Deborah Bloomfield

The US military has now shot down four high-altitude objects that had entered American and Canadian airspace, raising questions about their purpose and origin. The first of these objects, a Chinese balloon, was downed by a fighter jet on 4 February. While China says it was for weather monitoring, US officials say it was being […]

Chances are you’re not going to stumble upon a vein of emeralds glistening in your back garden. But just in case you do happen to find some exciting gemstones on your next rockhounding trip, here’s what the policies say about keeping any sparkling treasure.  To start with though, what is actually classed as a gem? […]

The Grand Canyon is one of Earth’s most breathtaking natural wonders – but with great tourist attraction comes great responsibility, as the National Parks Service (NPS) asks that everyone play their part in trying to keep each other safe. Their advice is that hikers remain two meters (six feet) from the canyon’s rim at all […]

A 19-month-old girl named Teddi born with a deadly genetic disease has been successfully treated with life-saving gene therapy. The treatment, called Libmeldy, had a list price of around $3.9 million when a deal was negotiated for it to be provided via the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), making it the most expensive drug in […]

On Tuesday, February 14, the residents of Pima County in Southern Arizona were told to evacuate or take shelter indoors after a truck carrying liquid nitric acid crashed and spilled its contents onto the surrounding road.   The accident took place at around 2:43 pm and involved a commercial truck pulling “2,000 pounds” (~900 kilograms) of […]

Ten years ago today, Earth was struck by the most spectacular and dangerous meteor impact in living memory: the Chelyabinsk meteor. While the world got off relatively lightly from this incident – many casualties, but no fatalities – it was a stern reminder that the threat of meteors should never be underestimated. Just ask the […]

A new study is the first to detect an association between children whose mothers drank before and during pregnancy with certain facial changes. Altered face shape was seen even in cases where the amount of alcohol consumed amounted to less than a small glass of wine or bottle of beer. The research points to a […]

Approximately 54 people who were forcibly sterilized in Utah’s eugenics program are still alive in 2023, according to a new analysis. Unlike other states, Utah is still yet to have expressed any regret at its abhorrent history of eugenics and hasn’t even officially acknowledged this dark chapter of the state’s past. Utah was one of […]

As the planet heats up, glaciers worldwide are in retreat, and one above all others worries oceanographers. Scientists from the British Antarctic Survey have published two new papers observing conditions at the base of Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier to establish the factors driving its melting and its effect on global sea level rise. They found that […]

You can thank your Neanderthal ancestors each time you make it to school or work on time, as new research suggests that genes inherited from our extinct cousins may have endowed us with the ability to wake up bright and early. More specifically, you can thank your lazy lay-about Homo sapiens ancestors who mated with […]

Aging ancient bones and artifacts has long been done using radiocarbon by detecting the isotope carbon-14, but this method wasn’t perfect when it came to accuracy, limiting the conclusions we could draw from data. Now, to expand the capabilities of radiocarbon and better understand the movements of our ancient ancestors, scientists are introducing a new […]

At some point you may have come across an odd and frankly horrifying urban legend, which states that if you get your butt caught over a pool drain, your intestines can be – for genuine want of a better way of putting this – sucked out of your anus. The fact has shown up in […]

Never-before-seen footage of Titanic’s wreck is being released to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the movie Titanic. Peering around the murky depths of the Atlantic Ocean, the raw footage shows the world’s most famous shipwreck in all its rusting and decaying glory.  The video footage was filmed during an expedition in July 1986 by researchers from […]

Black holes today are much bigger than they were nine billion years ago, even compared to the size of their galaxies, observations have found. In an effort to explain the scale of this anomaly, astrophysicists have hit on an explanation for dark energy, the mysterious force causing the universe to fly apart at ever increasing […]

Researchers have discovered that sketches and notes written by Leonardo da Vinci show that he was centuries ahead of his time in terms of his understanding of gravity. A medical engineer came across a number of sketched triangles accompanied by notes in da Vinci’s Codex Arundel.  Advertisement “What caught my eye was when he wrote […]

The Astronomy Photographer of the Year Awards features thousands of entries from countries all across the world. Space correspondent Dr Alfredo Carpineti takes us to The Royal Observatory, Greenwich, and speaks to Dr Ed Bloomer, one of the judges, to get some top tips and give you the edge in this incredible international competition. Entries to […]

In the wake of winter waves of COVID, flu, and RSV – the so-called “triple-demic” – another virus has reared its ugly head. It seems norovirus, also called the “winter vomiting bug”, might be back with a vengeance: while outbreak data isn’t up to date, data on positive tests suggests cases in the US may […]

In case you’ve missed the excitement, recently the US has been shooting down mysterious and suspicious objects from its airspace. So far, four objects have been downed. The first object is believed by the US to be a Chinese spy balloon, while China denied this and claimed that it was a weather balloon blown off […]

A study into the surprisingly complex mechanisms behind snakes’ ability to hear has found that, despite previous assumptions, many snakes are capable of hearing airborne sounds as well as sensing ground vibrations. As snakes lack an external ear, it’s been widely accepted that they only sense soundwaves through ground vibrations via their belly scales. While […]