Deborah Bloomfield

There are a fair few examples in the animal kingdom of species that have mathematical abilities, some fish can count, bees can tell apart odd and even numbers, and now giraffes can make decisions based on statistical information.  Four giraffes (Giraffa camelopardalis) at Barcelona Zoo have taken part in a new study testing whether they […]

Surgeons have successfully performed the first brain surgery on a fetus still in the womb, repairing a potentially deadly vascular malformation from deep within the developing brain. Using ultrasound to guide the surgeons, the fetus was operated on at just 34 weeks and two days gestational age, marking a huge leap forward in the treatment […]

An old photograph from the Finnish Defence Forces’ photo archive occasionally resurfaces on social media, largely because of how eye-catching it is.  Taken by Finnish photographer Osvald Hedenström, the photo shows a type of camouflage used by Finland during World War II, to disguise the road from Soviet forces. The trees would not hide the […]

Standing at a height of 8,848 meters (29,029 feet) above sea level, Mount Everest is the planet’s highest peak (though not strictly the highest mountain). Having claimed over 300 lives so far, climbing this mountain is already a daunting concept, but even more so once you hear the eerie groans it makes in the night. […]

An international team of researchers have been able to track the distribution of matter across the universe over its whole age. The work used the first light that shone freely in the universe, the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), to study the unseen matter of the cosmos and confirm that observations agree with our models. Now, […]

April and May temperature records have been smashed across Asia this year, and in many other places as well. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has warned that it’s likely to be just the start of a series of heat waves everyone needs to prepare for now. Along with the rising trend caused by the build-up […]

For thousands of years, condors have been breeding and nesting in the same sheltered spot in the Nahuel Huapi National Park in Argentina. Over the centuries, their poop has been piling up to form a dense defecation cake that is packed full of valuable information, not only about the birds themselves, but how they respond […]

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the world’s first vaccine for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), officials announced Wednesday.  Called Arexvy and developed by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), the vaccine is authorized for those over 60 years old, marking a huge turning point in the decades-long search for a shot against RSV – an illness […]

You might think that given how ubiquitous and essential photosynthesis is, we’d have long ago discovered how it works. Instead, major parts of the process remain a mystery. New research suggests one of these stages has considerable parallels with exciton condensates, something physicists have had to go to great lengths to produce in the lab. […]

People on the Internet appear to believe that the Sun has changed color over the last few decades. In a thread of some very confused Twitter users, people claimed to believe that the Sun used to be yellow, and is now white. “I’m just telling a person in their 20s that the sun used to […]

A trial of a new drug to combat Alzheimer’s disease has produced encouraging results, slowing clinical decline by 35 percent and leading to a 40-percent reduction in patients losing the ability to carry out everyday tasks. Pharma giant Eli Lilly and Company is now moving towards securing regulatory approval for the drug, called donanemab. It’s […]

Doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital have described how they solved a medical mystery, figuring out that their patient had been faking a rare genetic disorder. The recently published case report details how a woman turned up with some alarming symptoms, but as the medical team began to investigate, things just didn’t add up. The patient […]

When a star runs out of hydrogen to fuse at its core a transformation occurs, the star first collapses a bit on itself to kickstart the fusion of helium and then it expands, becoming a million times larger. That star has become a red giant. Red giants are expected to engulf their closest planets as […]

Ancient DNA extracted from a deer tooth pendant has revealed that the age-old jewelry was worn by a single female owner between 19,000 and 25,000 years ago. Found in the famous Denisova Cave in Russia, the trinket belonged to a woman with strong genetic ties to a group of humans that lived further east in […]

Finding the right people to go to Mars will be no easy feat. They have to be prepared for the monumental risk of never returning, they must be happy to sit in a confined spacecraft for around seven months to get there, and they need to be some of the most highly trained specialists out […]

In a potentially game-changing breakthrough for brain cancer patients, researchers have managed to temporarily breach the blood-brain barrier using ultrasound and successfully deliver chemotherapy drugs to the brain.  A new study reports the results of a phase 1 clinical trial, providing the first direct evidence that ultrasound-based opening of the blood-brain barrier can significantly increase […]

The Grotte Mandrin cave has overturned anthropological thinking about the arrival of Homo sapiens in Western Europe. A new paper attempts to build a new picture that puts the Mandrin discoveries in context of human activity in Asia. The author concludes modern humans arrived in three waves, only displacing the Neanderthals with the third. Until […]

A new study has investigated whether alien civilizations could find humanity by detecting radio signals from cell phone towers leaking from Earth.  The team simulated leakage from cell towers around the world, attempting to work out if advanced aliens around nearby stars would be able to detect it using equipment equivalent to what we have […]

A video on TikTok has caused a bit of worry for nervous flyers this week, showing airport workers applying tape to the wings of a plane. “This is the reason why I don’t fly with Spirit. I don’t care if it is aviation airplane tape,” the voiceover in @myhoneysmacks‘ video says. “The fact that you have […]

If you’re looking to travel from the US this summer, expect a little chaos – the government has refused to delay the deadline for planes to be retrofitted to prevent interference from the growing 5G network.  The deadline was set by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for July 1 after a series of previous delays, […]