Deborah Bloomfield

Researchers are now capable of deflecting beams of laser light by using an invisible grating system made of air. The optical system is created using ultrasound and is not damaged by the laser (it is just air, after all), and it doesn’t reduce the quality of the beam. The team has already applied for a […]

Recordings of human voices scare the wildlife of the Greater Kruger National Park more than lions’ growls or even the sound of gunshots. Even in a national park, we’re probably the bigger threat. After all, lions only kill what they can eat – some humans will slaughter an entire rhinoceros so they can turn its […]

A team of astronomers believe they have detected objects moving far beyond the Kuiper belt, suggesting a possible second asteroid belt within our Solar System. The team has presented the findings at the 54th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference and is assembling a paper, but the work has not yet been peer-reviewed. NASA probe New […]

It might be dead and encased in a lump of amber (RIP), but there’s a new species of micro-wasp in town and it’s got some pretty odd antennae. The tiny wasp was discovered preserved in a piece of amber from Myanmar and is thought to be from the mid-Cretaceous period, around 100 million years ago.  […]

This year’s ozone hole over Antarctica has swelled to one of its biggest extents on record, encompassing an area roughly three times the size of Brazil. Scientists at the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service believe the exceptionally large patch of ozone depletion may have something to do with a colossal volcanic eruption that blasted a massive […]

If this looks a lot like your homework from back in the day, you can take heart in the fact that teachers have been scribbling all over their students’ work with a red pen for at least the last 4,000 years. This gessoed board, currently held at The Met in New York, shows an Ancient […]

If you were asked to guess when the steam engine was first invented, you’d probably guess around the 18th century, powering as it did the Industrial Revolution.  And you’d be right to – but well over a thousand years before that, shortly after 0 CE, Hero of Alexandria described a sort of steam engine, used […]

Lego has reportedly ditched its plans to make bricks from recycled soda bottles instead of oil-based plastic after finding that it would not actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, the company maintains they’re still committed to bricks from sustainable materials within a decade. Lego’s chief executive, Niels Christiansen, told the Financial Times (FT) that the […]

The winners of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Chemistry are Moungi Bawendi, Louis E Brus, and Alexey Ekimov for their discovery and synthesis of quantum dots. The prize is worth 11 million Swedish kronor (around US$1 million at time of publishing), which will be shared equally among the three winners.  Quantum dots are nanoparticles; a […]

Fat Bear Week has returned for 2023 and the annual competition at Katmai National Park And Preserve in Alaska is delivering some absolute units. With famous faces like Chunk, Holly, and 747 back and in the running, who knows who will be the victor for this year? All that’s certain is you’ve got to be […]

Researchers have developed a new microfluidic device that could be used to simulate any human disease in multiple organs and test potential new treatments. How does it work? Named Lattice, the device consists of eight wells that can contain cell cultures from different organs, depending on the disease that a scientist might want to study. […]

The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has issued the first-ever fine for failing to properly dispose of space junk. In 2002, DISH Network launched its EchoStar-7 satellite. Ten years later, it filed a plan with the FCC for decommissioning the satellite at the end of its mission. This plan involved moving the satellite 300 kilometers […]

A Chinook helicopter got more than it bargained for when it swooped down low to take pictures of some captive crocodiles, as it accidentally triggered a giant orgy. Exactly what it is about low-flying helicopters that gets crocodiles in the mood isn’t known for certain, but it appears to mimic one of the natural cues […]

People in Paris and beyond are currently despairing over an apparent scourge of parasitic, bloodsucking bedbugs – but despite cases of the critters indeed being on the rise, experts have said that the current panic is, at times, a touch overblown. As the CDC notes, bedbugs (Cimex lectularius and Cimex hemipterus) are in fact having […]

A team of Czech archaeologists have rediscovered a lost tomb that belonged to an ancient Egyptian official called Ptahshepses, who lived around 4,400 years ago (during the 24th and 25th centuries BCE). The discovery even contained the mummified remains of this significant individual. According to a statement released by the Czech Institute of Egyptology on […]

Traces of ancient DNA appear to have been found within the 6-million-year-old fossil bones of an extinct turtle. This is staggeringly old evidence of DNA and may suggest that genetic material can last much longer than previously appreciated. Found along the Caribbean coast of Panama, the fossil consists of a broken shell, but the remaining […]

Verbal abuse of children should receive more recognition for the huge damage it can inflict, say researchers from the UK and US. Their new study calls for verbal abuse to be considered its own separate category of maltreatment, on a par with physical abuse, sexual abuse, and neglect. The review of data from over 150 […]

One of Europe’s greatest concentrations of sauropod bones from the early Cretaceous has yielded a new gigantic dinosaur species. Even with bits of three individuals, most of the bones are still missing, but what has been found is enough for palaeontologists to recognize this is a species they have never seen before, and call it […]

Cannibalism was a standard funerary practice in parts of Europe around 15,000 years ago, according to new research from London’s Natural History Museum (NHM) that involved rigorous analysis of archaeological and genetic evidence. The study uncovered remains that consistently showed signs of chew marks, as well as manipulation of bone to create tools.  Magdalenian human […]

Everything we know about what’s inside the Earth comes from the measurements of seismometers. Quakes shake our planet, and scientists can reconstruct what’s under our feet from how waves move through our world. Under incredible pressures and temperatures, materials can also behave oddly. The inner core, for example, is solid due to pressure, but also […]