Deborah Bloomfield

We are one step closer to understanding one of the biggest mysteries in neuroscience, as scientists have figured out the structure of the protein that triggers Huntington’s disease. The discovery brings hope for a treatment that could stop the disease in its tracks, but that’s not all. Because similar proteins have been implicated in other […]

Prepare to enter the fascinating world of corvids, this beady-eyed and extremely clever family of birds are common across the world, but can you tell a raven from a crow, and are you savvy enough to know the difference? A note before we begin: these are American crows (Corvus brachyrhynchos)  and common ravens (Corvus corax), […]

The discovery of the embryo of a choristodere, a type of crocodile-like reptile, has overturned what biologists thought about the development of egg laying. The discovery has big implications for how mammals and birds, as well as reptiles, developed their approach to having young. The fossil has traces of egg around it, but this was […]

People are just now learning what the end of bread is called. Or rather, people are just now learning that the end of bread isn’t called the same thing by everybody. A tweet from the account “No Context Brits”, dedicated to serving up posts about and photos of British life without any additional information, started […]

A new type of light-activated concrete could suck pollution out of nearby air and convert it to harmless products, making good use of a material that is used in almost all modern construction. When tested in a tunnel, the concrete was able to reduce air pollution inside the tunnel and improve air quality, giving a […]

NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio has released three powerful videos that show just how much carbon dioxide is added to the atmosphere each year, from what sources, and from where on the planet. And they show just how much fossil fuel burning by industrialized countries plays a role in the amount of greenhouse gases released into […]

Of all the remarkable places to view the summer solstice, the point in the year when the Earth’s axis is tilted at its closest point from the sun, few can compare to the sunny spectacle that unfolds at the Native American rock art of Arizona’s Verde Valley. The Verde Valley is home to a sprawling […]

Marine archaeologists have drummed up a bold plan to recover an ancient shipwreck that’s been laying on the seabed for over 3,000 years. Despite being hand-sewn in ancient times, the boat has managed to remain in unbelievably good condition.  Dubbed the “Zambratija boat”, the vessel measured a total of 10 meters (32 feet) long and […]

Lightning is not exclusive to Earth, it is found in several other places in the Solar System, but some of the most spectacular is found on the largest planet. Jupiter has an atmosphere of swirling clouds and enormous storms within which lightning can strike – and sometimes we are lucky enough to catch it.  This […]

Recently on Reddit, a post claimed that many “haunted” houses have been investigated, and the culprit found not to be supernatural but carbon monoxide poisoning. Is that the case? Well, it certainly has been the explanation for a number of cases we can find, and according to one toxicologist carbon monoxide and other poisonings could […]

Astronomers have discovered one of the 20 amino acids essential for humans in the Perseus Molecular Complex, a star-forming region 1,000 light-years from Earth. The amino acid in question is called tryptophan – it is crucial for baby growth, and in adults, it is used to make proteins and enzymes as well as muscles and […]

The face of an Anglo-Saxon teenager found wearing an incredibly rare gold cross is to go on display following a remarkable reconstruction using skull analysis. Discovered during a dig at Trumpington Meadows in Cambridge, details found at the site revealed she was likely a Very Important Person in life, as demonstrated by the unique way […]

The JWST is capable of detecting gases such as ammonia, methane, and hydrogen cyanide in the atmospheres of planets orbiting nearby stars, a study to be published in The Astrophysical Journal concludes. The significance of these and seven other gases the authors considered is that they are what the paper calls “prebiosignatures” – indications of […]

You often hear facts and figures about sea level rise, but it’s not always easy to imagine how it’s already reshaping the planet we live on. This beautifully aminated visualization by NASA clearly how shows the sea level of the world’s oceans has significantly risen in recent decades – with little sign of stopping soon. […]

What’s that smell? Is that what you think it is? You check your shoes and, sure enough, one is adorned with a sticky, foul-smelling patty of fresh wrongness. You have stepped in a landmine of the canine variety. We’ve all been there, and we all know footpaths, nature strips, parks, playing fields and front lawns […]

The overuse of groundwater isn’t just a concern for areas that may soon run out of the substance they depend on the most, it’s literally affecting the whole planet. That effect can be measured by observing changes in the locations of the North and South Poles, which a new study reveals shifted almost 80 centimeters […]

Sub-atomic particles created by cosmic ray collisions have been used to create a “new kind of GPS.”  In a new study, scientists at the University of Tokyo have shown how they used these high-energy particles to navigate deep beneath a building in an underground basement – something that would not be possible using the go-to […]

Two weeks ago, a modest-looking paper was uploaded to the arXiv preprint server with the unassuming title “On the invariant subspace problem in Hilbert spaces”. The paper is just 13 pages long and its list of references contains only a single entry. The paper purports to contain the final piece of a jigsaw puzzle that […]

The TRAPPIST-1 system is made of a cool, small star and seven planets orbiting in a matter of days. All the planets have a size not dissimilar to Earth or Venus, and being relatively close to us makes this system an intriguing candidate for atmospheric searches with JWST, a crucial stepping stone to the investigation […]