Deborah Bloomfield

Supermassive black holes are impressive objects. They can weigh from a few hundred thousand to billions of times the mass of the Sun. A gravitational pull from which nothing, not even light, can escape. These objects are incredibly dense, and density is about mass and volume so it’s important to understand how big these giants […]

The “breakfast, lunch, and dinner” sign is an indicator of parasites recognized by medicine, and if you’ve woken up with the tell-tale bite pattern it could mean you have bedbugs. and they’re feasting on your blood. The lesions appear in this way because of the way bedbugs map the skin looking for the best lunch […]

You might already be aware that the name “strawberry” is a misnomer, as strawberries aren’t really berries at all. Well, it seems strawberries are full of surprises, or rather covered in them, because those seedy-looking white dots aren’t actually seeds. The strawberries’ pitted accessories are called achenes, and they are in fact the plant’s fruit, […]

ChatGPT may actually be more empathetic than human doctors, according to a new study looking at patient ratings. While many people would assume that AI would deliver uncaring, factual advice, when confronted with healthcare problems, it actually was rated better than real doctors when it came to tact.  The idea of using AI as a […]

A skin cancer that was almost invisible to the human eye has been successfully detected, a feat that has seen the medical team recognized with a Guinness World Record. More importantly, for patient Christy Staats, it means her cancer was caught at an early stage before it had a chance to spread. “I believe it […]

If you’re looking for a medical superhero, it might be hard to find anything less convincing than a sloth, yet in the fur of these notoriously sluggish animals lies bacteria that produce antibiotics that might just save us all. Antibiotics have played a major part in the doubling of human life expectancy over the last […]

Brains, eyes, and digestive organs. Those were just some of the soft tissue surprises waiting for researchers processing 462-million-year-old specimens retrieved from Castle Bank Quarry in Wales, UK. The Castle Bank Community, as the collection of ancient marine oddities is known, demonstrates remarkable diversity as well as preservation, contributing more than 170 new species to […]

The most energetic, luminous, and long-lasting transient celestial event known has been observed by astronomers. A supermassive black hole in a distant galaxy has ripped apart a star, turning it into a long bright stream of plasma – a process called spaghettification. The automatic survey gave the event the name ZTF20abrbeie and earned the nickname […]

This article first appeared in Issue 7 of our free digital magazine CURIOUS.  Since the second century BCE, the city of Pamukkale, which neighbors the ancient Roman site of Hierapolis, has been used as a natural spa. The ancient formation was once believed to have healing powers, decked out with hot thermal springs and white terraces […]

A new bill proposed by US lawmakers would prevent artificial intelligence (AI) from being able to singlehandedly launch nuclear weapons without human input, codifying existing Pentagon rules. While current rules forbid the autonomous launch of nuclear weapons, there aren’t any actual laws that prevent this from happening. With the astronomical rise in AI models in […]

A man from the Netherlands has been ordered by the courts to stop donating sperm after allegedly fathering over 550 children worldwide. The 41-year-old, named Jonathan in press reports, has been donating his sperm to fertility clinics since 2007 according to BBC News. In 2017, when it was discovered he had fathered over 100 children, […]

Researchers have observed the brains of dying patients going down in a blaze of neural glory, indicating that the final throes of life may be considerably more colorful than a mere fade to black. Despite their comatose state, some of the perishing participants displayed brain activity that is associated with consciousness during their last moments, […]

Rings around worlds used to be a straightforward concept: If you have material in orbit within a certain distance, you get a ring. If it’s further out, the material coalesces into a moon in a matter of decades. In February, astronomers announced that the dwarf planet Quaoar has a ring where it shouldn’t be possible […]

Translating someone’s brain activity into written words may sound like a science fiction dream, but a new artificial intelligence (AI) model developed at the University of Texas at Austin has been able to achieve just that. Using only noninvasive scanning methods, the model can be trained to decode complex language from someone’s thoughts for extended […]

An analysis of old newspapers in the USA has highlighted the persistence of the enslavement and indentured servitude of Native Americans into the 19th century.  Two researchers from the Annenberg School for Communication and Brown University searched through newspapers from 1704-1804, souring for references to Indigenous Americans (largely termed “Indians” by the papers) being sold, […]

A small reserve of backup power has been pressed into service to keep all Voyager 2’s scientific instruments operating until 2026, postponing a shutdown planned for this year. The operation will mean humanity maintains two eyes outside the heliosphere – the region where the solar wind dominates the interstellar medium. There’s a strong argument Voyager […]

This article first appeared in Issue 7 of our free digital magazine CURIOUS.  In issue 5 of CURIOUS we mentioned HALO Space, an ambitious company with big plans to send people into space in a balloon. Well, more of a capsule suspended by a balloon. The curious contraption gives passengers a 360-degree view of Earth as […]

Every now and then, an old painting resurfaces online after people reassess it years later and believe it to contain a time traveler.  It never is, of course, but that hasn’t stopped people once more believing that figures in a painting from centuries ago were walking around the woods and reading updates on a smartphone. […]

For a time, Twitter CEO Elon Musk entertained himself by telling people complaining about changes to the platform to pay $8 for their “verified” blue ticks, as advertising revenue for the site crumbles. A new “hack” has given people a way to give themselves a blue tick for free, should they wish to be associated […]

News came out on Friday that the European Space Agency’s JUICE mission has got a little problem. Its Radar for Icy Moons Exploration (RIME) antenna can’t be fully extended from its mounting bracket, which has created a bit of concern. This is an important instrument for the mission which will reach Jupiter and its icy […]