Deborah Bloomfield

At an impressive elevation of 3,810 meters (12,500 feet) above sea level, Lake Titicaca in the Andes Mountains of South America is widely considered to be the world’s highest lake. In actuality, this famous body of water is trumped by 14 higher elevated lakes, the highest of which sits over 2,500 meters (8,200 feet) above […]

The Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn are the two lines you’ll see above and below the equator, respectively, on the globe of Earth. But what do these two lines actually mean and what’s their impact on life on Earth?  What is the Tropic of Cancer? The Tropic of Cancer is the most […]

Researchers have created a new scanning method that turns dead mice “transparent”, allowing unprecedented detail when looking at internal organs and tissues. The method uses fluorescent markers and scanning to create a truly bizarre sight, and could be used to significantly improve cancer drug development.  Mouse models are a controversial yet integral part of how […]

A new survey has revealed something troubling happening in US bedrooms. Oh behave yourself, it’s nothing like that. Data from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) shows that one-third of people occasionally or frequently retreat into a separate room to get some shut-eye away from their partner. The “sleep divorce” appears to be a […]

The preliminary data confirm the satellite observations: Last week was the hottest ever recorded on the planet, continuing the trend set the previous month. June 2023 was also the hottest June on record. Sea surface temperatures were the highest ever recorded, and Antarctic sea ice was at its lowest ever extent. The incredible temperatures are […]

Fluffy asp caterpillars may look cute, at least to some eyes, but you wouldn’t want to pat them. Their spines carry venoms that can produce very painful stings. When scientists from the University of Queensland investigated, however, they found the venom is unlike other insects’ defense mechanisms. Instead, it resembles molecules produced by some bacteria, […]

In 1993, a 62-year-old woman was found dead in her house in the town of Idar-Oberstein, strangled by wire taken from a bouquet of flowers discovered near her body. Nobody had any information on what might have happened to Lieselotte Schlenger. No witnesses, no suspects, no signs of suspicious activity (except for the fact that […]

A group of giraffes has been successfully relocated to Iona National Park in Angola after the species was driven out of their historical homeland in the 1990s by civil war. On July 3, 14 Angolan giraffes were loaded onto a specially-designed truck and set off on a 1,300-kilometer (over 800-mile) journey along the southwest coast […]

A three-year study of a semi-wild monkey colony has revealed that most male macaques engage in sexual behavior with other males, and indeed it’s more common for males to mount other males than females. Same-sex sexual activity has been reported in hundreds of animal species, repeatedly refuting the “it’s not natural” trope. However, these observations […]

Loneliness is something many of us will experience, but in the long term, it is known to have all sorts of negative impacts on health and well-being. Now, new research trying to better understand why lonely people feel the way they do has found that their brains actually appear to process the world very differently, […]

A 150-million-year-old stomach stone has become the oldest known fossil of its kind after being discovered on a beach in the UK. Shaped like a fist, it’s 59 million years older than the previous oldest-known stomach stone, having been rolling around in the gut of some animal back in the Jurassic era. Stomach stones found […]

A cave in the Jerusalem Hills may once have served as a local oracle where people communed with the dead in the hopes of learning about the future. Known as the Te’omim Cave, the creepy crevice is littered with human skulls and other items associated with necromancy, and is described by researchers as a possible […]

Amateur metal detectorists, rock hounds, or even an average member of the public might one day be in the right place at the right time and stumble upon a historic artifact. Roman coins, battle axes, and even ancient treasure can be found across the world. But if you find such an item, should you give […]

Scattering cremated remains, known to some as cremains, can be a great comfort when a loved one dies, as we return some part of them to the places they loved in life. However, as with just about everything in modern society, there are a few rules as to when and where it’s permitted to scatter […]

“I thought, ‘I don’t know if it’s possible to poop while running, but I will try’,” runner Tamara Torlakson said of her all-time-best run, which was only marred slightly by a mid-race bowel movement. “I didn’t want one poop to mess it all up.” Torlakson, like so many other athletes, focused on the race and […]

A video going around TikTok has people confused about quantum immortality, and believing that it might mean that they will live forever. “Quantum immortality suggests that nobody ever actually dies; that consciousness never experiences death,” host of the Your One Black Friend podcast Joli Moli said on TikTok. “Instead, whenever you die in one universe […]

Last year, scientists in the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science (CEERS) program on JWST found one of the most distant galaxies ever observed. Nicknamed Maisie’s Galaxy after the daughter of one of the discoverers, its light comes to us from just 390 million years after the Big Bang – the time when galaxies were being […]

Galaxies big and small are now peppered across the universe like the blueberries in a muffin. They are distributed in what we call the cosmic web, a much less appetizing construct. Galaxies can be quite isolated, or in small groups, or large clusters, but if you zoom out, all these groupings are connected by filaments. […]

A Norwegian mining company claims to have discovered a gargantuan deposit of phosphate rock that could power the world’s battery and solar needs for the next 50 years, potentially pushing back what was previously described as a “ticking time bomb”. Phosphate is an integral part of the global push for renewables, alongside being a key […]

The longstanding theory that Mars is emerging from an ice age has gained support from the Zhurong rover.  The rover has produced evidence of a changing wind regime at just the time the Martian glacial period is thought to have ended, leaving a recognizable signal in the dunes of Utopia Planitia. For more than 20 […]