Deborah Bloomfield

Undoubtedly up there with some of the weirdest animals on Earth, platypuses resemble a hodgepodge of about four different animals. These funky monotremes are found swimming around Australia’s rivers, laying eggs (more on that later) and raising their young. But what do you call a baby platypus? Let’s start with breeding Of course we have […]

A new study has found that dog owners in the US have become increasingly skeptical of vaccinating their canine companions. The growth of the anti-vax movement was one of the most notable outcomes of the COVID-19 pandemic, even reaching the point where social media platforms had to expand their medical misinformation policies to cover all […]

A celestial object recently smashed into Jupiter, the undisputed king of the planets, releasing a short but sharp flash of energy. While objects frequently collide with Jupiter – much more so than any other planet in the Solar System – it’s pretty exceptional for scientists to document the crash in action. Remarkably, this latest collision […]

Bananas are berries, botanically speaking, which is especially confusing in the context that strawberries aren’t. There’s a lot to these fruits – which they are classed as, too – that people don’t appreciate, but perhaps one of its most misunderstood and wrongfully maligned features is that little black nub you find at the end. If […]

A team of archaeologists has made an important discovery in the province of Chota in Cajamarca, Peru. They have unearthed the tomb of a shaman who is thought to have lived around 3,000 years ago. The find represents the first priestly figure of its kind in the region.  The individual, who was buried with a […]

The brain’s weight switch may have been discovered in a new study that enabled obese mice to lose weight without changing their diet. If the same effects are seen in humans, it could give rise to a new therapy that enables people to regulate their weight without experiencing the hunger pangs and dietary restrictions associated […]

If you’ve ever tried to make a tuna mayo sandwich in the same room as a cat you could be well versed in just how much cats love tuna. Quite why cats go mad for this fishy treat has been explored by a new study looking at taste receptors in the mouths of our feline […]

Texas has been experiencing extreme drought conditions for the past few years. While this is a worrying and damaging situation generally, it has revealed something previously unknown: for millions of years, dinosaur tracks (up to 70) have been hiding under the water and mud of the Paluxy River. Now, the hot temperatures have exposed these […]

This article first appeared in Issue 11 of our free digital magazine CURIOUS.  In the Buddhist tradition, meditation is seen as a path to enlightenment and a tool to realize the Fourth Noble Truth: that there is a way to end our worldly suffering. While modern science tends not to deal in such mystical notions, there is some evidence […]

Data from Sweden, published in a new study, show that sepsis in hospital patients is much more common than many previously believed. The researchers are now working to map the situation across the whole of Europe; but do you know the signs and symptoms to look out for? Initial research back in 2016 in the […]

Even in an age of rovers on Mars and probes to asteroids, meteorites provide vital information that we often can’t get anywhere else. Some of the knowledge we seek is stored magnetically, making its wiping a scientific tragedy. Yet that happens when meteorite hunters use hand magnets to discover their targets, and one study shows […]

There are many methods that allow us to look back into Earth’s past and study its climate, including the collection of ice cores. Extracting ancient ice from deep inside some of the most remote glaciers can reveal how our planet has changed over millions of years. But it’s not just about the past: what is […]

Around the deep sea vents of Earth’s deepest waters, it’s possible to find colonies of bacteria that are neatly pointed toward the invisible magnetic field lines of Earth, just like a compass needle. These strange life forms are known as magnetotactic bacteria, living microorganisms capable of “sensing” magnetic fields. While their kind have been found […]

If artificial intelligence (AI) advances keep happening, it may one day be reasonable to ask “Is this machine conscious”? The Turing Test, created by renowned mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing, looks to see if a computer can fool a human into believing that they too are an ordinary human being. As natural language models […]

The Prime Minister of Japan, Fumio Kishida, has eaten sashimi made from fish caught off the coast of Fukushima, to show that it is safe. Though there has been controversy, not least from fishermen in the area, around the release of treated water, it has been deemed safe by experts. Kishida and three of his […]

Fun fact: Insect wings, such as those on dragonflies, have tiny spikes across their surfaces called nanopillars that are handy for killing bacteria. Now scientists are taking inspiration from these little natural defenses as a new method to combat drug-resistant superbugs that threaten patients receiving implants. What are superbugs? Superbugs are on the rise. These […]

A new analysis of ancient footprints in South Africa suggests that the humans who made these tracks might have been wearing hard-soled sandals. While researchers are reluctant to shoehorn in any firm conclusions regarding the use of footwear in the distant past, the prints’ unusual characteristics may provide the oldest evidence yet that people used […]

Scientists have observed a never-before-seen form of oxygen, and its behavior could call into question what nuclear physics says about “magic numbers”. Imagine, if you will, that you could see within an atom; at its core is the nucleus, containing subatomic particles called protons and neutrons. The number of protons is what defines the element. […]

With celebrations from their historic moon landing last week still buzzing, India is now prepping to launch its first-ever mission to study the Sun this weekend. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) announced that it’s scheduled to launch its solar probe on Saturday, September 2 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, found on the island […]

The current burst of solar activity has had some noticeable effects on Earth, but just at the moment it’s Mars that is experiencing it the most – or would be if it were populated. Following the spotting of a huge sunspot by the Perseverance rover, a huge coronal mass ejection is expected to make a […]