Deborah Bloomfield

A battle of cetaceans plays out beneath the Arctic sea ice where orcas pursue belugas. Orcas, known as killer whales, are ferocious predators, but the flukes on their backs can sometimes get in the way. While the orb-like beluga can slip beneath the sea ice and hide out in narrow air holes, orcas run the […]

The modern world is one of nation-states strictly defined by borders. Challenge those borders and it’s a sure-fire way to have troops and tanks rolling in your direction before lunchtime. However, despite humanity’s relatively recent obsession with lines on a map, there are a small number of places on Earth that no sovereign state claims […]

In the rocky hills of Central Asia, a number of walls bear a mysterious script that’s scrawled in an unknown written language. Thanks to the recent work of a team from the University of Cologne, parts of this ancient script are starting to be revealed, shedding light onto the pre-eminent culture that wrote it.  The […]

Psychedelic psychotherapy is currently experiencing its second wave of interest, with studies over the past decade revealing the therapeutic potential of psilocybin and other mind-altering substances. A previous boom in psychedelic research occurred between the 1950s and 1970s, when a lack of ethical standards allowed for some shockingly irresponsible experiments to be performed on nonconsenting […]

We’ve had just about as much as we can take of animals being deceptively, and sometimes deviously, smart this week. First, magpies demonstrated their lawlessness by building nests with material meant to deter them – now it turns out llamas, too, are sharper than you might imagine.  The canny camelids (not to be confused with […]

A hunter has claimed the record of catching the longest-ever Burmese python in Florida, bagging a gigantic 5.79-meter (19.3-foot) snake. It takes the record from the previous snake caught in 2020, which was 5.7 meters (18.75 feet).  Check out footage of them capturing it below.  Advertisement The monster pythons are invasive and extremely damaging to […]

This week an extinct baby bird’s feathers have been found locked in 99-million-year-old amber, scientists have a new proposal for where and when the Anthropocene started, science proves that old people really do smell, and we get a sneak peek into what’s in store for the next few months of JWST discoveries. Subscribe to the […]

Scientists might have found a truly weird rock. It looks like a meteorite, but its composition is very close to that of rocks that form deep in the ocean. And so, they have proposed a radical explanation: that this rock was knocked off the Earth, flew through space for maybe thousands of years, and then […]

Megalodon was a ferocious predator, but new research suggests that when it came to swimming, it was mostly pretty slow. The revelation follows the discovery of scales within rock pieces surrounding a previously described set of teeth from a megalodon fossil. “Our big scientific findings come from ‘tiny evidence’ as small as grains of sand,” […]

The dizzying height of Mount Everest’s 8,849-meter (29,032-foot) peak has cemented this famous Himalayan mountain as the tallest in the world. Semantically speaking, however, it isn’t. Measuring from base to peak, and distance from the equator, Mount Everest has been beaten hands down by two other rocky contenders. Before you leave a strongly worded comment, […]

A birth control pill that can be purchased without a prescription has been approved for use in the US for the first time. The over-the-counter drug received groundbreaking approval from the US Food And Drug Administration (FDA), and will be available online and in-store. “Today’s approval marks the first time a nonprescription daily oral contraceptive […]

It’s a common sight in upmarket restaurants desperate to make the $40 steak seem worth it: “28-day matured beef”. In fact, most places selling meat will often advertise it as aged or matured, and meat enthusiasts will tell you that makes it significantly tastier. But why is that?  To a non-meat eater, 28-day-aged meat sounds […]

Not all stellar objects turn into stars: some are not big enough to turn on nuclear fusions at their core. They become brown dwarfs and end up not much bigger than a planet like Jupiter. Some of them are also colder than a campfire or the hottest setting of an electric stove. Among these ultracool […]

The ocean is a dangerous place at the best of times and now another creature, a sea otter by the name of 841, has joined the orcas in the great uprising of marine animals in 2023. We jest, of course, but maybe consider other places to surf this summer than the California coast. Otter 841 […]

A randomized clinical trial has found that ketamine is life-changing for many people whose depression has failed to respond to other treatments. Moreover, the type of ketamine tested is much cheaper than the nasally administered S-ketamine that has been used in most previous trials, potentially bringing the treatment within reach for those who can’t afford […]

One of the iconic staples of Britain’s infamously dubious cuisine is black pudding, a grainy dark sausage commonly seen alongside a full English breakfast. However, it’s lesser known to friends on the other side of the Atlantic that the main ingredient of this food is blood.  Native to the UK and Ireland, black pudding is […]

Ask any new parent and they’ll tell you how their baby smells indescribably pleasant (as long as their diaper has been recently changed). This isn’t just a matter of parents doting over their newborns: “new baby smell” is a real thing and it appears to play an incredibly effective role in building bonds. In 2019, […]

If you’re someone who struggles to get to sleep or experiences anxiety and stress, then a technique that is being showcased on TikTok and other social media platforms may be able to help you. The so-called “five finger breathing technique”, which sounds like something from an old martial arts film, can allegedly make it easier […]

This week, JWST marked one year of official science missions. To celebrate, a special image was released, a standard birthday gift the telescopes tend to do. Veterans like Hubble have dozens of them, for example. We sat down with some of the astronomers working on JWST, and the excitement for the year was more than […]