Deborah Bloomfield

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has given Moderna and Pfizer approval to update their mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines, in the hopes of tackling the latest variants of SARS-CoV-2. Although deaths and hospitalizations due to COVID-19 are lower than in previous years, a recent summer increase in outbreaks of the virus – and, consequently, an […]

A former secret service agent who was present during the assassination of President John F Kennedy has cast doubt on the “single bullet” theory, sometimes mockingly called the “magic bullet” theory, nearly 60 years after the President’s death. On November 22, 1963, Paul Landis was standing on the running board of a car behind the […]

The sun is setting on the old Southern drawl, y’all. The classic Southern accent is fading away in parts of the US, according to a new study that’s looked at pronunciation shifts in the state of Georgia.  Linguists at the University of Georgia and Georgia Tech have found there has been a significant shift in the […]

A magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck Morocco’s High Atlas Mountains on Friday, September 8, 2023, making it the biggest to hit the country in 123 years. Some who witnessed the disaster first-hand have reported seeing flashing lights shortly before the earthquake began, and it’s a phenomenon that isn’t unfamiliar to scientists. Earthquake lights is the name […]

The mass extinction event that killed the dinosaurs is thought to have wiped out nearly 75 percent of all animal species alive at the time. The same is not true for the plant species, however, as new research suggests that the Cretaceous-Palaeogene extinction event (K-Pg), while wiping out local plant species, did not have the […]

The Stone Age inhabitants of Namibia were so adept at carving human and animal footprints that modern-day Indigenous trackers can tell exactly which species these ancient engravers were depicting in their artworks. When examining over 500 examples of tracks carved into rock faces, the present-day experts were able to identify not only the type of […]

NASA is about to unveil the findings of a major report on UFOs, or “unidentified anomalous phenomena” (UAP) as they are officially known today. The briefing will take place at 10:00 EDT (14:00 UTC) on Thursday, September 14, at the agency’s headquarters in Washington DC. You’ll be able to watch a live stream of the […]

On September 1, 1923, the area surrounding Tokyo, Japan, was struck by a magnitude 7.9 earthquake. The Kantō earthquake, as it is now known, represents one of the deadliest natural disasters in history, killing around 105,000 people. However, 90 percent of those deaths were not caused by the quake or collapsing buildings, but by fires […]

For most of human history, there is little evidence that we wore special night time clothes when we wanted to have a snooze. Nightgowns as a concept date back to at least 1530, when French linguist John Palsgrave wrote “short coats and tight trousers were a great offence to old writers accustomed to long nightgown […]

Drumming parrots with rock n’ roll crests will drum with sticks to win over potential mates. They’re the only group of parrots we’ve observed using tools regularly in the wild, and new research has uncovered the remarkable diversity of their drumstick designs. Parrots are considered to be one of the most intelligent birds on the […]

Archaeologists are currently excavating a Mesolithic hunting site that is contemporaneous to the famous “Shaman of Bad Dürrenberg” in Dehlitz, Germany. The circa 9,000-year-old hunting camp is located about 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) from the shaman’s grave, which sheds light on the lives of people living at the time. In 1934, the remains of a […]

Feeling stressed? Don’t sweat. There’s good evidence to suggest that your body will be pumping out its own “homegrown” cannabinoid compounds that help to chill you out. You might be surprised to hear that the human body naturally produces chemicals that are very similar to delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, better known as THC, the psychoactive compound in cannabis, […]

A video of a conspiracy theorist has gone over the last few days, in which she invites people to put their “critical thinking skills to the test” and asks “If dinosaurs actually existed, wouldn’t their bones be everywhere?” While it’s odd critical thinking to disregard all the evidence we have that dinosaurs existed because we […]

Four years ago, the first image of the supermassive black hole (SMBH) at the heart of the Messier 87 galaxy (M87) proved the Internet could be broken by something other than a celebrity’s thirst trap. The excitement was followed up last year by the imaging of the much smaller, but still unimaginably vast, SMBH in […]

Perhaps we have Jurassic Park to blame for giving dinosaurs like the Tyrannosaurus rex and Spinosaurus the biggest and most badass reputations. However, 40 million years before dinosaurs were roaming the Earth, Pampaphoneus biccai, an enormous carnivore from South America, was the most vicious creature on the planet.  An outstanding discovery of a 265 million-year-old, beautifully […]

The JWST has confirmed the results of lesser telescopes as to how fast the universe is expanding. Instead of settling physics debates, this makes things worse, because the previous measurements contradict what astronomers think should be happening, based on the echoes of the Big Bang. This (probably) doesn’t mean we need to throw out most […]

In news that might change how you view Peach from Finding Nemo, scientists have found evidence of interspecies breeding between two closely related sea star species. The common sea star (Asterias rubens) and the Forbes’ sea star (Asterias forbesi) are commonly found in the rocky intertidal zones of the North Atlantic, where they are considered […]

Earlier in the year, the pitter patter of tiny giraffe hooves was heard at Brights Zoo in Tennessee and the internet fell in love with a one-of-a-kind spotless giraffe calf. Now, reports from half a world away in Namibia suggest that the calf, now called Kipekee, is not alone after all. A second patchless giraffe […]

Anyone who has ever overdone it on the space cakes will know that edible cannabis is a whole different ball game to inhaled weed. In general, the oral route of administration results in a stronger high that can take a little while to set in but tends to linger for considerably longer than the buzz […]