discovered an object moving through the Solar System at escape velocity, our third interstellar visitor that we know about. The object, dubbed 3I/ATLAS, is now known to be a comet due to outgassing as it gets closer to the Sun on its way through the Solar System. Astronomers have […]

This pocket-sized new spider is rocking a unique look. Near perfectly split down the middle, its left legs are dark orange while its right is a whitish salt-and-pepper color. Remarkably, this is not just an aesthetic division: one side of the body is female and the other is male. Scientists at Chulalongkorn University and Ubon […]

Over the last week, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) spacecraft Mars Express and ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) were tasked with an unusual request; instead of looking down onto the Red Planet as they usually do, they looked into space. There, they tried to catch a glimpse of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS. Team is still analyzing […]

Images taken by JWST reveal the star that became SN2025pht before it exploded, providing our best view of a red supergiant proto-supernova. The cloud of dust hiding the star from our eyes may answer the question of why we haven’t seen more. SN2025pht was spotted on June 29 this year. Its location, 40 million light-years […]

It’s a credit to how good Isaac Newton was at physics and math that people rarely mention that time he threatened to burn his mother’s house down, or the equally baffling time he stuck a number of needles into his own eyeballs to see what would happen. Yes, when Newton wasn’t revolutionizing our notions of […]

Newly released data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that the 2024-25 flu season was a tough one for the nation’s children, with 280 pediatric deaths recorded. This marks the worst season for child mortality since records of pediatric flu deaths began in 2004 – except, that is, for the H1N1 […]

Consider taking on a mammoth – an animal easily more than twice your height and perhaps 150 times your weight, which roamed in herds and came armed, or rather, toothed, with 3 or 4 meters (10-13 feet) of heavy facial weaponry with which to defend themselves – and you’d be forgiven for thinking twice about the […]

The winners of the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry are Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson, and Omar Yaghi, “for the development of metal-organic frameworks”. The prize is worth 11 million Swedish kronor (around $1,170,000 USD at the time of publishing), which will be shared equally between the winners.  The rest of this article is behind a […]

A team of astronomers has attempted to track the path of interstellar object 3I/ATLAS back into the past, tracing its path through the galaxy in simulations involving over 13 million stars. On July 1, astronomers spotted an unusual object speeding through the Solar System at nearly twice the velocity of previous interstellar visitors ‘Oumuamua and […]

A new study of over 9,900 people with restless leg syndrome (RLS) has suggested that the condition appears to increase the risk of developing Parkinson’s disease (PD). RLS is a neurological condition characterized by an irresistible urge to move the legs, often spurred on uncomfortable sensations in the legs when at rest, leg twitching during […]

Do you ever stop and think about how wonderful it is that it’s so easy for you to scratch your butt? No? Well, perhaps a first-of-its-kind fossil can inspire you to practice a little more gratitude, as it reveals the butt-drag of a rock hyrax committed to the fossil record 126,000 years ago. The rest […]

Cruise ships and gastrointestinal (GI) illness seem to go hand in hand, especially this year. Microbes like norovirus are causing more cruise ship outbreaks off US waters than we’ve seen in almost 20 years, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The rest of this article is behind a […]

Two new species have been discovered swimming off the coast of Western Australia and, like all deep-sea beasties, they are pretty unusual. Say hello to a brand new species of lanternshark that glows in the dark, and a tiny porcelain crab that wouldn’t look out of place next to your fancy crockery.  The rest of […]

The vicious claws of the hairy frog were first noted around 1900, but it wasn’t until after the turn of the millennium that scientists discovered how these strange amphibians produce them — or rather, snap them. When threatened, the hairy frog (Trichobatrachus robustus) deliberately breaks its own toe bones, which then pierce through the skin […]

If your first thought upon seeing the header for this article was “what the f**k is that?!”, don’t worry – we thought the same, and we see a lot of weird stuff in this job. The deep-sea demon that is the telescopefish might just be the most bizarre though, but frankly, that makes it all […]

Magnets are probably the coolest “everyday” object you are introduced to as a child, and they don’t get any less awesome when you learn they can generate electricity, and magnetism and electricity are both components of a single electromagnetic force. Every macro object, from actual magnets to Danny DeVito, is a little magnetic thanks to […]

Money doesn’t grow on trees, so the old saying goes, but gold just might on the Christmas trees of Lapland. In a new study, scientists have uncovered a clear link between bacteria living in Norway spruce needles and the formation of gold nanoparticles. If harnessed correctly, this knowledge could help guide gold hunters to hidden […]

Spiders are remarkable creatures. Resilient, innovative, and packed full of biological engineering that makes biomimeticists hot under the collar (and occasionally create grim “necrobots”). For some, however, they trigger the heebie-jeebies, and unfortunately, I don’t think the fish-eating spiders will help here. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or […]

We have known about Comet 3I/ATLAS for just over four months, and astronomers across the world have been giddy with excitement. This is only the third known interstellar object to have crossed the Solar System, among the thousands that should be here every day. Researchers have been using many different observatories to study this comet, […]