Deborah Bloomfield

During the holidays, it’s typical for people to indulge in special foods. Being a pet owner myself, I know that many pet parents want to give their fur babies special treats as well. As a veterinarian and clinical veterinary researcher, however, I also know that some very common foods – including many popular holiday staples […]

Looking a bit like a cluster of frozen cowpats, peculiar “ice pancakes” appeared on the River Bladnock, Scotland, after a sudden drop in temperatures across the UK this month. Project manager for the Scottish Invasive Species Initiative (SISI) Callum Sinclair snapped the images of these strange disks on December 9, sharing them to Twitter along […]

In our lifetimes, it is almost certain we will see humans set foot on Mars. If the modern-day space race between private companies and nations continues, it is not out of the question that we will see a long-term human presence on either the Moon or Mars in that time frame too, an incredible yet […]

Researchers claim to have found a method to break up “forever chemicals”, or PFAS, into smaller and less harmful compounds in drinking water. The technique could be added to the water purification process to prevent the concerning build-up of these chemicals in our water supply, as more research highlights possible health problems associated with PFAS […]

A combination of two existing medications for concussion and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) may help to alleviate brain fog in those suffering from long COVID. In a small-scale study, eight out of 12 patients experienced improvements in executive function, working memory, and concentration after being treated with the FDA-approved drugs. Long COVID is a […]

Do you have an Adam’s Apple? It’s a lump that sits in the middle of the throat of many adult humans, prone to bouncing around when we laugh and swallow. But what is an Adam’s Apple? And what does it actually do? Adam’s Apples are just one of many changes we see set in during […]

A model of the Earth’s ecosystems indicates many species capable of surviving in a hotter world themselves are dependent on others that are more vulnerable. Consequently, we can expect a great many more “co-extinctions” than previous estimates have anticipated, although it’s still very much within humanity’s power to minimize the damage. Endangered species lists indicate […]

Twitter has been in free fall since billionaire Elon Musk took over on October 27. Bad decision after bad decision has led to fleeing advertisers, the return of neo-Nazis, and recently the banning of journalists covering Elon Musk negatively.  Yesterday, a controversial new policy was brought in, stopping any links to any other social media […]

An ancient murder mystery appears to have been solved. Archaeologists suspect that an ancient body that was preserved in a bog in Denmark may have been placed there as part of a grisly sacrificial ritual.  While carrying out building work at a peat bog in Stenløse Mose in Egedal Municipality, workers recently stumbled across a […]

Dynamite fishing can devastate coral reefs turning them to rubble, so left with nothing on which to grow, how do you reestablish an ecosystem? Non-profit Coral Guardian has been using metal frames to do just that, and the astonishing results off Hatamin Island, Indonesia, show that it can be very effective. Prior to 2015, dynamite […]

The Fermi Paradox has long puzzled humanity and over the years countless solutions have been proposed, some of them darker than others. Now, yet another paper offers an answer to the question of why haven’t aliens got in touch yet, one that is pretty scathing for us humans: maybe we’re just not smart enough. Earth […]

Dieting to lose weight can be a real slog, and anyone who has ever given up on an eating regimen will probably have noticed that the pounds tend to pile up again pretty quickly. According to a new study on mice, the body’s tendency to gain back weight after dieting may be caused by an […]

So, you’ve been out in the cold, and now your fingers or toes are all weird and painful. Is this frostbite? Are you doomed to suffer the fate of so many ill-fated Victorian polar explorers, your extremities lost to the bitter wind and snow? Or did you just sit too close to the radiator, and […]

Thousands of documents about the assassination of President John F Kennedy have just been released by the US National Archives. It includes heaps of previously classified information about the CIA’s giant investigation into one of the biggest moments of post-war America and the man accused of his murder, Lee Harvey Oswald.  In total, 12,879 documents […]

“What’s in a name?” When the Bard posited this profound question, he was on about some star-crossed lovers, but we’d like to apply it instead to black bears. Ursus americanus – a delightfully fluffy bear found across the US, Canada, and Mexico – is called the black bear despite the fact that some of them […]

Xkcd webcomic writer and science communicator Randall Munroe has written two books on what he calls “absurd hypothetical questions”. Among the unusual questions explored in his first What If? book was this: “From what height would you need to drop a steak for it to be cooked when it hit the ground?”. Munroe gave a […]

The Salem Witch Trials were a regrettable time in America’s history, and in the 329 years that have followed, all of those accused have since been exonerated. As for what led people in 1693 to think that a group of mostly women were bewitched, some have suggested a fungus may have played a role. Rye […]

The largest creatures to ever walk the Earth were the giant sauropods such as Brontosaurus, Patagotitan,  and, of course, Diplodocus of the non-supersonic tails. All of them reached their enormous sizes on a diet of leaves and other vegetable matter. However, a study of the teeth of the earliest dinosaurs shows these (probably) gentle giants […]