Deborah Bloomfield

Scientists armed with an ancient flower wrapped in amber have discovered that a highly successful group of plants is over 150 million years older than botanists previously thought. By analyzing old and new specimens from the highly successful Buckthorn family, the analyses revealed that flowering plants were likely living it up on Earth long before […]

In a world first, mice with fully recombined chromosomes have been engineered by researchers. The genetically edited rodents have just 19 pairs of chromosomes – mice typically have 20 pairs – and represent the first time ever that chromosome-level engineering has been achieved in mammals. Prior to this, the feat had only been realized in […]

Peace and quiet is hard to come by these days as noise pollution from aircraft, road traffic, and general anthropogenic fuss invades even the remotest of places. Like an endangered species, silence clings to survival in isolated pockets – and may have found its greatest refuge in the Haleakalā Crater on the Hawaiian island of […]

Astronomers might be on the verge of observing an incredible event: Two supermassive black holes are on the brink of a collision, and a new model suggests that this might happen not over cosmic timescales but within the next three years. Observing such an event would provide incredible insights into many fields of physics related […]

A hefty sauropod, possibly the largest ever dinosaur uncovered in Europe, has been found by accident. In 2017, a homeowner in Pombal, Portugal, spotted some fossilized bones during construction works. Flash forward half a decade and it seems it could be he was sitting on a record-breaking prehistoric specimen – living the actual dream. Excavation […]

Immortality exists – but to get it, you need to be a jellyfish, not a god or a vampire. Moreover, only one species of cnidarian, Turritopsis dohrnii, is known to have found the secret of eternal life. Geneticists hope comparing T. dornii’s DNA with its close relative, T. rubra, will help us understand the aging […]

Looking for ways to creatively inject some empathy into your content writing to boost your sales and appeal to a larger audience? If you’re not, you should be. Empathy gives you the ability to relate to your clients and customers. It shows that you understand your audience and can connect on a more relatable level. […]

Imagine dropping a shining gem in a dark pond, and you might get close to the extraordinary view of WR 140 as seen by JWST. Ripples spread into space from this binary system: vast shells of mostly hydrogen gas that one of the evolved companions has shed, now illuminated by the heat of the stars. […]

A crime scene can present itself in any form and size. In recent weeks, an Aotearoa New Zealand family who’d purchased abandoned goods from a storage locker made the harrowing discovery of two sets of human remains hidden inside two suitcases. Sadly, this is not a unique case – bodies of murder victims are found […]

Heard about the chia seed-lemon juice “internal shower” drink? It’s going viral on TikTok and is being hailed as a digestion booster, constipation and bloating buster (particularly after travelling), detox drink and hangover cure. Advocates recommend you mix two tablespoons of chia seeds in a cup of water, add lemon juice, wait till the seeds […]

The construction of Egypt’s great pyramids of Giza some 4,500 years ago is one of the world’s greatest achievements. Among the many questions and complexities surrounding the pyramids, however, is how their vast “building blocks” were hauled to the construction site. It turns out, we can thank a long-lost branch of the River Nile. When […]

As global temperatures rise, people in the tropics, including places like India and Africa’s Sahel region, will likely face dangerously hot conditions almost daily by the end of the century – even as the world reduces its greenhouse gas emissions, a new study shows. The mid-latitudes, including the U.S., will also face increasing risks. There, […]

Making and creating your own art is an incredibly cool talent that boosts learning and can stand the test of time. If you’re looking to become an artist, pick up a new hobby or hone your skills then you’ll love our latest sale! We’re providing an 80% discount on Pencil Kings Ultimate Character Drawing & […]

A post on Twitter showing circular arrangements of flower petals placed around several dead bees by ants recently went viral. With an apparent “bee funeral” taking place, it’s easy to see why, but there are actually several reasons why ants may process dead insects like this – and unfortunately, none of them pertain to giving […]

“The experiment was successful. The animal, now two and a half years old, bears upon the forehead the stamp of the once fabulous unicorn,” biologist Dr W. Franklin Dove wrote of a young bull in his 1936 research paper titled Artificial Production of the Fabulous Unicorn: A Modern Interpretation of an Ancient Myth. Although this […]

Fans of Jurassic World Dominion may recall spotting Lystrosaurus in a few scenes (including a deleted one in which it chomps the head off an Oviraptor). While the silver screen might be the only place we’re going to see such an animal alive and kicking, mummified specimens retrieved from South Africa have now shown their […]

One of the most dangerous aspects of climate change is that many of the effects are on delay, and will continue happening long after humans have stopped messing with the planetary thermostat. Estimates of the already locked-in consequences are usually quite imprecise, but new work claims to address that for one important measure: the amount […]

Researchers have created a “synthetic” mouse embryo – without using eggs or sperm – that has a beating heart, a brain, and the potential to develop all the other organs of the body. The embryos, grown from stem cells, lasted for several days and reached a point of development that has never been achieved before. […]

A slow genocide is now complete, with the news that the so-called “Man of the Hole”, thought to be the last inhabitant of the Tanaru Indigenous Territory, Brazil, has died. The man, whose true name will never be known, was the only survivor of a series of massacres apparently intended to destroy his people so […]

Deep beneath Australia, scientists have used ultra-fine lasers to reveal an Ireland-sized chunk of Earth’s crust that could be up to 4 billion years old. Considering our planet is estimated to be 4.5 billion years old, this discovery could provide some insights into the very early Earth-bending tectonic forces that helped shape the rocky outer […]