Deborah Bloomfield

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 […]

On the top of a hill just outside the capital city of Lima, Peru, is the practice field of a professional soccer club. While that might not seem that extraordinary, just next door the body of a mummy has been found surrounded with coca leaves. Remains of the mummy’s hair and skull were found first, […]

Hookworm infection with live parasites can begin full-scale trials for inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), according to a new pilot study. Focusing on patients with ulcerative colitis, it’s the first study of its kind to deploy hookworms in a controlled setting and investigate how they are tolerated as a potential therapy for the condition. Hookworms target […]

Almost half a million people are estimated to get Lyme disease every year in the US alone. The most common vector-borne disease in the North American country, it is carried by ticks and their bites spreading the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi to humans. It clears with a course of antibiotics to be taken for a few weeks, […]

At over 42,000 years old, this might just be the earliest known representation of a penis. If that interpretation is correct, it could indicate that penises were among the very first things that prehistoric humans of Eurasia decided to artistically represent.  The phallus-like object was unearthed in 2016 in the Khangai Mountains of northern Mongolia. […]

Human remains once populated the world-famous Pirates Of The Caribbean ride at Disneyland. Now replaced with models, the story goes that the fake alternatives available back when the ride was built in 1967 weren’t up to scratch, and so the park’s “Imagineers” made do with some authentic materials. It might be shocking to consider in […]

The effects of climate change are seen everywhere in the world, but the polar regions are experiencing changes unseen elsewhere. In Antarctica, glaciers melt and retreat and the most vulnerable of them all is the massive Thwaites Glacier. Now researchers have mapped the ground underneath the glacier for the first time, to see how it […]

An interactive map compiled by WorldData.info allows curious people to compare penis sizes with people from around the world. First off, it’s important to state that despite the worries of men, likely fueled by larger penises featured in pornography, penis size is not that important. It is, however, something that men tend to fixate on […]

The first evidence has been produced of savage attacks on the elongated necks of ancient marine reptiles, confirming a long-term suspicion of palaeontologists, and a favorite subject for paleoart. Long necks were much in fashion when dinosaurs ruled the Earth. On land there were the sauropods, whether small or vast. In the oceans necks got […]

The earliest people who lived in North America shared the landscape with huge animals. On any day these hunter-gatherers might encounter a giant, snarling saber-toothed cat ready to pounce, or a group of elephantlike mammoths stripping tree branches. Maybe a herd of giant bison would stampede past. Obviously, you can’t see any of these ice […]