Deborah Bloomfield

The discovery of a long, thin stream of stars in old Hubble images created a buzz of excitement. The astronomers who found the unusual structure explain it as a supermassive black hole (SMBH) forced out of its galaxy through an encounter with two even larger black holes, and forming stars out of intergalactic gas in […]

Humans (particularly men) have a bit of a tendency to believe they are tougher than they actually are, at least if quick glances at any YouGov poll are to be believed. Take, for example, the 12 percent of men who think they could win a point in a match against Serena Williams, as if when […]

Modern math problems don’t tend to have the kind of answers that trip off the tongue. Perhaps it’s a brand-new proof that takes a few pages’ worth of words and diagrams to explain properly, or an improvement on a previous result that’s so specific as to be virtually invisible. Maybe it’s entirely dependent on a […]

TikTok may be fantastic for some things – discovering how much your dentist knows about your sex life; freaking out Montanans; whale penises, etc – but one thing we’re pretty sure you shouldn’t be doing is relying on it for medical advice. At best, you’re going to get accurate information that you nevertheless wish you […]

In a world-first project, a company is using artificial intelligence (AI) to combine history’s greatest sculptors in a wonderous collaboration project to make one incredible monument – the Impossible Statue. AI is everywhere. On your phone alone there is predictive text, digital voice assistants, and facial recognition software. In the past few years, this technology […]

Languages are fun, and the English language is particularly entertaining. It is not only jam-packed with words and phrases that originate from other languages, but also contains words and idioms, or sayings, that are just downright bizarre. That sentence actually contains two examples: “Jam-packed”, a phrase introduced into common use during the early 20th century, […]

If you somehow haven’t seen the new trailer for what is surely going to be a hit summer blockbuster, The Meg 2 appears to feature a T. rex and megalodon in an extremely unlikely showdown given they lived tens of millions of years apart. But since this also looks like the greatest creature feature since […]

Most diamonds are formed deep inside Earth and brought close to the surface in small yet powerful volcanic eruptions of a kind of rock called “kimberlite”. Our supercomputer modelling, published in Nature Geoscience, shows these eruptions are fuelled by giant “pillars of heat” rooted 2,900 kilometres below ground, just above our planet’s core. Advertisement Understanding […]

It was late October, in 79 CE, when the Apocalypse came to Pompeii. Mount Vesuvius, a major active volcano located just five miles from the flourishing resort town, finally made good on the threats it had been sending out for a decade and a half and erupted, flooding the nearby region with a deadly cloud of […]

A recent Reddit post has drawn our attention to a party that apparently went so hard that the air tested positive for booze on a breathalyzer. The frat party, which took place in Baltimore in 2017, had around 120 underage guests in attendance. According to CBS News, police arrived following a noise complaint. For reasons […]

A family in Hopewell, New Jersey, had a rare surprise when a meteorite crashed through their roof. According to the police report, the stone was around 10 centimeters (4 inches) by 15 centimeters (6 inches) and clearly natural, rather than a piece of space junk. The event may be the most exciting thing to happen […]

If you were to picture the Sun, what color would you give it? Unless you went with an outlandish color like pink (which can’t come from one wavelength of light), the answer could be right, as the color of the Sun changes with location. It might be red-orange at sunset on Earth, but those sunsets […]

It has been a bit month for M87 and its supermassive black hole (M87*). Recent observations have revealed even more about this gargantuan cosmic object and its host galaxy, and astronomers have been able to better understand the shape of this galaxy. It turns out it is shaped like a potato. When looking through a […]

A new study of mitochondrial DNA has found evidence for at least two migrations between the Americas, China, and Japan, during the last ice age and following melt period. The team traced a rare Native American founder lineage across the continents and time, looking at mitochondrial DNA passed down through females. Using 100,000 modern-day and […]

Whale hunting across the world has always been a controversial topic. Despite bans on commercial whaling, a small number of countries including Japan, Norway, and Iceland still persist in the killing of whales for meat. Now, a new report released by the Icelandic Food and Veterinary Authority (MAST) has revealed just how much suffering these […]

The remains of a Stone Age road have been discovered at the submerged Neolithic site of Soline, which sits off the coast of a Croatian island called Korčula. According to researchers, the ancient passageway once linked the island to a settlement that sat on an artificial landmass but now lies some 4 to 5 meters […]

Different places around the world are experiencing the climate crisis in different ways. Extreme weather events becoming more common, and there are also more subtle changes in terms of temperatures and precipitation that are taking place and will continue to take place. This means that certain regions of the world might have a completely different […]

An experimental Chinese spacecraft has landed back on Earth after 276 days in orbit, after testing the nation’s reusable rocket technologies. The spacecraft successfully landed at Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China and was the subject of extensive speculation during its time in space, due to its mysterious mission.  First reported by Chinese state […]

It’s an often touted piece of trivia that the monarch of the UK owns all the swans of the land. There are a few caveats to that claim, but it’s largely true – and like many traditions belonging to kings and queens, it has a bizarre and age-old backstory. Although he was only coronated on […]

The former head of Russia’s space corporation Roscosmos and renowned ranter, Dmitry Rogozin, has taken time out from the invasion of Ukraine to share some conspiracy theories about the US Moon landings.  The ever-provocative politician took to Telegram to claim he asked for official proof of the NASA Moon landings in 1969 when he was […]