Deborah Bloomfield

Aboriginal Australians are the world’s oldest continuous living culture, yet one of their traditional cornerstones of communication – the message stick – is not widely understood today. Nevertheless, it’s a tradition that’s still wielded as a potent symbol of Aboriginal rights. Message sticks are solid pieces of wood of varying length, typically between 10 to […]

A closer look at a collection of cave art in Spain has revealed a number of long-lost animal figures and shapes that haven’t been appreciated for thousands of years. The researchers say their work highlights the importance of how rock art is often a three-dimensional medium that can’t always be understood in a two-dimensional image.  […]

Around 125 million years ago, a small dromaeosaurid dinosaur started moving around the Earth. Not all that surprising given it was the start of the Cretaceous, the last period of the Mesozoic that we know as the “Age Of Dinosaurs” – that is, until you find out it had four wings. And yes, it was […]

If you go down to San Diego today you could be in for a big surprise. Creeping out of holes and cracks in Southern California are two species of tarantula that are setting off for their annual mating ritual. The California black tarantula (Aphonopelma eutylenum) and the San Diego bronze tarantula (Aphonopelmus reversum) are the […]

After two centuries of skyrocketing growth, a significant dip in humanity’s population is “inevitable”, according to a new paper penned by a leading population ecologist. William E Rees, Professor Emeritus at the University of British Columbia, is the author of over 150 peer-reviewed papers on growth and socioeconomic development. Through the course of his decades […]

August 18 marks the anniversary of one of the greatest enduring mysteries of US colonial history: the Lost Colony of Roanoke. While the bizarre incident is often dubbed “America’s oldest unsolved mystery,” we now have a pretty good idea of what occurred (it just took 400 or so years to get a clear idea). In […]

In a small pilot study, scientists have developed a simple oral test that could eventually be a holistic approach to identifying early heart disease risks. There is a strong link between mouth health and heart disease. Gum inflammation can lead to periodontitis, which is a serious gum infection that damages the soft tissue around teeth. […]

A mummified woman discovered over a century ago in Bolivia may have suffered from a fungal infection commonly known as Valley Fever. While the pathogen usually causes non-fatal respiratory systems, in this case, it appears to have destroyed the victim’s bones, possibly leading to her death. Caused by the inhalation of the spores of certain […]

The Sun shapes what goes on in space around our planet. Plasma from our star is continuously thrown at Earth in the form of solar winds or coronal mass ejections, changing the shape of the magnetic field, and affecting the atmosphere and anything in it, like the satellites that we depend on. These changes are […]

The Hirota people, who inhabited a Japanese Island 1,800 years ago, had uniquely shaped skulls – and it was no accident or genetic quirk. A new study, finally confirming what anthropologists have long thought to be true, reveals that this Indigenous group intentionally deformed the skulls of their infant children, although their reasons for doing […]

Sweating milk, ballooning noses, and laying eggs. It doesn’t exactly sound like typical mammalian behavior. Many of us grew up believing the key characteristics were having hair and milk (which, technically, would include coconuts), but science has proven time and time again that there’s a lot more to this group of animals. Join us as […]

Picture the scene: it’s been a few hours since the “game” and in your inebriated state you’ve gone and posted some nonsense on Twitter, or as we’re still getting used to calling it, X. If you get suspended, or your account is flagged for unusual activity, the social media giant has opted for an unfamiliar […]

If you have a large backyard telescope you can collaborate with NASA in its latest effort to investigate the ice giants, Uranus and Neptune. Most of the work will be done by the Hubble Space Telescope and the New Horizons spacecraft, but surprisingly, NASA says every little bit helps. It’s been 37 since a mission […]

A 34-year-old woman with aphantasia has developed the ability to experience mental imagery for the very first time after taking magic mushrooms. Describing the unusual case, a researcher from Lumière University Lyon 2 in France explains that the woman had lived her entire life with no mind’s eye, yet began thinking and dreaming in images […]

“Snakes… why did it have to be snakes?” That would probably be Indiana Jones’ reaction to having one of these reptiles named after him – but Harrison Ford himself has welcomed the gesture, with a newly-discovered species of slender snake found in Peru being named Tachymenoides harrisonfordi. “These scientists keep naming critters after me, but […]

Your pinky toe, aside from when you stub the weird little guy, doesn’t get the attention it deserves. In fact, we’re willing to bet you don’t know how many joints you have in yours, nor whether that’s the same as most other human beings. Though it may look like a contender for the most pointless […]

Whether it’s a hashtag on social media, a fraught parliamentary debate, or a workplace training session, we’re hearing terms like “neurodiversity” and “neurodivergent” being used a lot more often. For those less familiar with this language, it can be tricky to understand exactly what it means, how it’s used, and why it seems to be […]

A new tool powered by artificial intelligence (AI) technology is looking to make family tree research and genealogical sleuthing a little bit easier. Simply plug in any old photograph and the AI-driven algorithm will be able to estimate the year it was captured.  Dubbed the PhotoDater, the tool has recently been rolled out by MyHeritage, […]

Some areas of the Moon have never seen sunlight. Within certain craters, mainly around the polar regions of the Moon, there are bits that have never seen the light of day and never will. In those regions, spacecraft have determined that deposits of water ice are present. And that’s where space agencies are planning to […]

The vast majority of modern technology is about controlling electromagnetic phenomena. You are controlling electricity or charged particles, you are controlling magnets, or you are controlling light. Researchers have now shown a way to combine magnets and light, by trapping light inside a peculiar magnetic material. The object is a layered magnetic semiconductor made of […]