Deborah Bloomfield

The Earth’s rotation is gradually slowing down, thanks to interactions with the Moon. Two billion years ago, there was a pause in those changes that lasted about a billion years. A new study not only explains this, but calculates how long the day would be if that pause had never occurred – and the answer […]

Researchers have just unraveled some of the subtle mysteries behind ancient Egyptian art. Using new scanning techniques, the team have shown how artists approached and modified tomb paintings that were either not up to scratch or needed reworks. The study of ancient Egyptian paintings is as old as Egyptology itself. Since the 19th century, generations […]

It’s not often we see our planet and satellite from the perspective of another world, and we’ve never seen them like this before. That little white dot zooming around the slightly bigger white dot, that’s the Moon orbiting Earth as seen from Mars. To celebrate its 20th anniversary, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Mars Express […]

Scientists claim to have reverted cells to a younger state by using just a chemical therapy, marking a potential breakthrough in anti-aging research. The study builds on existing research into anti-aging genes that won a Nobel Prize, so the approach certainly warrants a closer look, though it remains experimental and on small cell cultures at […]

Authorities are urging guests of a New Mexico spa to get come forward for HIV, hepatitis B, and hepatitis C testing after multiple former guests were infected with HIV following procedures including “vampire facials”. The New Mexico Department of Health has been investigating a cluster of HIV cases associated with the VIP Spa in Albuquerque […]

They say dinosaurs live on in the form of modern birds, but why was it that some of their relatives survived while this mighty animal group perished? Scientists believe a rare discovery may hold clues, as they describe a pinch of juvenile feathers that belonged to a baby bird of an extinct species. The Ugly […]

In 2013, a man suddenly disappeared after a sinkhole opened right beneath him in the middle of the night. His family heard a loud bang and then a scream, running in to find that Jeff Bush, 37, was gone.   The sinkhole took in gravel and debris, and was filled in before returning a few […]

It’s been 40,000 years since the last Neanderthals walked the Earth, yet scientists are still trying to figure out who or what finished off the ancient hominid species. One of the more obvious possibilities is that modern humans massacred their Eurasian relatives, and the author of a new book suggests that our uniquely genocidal nature […]

A big name in Israeli archaeology has claimed he’s found a web of ancient cities that were part of King David’s empire, suggesting this biblical figure was not just a humble shepherd, but a mighty leader. However, his newly published theory is not convincing everyone in the field.  Writing in an open-access and peer-reviewed journal, […]

Dipping your toes in crystal clear blue waters might be a thing of the past, new research has revealed. By studying changes in surface ocean color, using satellites, for over 20 years, researchers have discovered that now 56 percent of our ocean is green, not blue. This represents a region that is greater than the […]

A recent announcement by the White House stated that Ukraine will receive a new package of military aid, much of which will be cluster munitions. These bombs or missiles explode to release submunitions, called bomblets, that spread around the target area and subsequently explode. By doing so, the area affected by the munition is greatly increased, […]

The first evidence of the world’s oldest discovered glaciers has been found in the gold fields of South Africa. Extremely well-preserved glacial deposits lay beneath the world’s largest gold deposits, providing convincing evidence of the environmental conditions of the early Earth.  While the exact conditions of Earth during this period are still widely unknown, these […]

Just when you thought avian protests couldn’t get any classier than Cockatoo Eating A Croissant on a “no stopping” sign, researchers have discovered that in some places, birds are using metal spikes meant to deter them as nesting material. Seems humans’ attempts to make anti-bird spikes have worked a treat. The metal nests don’t look […]

There’s an old stereotype, based at least partly in truth, that men can tend to get a little bit sleepy after they orgasm during sex. There are a number of reasons why this happens, and a few thoughts on what the evolutionary advantage of being a bit tired after having sex could be. First, let’s […]

Tinder is by far the most popular dating app in the world, boasting an estimated 75 million users each month. And while it has offered many a chance to meet new people and start a fulfilling relationship, for others it has been a source of disappointment and confusion. The experience of being “ghosted”, where initially […]

Like many ancient cultures, the Ancient Egyptians had a rich system of beliefs concerning the afterlife and saw death as just the beginning of a long and arduous journey to the eternal lands. Littered with obstacles and demons, the path to paradise was a treacherous one for the departed of Ancient Egypt, and the so-called […]

Venom can be as potent as it pleases, but if you’ve got no way of delivering it, you’re looking at wasted toxins. That got researchers wondering how the feather-legged lace weaver kills its prey, considering it apparently lost the equipment needed to inject over the course of its evolution. Now, a new preprint (that’s not […]

Time to cast your minds a long way back into Earth’s geological history, approximately 541 million years, to the beginning of the Paleozoic Era. This is a period long before the arrival of the dinosaurs and long long before modern animals we see today, right to the beginning of the appearance of the first ancestors […]

In science, the more observations, the better the insights. And amateur astronomers are actually killing it when it comes to supernova (SN) 2023ixf. The event is in the Pinwheel galaxy, a spiral galaxy 21 million light-years from us, making it the closest of the last decade. It was discovered first by Japanese amateur astronomer Koichi […]

On the Kenya-Uganda boundary lies Mount Elgon. Inside this extinct volcano, there is a fascinating animal population: Cave Elephants. Located on the eastern side of Mount Elgon, within Kenya’s Mount Elgon National Park, elephants serenely forage in the forested surroundings during the daytime. However, at sunset, these elephants make their way up the mountain and […]