Deborah Bloomfield

Across planet Earth, the animal world is full of species perfectly adapted for life in their specific niche. From polar bears with translucent fur to the worlds longest living leaves, the environment shapes an organisms’ adaptations. Now, a study has honed in on the development of a spider species found within caves, and looking closer […]

There are so many myths around periods, it’s amazing humans haven’t just given up and adopted an estrous cycle instead. After all, if we believed everything we’ve ever been told about this extremely normal biological process, experienced every month or so by approximately two billion people, then we’d all be avoiding showers, surrounded by bears, […]

During an investigation to see whether it was possible to restore an iconic, but endangered, community of shrubland plant species in South Africa, researchers have not only discovered underground banks of seeds that have remained intact for over 130 years, but that are also very much still alive – and can grow too. ADVERTISEMENT The […]

A video taken in a popular tourist hotspot on an Iranian island shows rain flowing down a cliff, turning the beach and sea below blood red. ADVERTISEMENT The video, which has amassed over 1 million likes on Instagram, shows a beach on Hormuz Island, Iran, named Red Beach for fairly obvious reasons. The video, posted […]

The JWST has spotted the presence of carbon dioxide on HR 8799’s four known planets, part of a system astronomers use to explore the formation of our own system. The results are consistent with models of how the Solar System’s giant planets formed. ADVERTISEMENT There are two models for planet formation, known as top-down and […]

In Cuba, you can find a beautiful dove that has a brown-feathered body topped with an iridescent blue head. It might not be the most elaborate in a world of fancy pigeons, but it is rather cute. Unfortunately, you might not find “the dodo of the Caribbean” in Cuba for long. ADVERTISEMENT New research has […]

When asked which of Earth’s many creatures packs the most powerful punch, one might assume it would come from the clenched fist of the staggeringly strong silverback gorilla, or maybe from an animal with incredible bone density – but in reality, the title for Earth’s mightiest punch comes in a surprisingly small package, proving size […]

What do you picture when you think of the Sahara? A vast expanse of towering sand dunes? The occasional oasis, perhaps? But mostly, we tend to imagine a very sandy landscape. Turns out, however, that a surprising proportion of the world’s largest hot desert isn’t actually sandy at all. ADVERTISEMENT Just 25 percent of the […]

Homo sapiens (that’s us) did not descend from a neat, single lineage. Instead, modern humans can link their heritage back to at least two ancestral populations that drifted apart over a million years ago before reconnecting just 300,000 years ago, according to a new study by computational biologists. ADVERTISEMENT The team developed an algorithm that […]

The nomadic tribes that occupied Central Asia 2,000 years ago used diamond drills to perforate gemstones when manufacturing necklaces, bracelets, and pendants. The hardest naturally occurring material on the planet, diamond is often used today for masonry drilling, yet its use in ancient times may also have been surprisingly widespread. ADVERTISEMENT Previous research has suggested […]

Seemingly unaware of the film Deep Blue Sea and countless B-movie tropes, China is set to build a new deep-sea laboratory that will be crewed by a team of resident scientists. ADVERTISEMENT In a recent announcement, the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ South China Sea Institute of Oceanology said they hope to complete the construction of […]

Artificial intelligence (AI) has come a long way over the last decade, moving from this horror show to pretty impressive image generation, and text generation which gets its facts right a lot of the time and confidently tells you the wrong answer when it can’t. ADVERTISEMENT But there are quite a few tasks where humans […]

Remember last year when more of us than usual were treated to a spectacular display of aurorae? If you’re one of the people who missed out, you could be in with another chance of seeing the show this week, thanks to a phenomenon known as the Russell-McPherron effect. ADVERTISEMENT While aurora season is generally considered […]

Zero is a weird number. Well, not weird as in “abundant but not semiperfect” – let’s just say it’s “unusual”. Okay, not unusual like “its largest prime factor is strictly greater than its square root” – maybe we should just describe it as “odd”. Or should we? ADVERTISEMENT Because of its unique place on the […]

Cannabis is regularly found by studies to be the least risky recreational drug and has never been linked to a fatal overdose. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s look at a time when scientists at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine deliberately gave subjects an “acute” dose of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) to study […]

Blue Ghost touched down on the Moon two weeks ago – and beamed back some stunning footage of its soft landing in never-before-seen detail, including “first-of-its-kind” footage of a lunar lander’s engine plumes interacting with the lunar surface.  ADVERTISEMENT Firefly Aerospace, a Texas-based private company, successfully planted its Blue Ghost lunar lander in the Moon’s […]

What would you do if you discovered a body or human remains buried under your home while doing some renovations or general upkeep? It is likely a very unsettling experience, especially if the body has seemingly been there for a long time, resting beyond your awareness for years or even decades. ADVERTISEMENT This may sound […]

Palaeontologists have uncovered the world’s oldest known cerapodan dinosaur at a fossil site in Morocco, identified by a distinctive femur. We know this dinosaur group would eventually spread across the globe, but the early stages of cerapodan evolution have remained a mystery due to the scarcity of Middle Jurassic rocks worldwide. That makes this latest […]

Humankind has driven many animals to extinction, from mammoths and thylacines to passenger pigeons. However, some species have only gone locally extinct and can re-emerge in other areas if conditions change. Now, for the first time in 100 years, cougar cubs have been spotted roaming wild in Michigan.  ADVERTISEMENT Two cubs were spotted on private […]