Deborah Bloomfield

Here’s the thing about numbers: they go on for frickin’ ever. Literally. What’s the biggest number you can think of? 700? A million? Whatever’s in Elon Musk’s bank account today? It doesn’t matter – add one to it. Congratulations: you just made an even bigger number. You played yourself. A corollary of this unfortunate fact […]

For much of the latter part of the 20th Century, you couldn’t flip through the channels without finding at least one documentary on the Bermuda Triangle, an area in the Atlantic Ocean that was chomping down ships and airplanes like they were Reese’s Pieces.  But over recent years, a new genre of Tweet has come […]

Sleep can be remarkably difficult to get in these stressful times, so when you catch a few Zzzs it pays to get the best quality you can. While everything from avoiding blue light to reading and counting sheep has been touted as a tool for drifting off, the position we sleep in can also have […]

Swapping out your comfort blanket for the remains of a long-dead public figure might turn your stomach, but in history, such extremes have been reported as a success in treating maladies that had failed to respond to medicine. The “miracle” of one such bed body led to the posthumous canonization of Fray Diego de Alcalá, […]

If you are a Twitter user in the US, you might have seen little notes attached to popular or noteworthy tweets. These notes come from the company’s Birdwatch program, a novel approach to fact-checking that provides more context to tweets – all done by users. The first question that pops to mind knowing that this […]

An innocent man has been freed from prison after serving 35 years of his wrongful conviction, partially thanks to a rerun of an old Mythbusters episode.  In September 1986, two brothers were killed in a fire at an apartment in Southwest Chicago. Two siblings managed to escape the fire, and told authorities that they believed […]

The question of life on Mars is an open one. One approach to provide insights is looking at the past of the Red Planet and estimating if and when it ever had conditions suitable for life. A new study states that in the distant past, the subsurface of Mars was habitable for microorganisms that feed […]

Online fraudsters have reinvented an age-old online romance scam by pretending to be a Russian cosmonaut who needs money to return home to planet Earth. As far out as it may seem, the hustle recently managed to hook one woman living in Japan who reportedly sent 4.4 million yen ($30,000) to the unknown criminals. The […]

A new safety feature has arrived with the iPhone 14 that automatically notifies emergency services after detecting the owner has been in a collision, but it has not shipped without some pretty annoying bugs – reports in the US are suggesting 911 has been notified multiple times by the feature after confusing people on rollercoasters […]

The opening of Wheatridge Renewable Energy Facilities marks the first time utility-scale solar, wind and batteries have been combined at one site for reliable electricity production in the United States. It won’t be the last. The project is currently mostly a wind farm with batteries and solar attached, rather than an equal partnership triple-threat, but […]

At least four people have died and 52 have fallen sick after consuming synthetic cannabis containing rat poison, according to a new report by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).   This latest cluster of cases first started appearing in Florida around December 2021, when the state poison center came across three […]

The flu seasons of 2020 and 2021 were mild, mostly thanks to measures people took against COVID, such as wearing masks, social distancing and using copious amounts of hand gel. 2022, however, looks like a whole different kettle of fish. The southern hemisphere – where flu season starts – has been hit hard. Australia, for […]

Upon opening to an excited crowd, a $1.5 million floating home – complete with a jacuzzi, panoramic windows, and an impressive exterior – proved a resounding success for multiple days as visitors toured inside. However, hopes for smooth sailing quickly met a disappointing end as the high-end home began leaning, ending up partially submerged and […]

Underwater excavations just off the coast of Belize have revealed how the Maya civilization manufactured salt, the much-needed commodity that kept the empire rolling. Like any underwater archaeology, the new research is a reminder of how the Earth’s lakes, rivers, and oceans may still hide many vital insights into how humans once lived. The discovery […]

Being a new parent is exhausting. It’s hardly news – but if you haven’t gone through it yourself, it might be difficult to appreciate just how demanding a brand-new baby can be. They don’t have a circadian rhythm, so forget about sleeping through the night; they wake up every few hours at random intervals, wanting […]

Sixty six million years ago, sea monsters really existed. They were mosasaurs, huge marine lizards that lived at the same time as the last dinosaurs. Growing up to 12 metres long, mosasaurs looked like a Komodo dragon with flippers and a shark-like tail. They were also wildly diverse, evolving dozens of species that filled different […]

Dying of “old age”… it certainly is a head-scratcher, and it can make people curious as to what actually is the cause of a person’s death. This has become apparent with the recent death of Queen Elizabeth II, as it was announced that “old age” was the cause of death on her death certificate. But […]

Italian astronaut and current commander of the International Space Station (ISS), Samantha Cristoforetti, has brought cosplay to literal new heights during her tenure on the space station by dressing up as various sci-fi heroines. She also carries out incredible work in science communication, like sharing how CPR is done in space or explaining menstruation in […]

Tardigrades are famed for their ability to withstand harsh environmental conditions, and new research reveals the secret to the creatures’ incredible powers of endurance. When frozen, the so-called water bears enter a state of “cryobiosis” and stop aging entirely until they are thawed. Such a finding builds upon previous research which showed that tardigrades undergo […]

Faint but significant magnetic field changes have been detected days before Californian earthquakes. It’s not quite the holy grail of seismology, but it could illuminate the path – if the work stands up to further testing, it could allow warnings that could greatly reduce lives lost. The researchers who found the signal acknowledge it’s not […]