Deborah Bloomfield

Have you ever looked at a clock suddenly and noticed that the second hand stood still for longer than you think it should have? Maybe a touch longer than a second? You have probably already experienced the “stopped clock illusion“, but if not, it’s as simple as not looking at a clock or stopwatch, and […]

Very smart people have found a way to outmaneuver the limits of ChatGPT and unleash its unfiltered, opinionated, and untethered alter-ego: DAN (do anything now). It’s so simple that anyone can access the jailbreak simply by copying and pasting a prewritten paragraph of text into the chatbot.  For the uninitiated, ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence […]

A man has been arrested in Peru after a 600- to 800-year-old mummy was found inside his cooler bag. According to police, on Saturday three men were found drinking in a park in the city of Puno when the remains were found. The man, 26-year-old Julio Cesar Bermejo, told local media that the mummified remains […]

The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) – otherwise referred to as the last Ice Age – was an exceptionally challenging time for the hunter-gatherer groups that inhabited the Eurasian landmass. To survive the intense cold, human populations had to seek refuge on the southern fringe of the continent, although as a new study reveals, not all […]

Weight loss fads like keto and paleo diets have become extremely popular over the last few decades, but a new study has news that advocates may find unpalatable. Researchers compared several popular diets for their overall nutritional quality and carbon footprint, finding that both keto and paleo diets provided the lowest nutritional quality and had […]

You may have seen a story recently about a woman who bought a batch of frozen fish to eat in London, only to discover a few days later that one of the fish was moving, appearing as if it was trying to breathe through its gills.  Cindy Lao’s partner Paul Lewis-Borman considered putting the fish […]

Flamingos have distinct personalities with birds that display bolder, more aggressive personality types more likely to form their own friendship groups with flamingos with similar attributes. More submissive flamingos are also more likely to be friends with other submissive flamingos a new study has found. By looking at two different flocks of flamingos in captivity […]

Last September, humanity conducted its first real test of planetary defense. And as the saying goes, a good offense is the best defense, so we “took the fight” directly to the asteroids. NASA’s DART mission impacted Dimorphos, the smaller companion of asteroid Didymos, changing its orbit. Immediate analysis showed it was a success, and follow-up […]

A rare fossil that’s preserved the body of a shark from the Jurassic has enabled scientists to try and work out if the species represents a missing link between sharks and rays, or a primitive ancestor of both groups. As it happens, neither theory was correct, as a look into its adaptations showed that it […]

The Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) is, despite its name, the most militarized border in the world. Thanks to the absence of humans, however, this depopulated strip of land running across the Korean peninsula has become a haven for wildlife and hosts many of Korea’s rarest species.  The DMZ runs between South Korea and North Korea, […]

LGBTQ teenagers are more likely to experience depression compared to their heterosexual cisgender counterparts. And parental behavior plays a big role in reducing or aggravating this risk. A new study suggests that parental support and psychological control influence depressive symptoms among LGBTQ adolescents. A lot of work on the well-being of LGBTQ youth has focused […]

Full circle rainbows can be seen in nature, but you’ve got to be in the right place at the right time to spot one. The fact is that actually, all rainbows are circular, but we’re always viewing them from the ground. This means the lower half is blocked from view, but if you get to […]

There is a community – largely on Reddit and occupied by men – dedicated to not masturbating, and helping others to not masturbate. While people in the “NoFap” community make (sketchy) claims about improvements to health, a new study has found that engagement with the community and a belief that NoFap forums helped the user […]

There are many challenges around the return of astronauts to the Moon. But there are also challenges when we actually get the astronauts there, and a big one comes from something small: moon dust. It has the consistency of ground fiberglass, it clings to spacesuits and crafts, and you do not want to breathe it in. […]

If you live at high latitudes or spent any time on social media, you’ve probably noticed that we’ve been having some great auroras recently. Astronaut Josh Cassada took advantage of an angle available only to a few to take the incredible photo above. It’s beautiful enough on its own but prompted a flood of responses […]

Astronomers have confirmed the existence of a star with one of the shortest life expectancies imaginable, having formed dangerously close to the supermassive black hole known as Sagittarius A*. It accompanies the announcement of a mysterious object being destroyed by the same giant black hole, published in the same edition of The Astrophysical Journal. If […]

A peculiar hummingbird that was thought to have been a new species has been found to actually be a rare hybrid never-before-reported in science. The bird stood out to researchers because it has a gold throat, a trait that became particularly peculiar when DNA revealed that both of its parents had pink throats. The bizarre […]

Flying a kite: it’s an age-old family tradition, so quintessential there’s even a Disney song about it. Many people will have happy memories of kite-flying on a sunny afternoon; but, did you know that this most innocent of hobbies could actually be a hotbed of law-breaking? There are more regulations around kite safety than you […]

We know that weather events on Earth can be terrifying and even deadly. But elsewhere in the Solar System, the weather can get even more extreme, with phenomena that only marginally resemble Earth’s own. Winds that would easily kill you, rains that would melt or crush you, unique lightning, and aurorae that would give you […]

So, the third annual Mental State of the World Report has dropped, and once again we’re all depressed and nobody likes us. Okay, that may not strictly be true: there’s a smattering of good news in among the concerning findings. But overall, the world is in a similar situation to the past two years – […]