Deborah Bloomfield

Astrophysical jets are common in many celestial bodies, but they don’t get more spectacular than those produced by supermassive black holes. Particles from around a black hole are accelerated to almost the speed of light, creating structures often extending up to millions of light-years. We are not certain how these structures form – and now, […]

From purple tomatoes to increasingly large ears of corn, genetic engineering is everywhere and has been creeping onto our plates over the last few decades. But how did civilization get to this point and what does it mean for your food? A history of genetic engineering Most of the food we eat today has been […]

This article first appeared in Issue 8 of our free digital magazine CURIOUS.  “Ribbed” does exactly what it says on the tin in this winning shot from Aleksei Permiakov, who scooped first place in the nudibranch category for Ocean Art 2022. Spotted off the coast of Bali, Indonesia, this alien-like Tambja morosa sea slug has […]

After years of trying to identify what exactly long COVID is, a new study has narrowed its long list of suspected symptoms down to just a handful. Previously over 200 symptoms were thought to be associated with the cryptic lingering condition, but it has now been clearly defined with the 12 most common and consistent […]

Dogs have big personalities, but what dictates them is a relatively understudied area of science. We know that genetic and environmental factors can bring out bad behaviors like aggression and biting, but what are the leading drivers of whether your dog is a goofy gal or a grumpy guy? A new study has found out […]

Say you find yourself alone in space, on a spacewalk to repair damage to your space station. You are hit by some stray space debris, and slowly the air drains out of your pressurized suit from a puncture. You only have a few seconds to get back inside before you become one of the very […]

The remains of three people who perished in the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE have recently been unearthed during a recent dig in Pompeii. The skeletal remains are believed to have belonged to two women and a child aged around three or four who died while seeking shelter from the devastating eruption in a […]

If you cast your mind back to 2014, you may remember a certain film that got us all talking about brain capacity. Lucy was based on the premise that we only use 10 percent of our brains, and while we know that to be a myth, it still begs the question: What percentage of the […]

Embarrassment is a complex emotional state that most humans are all too familiar with, but what about our wild relatives? Do animals get embarrassed? Research has looked into incidents of blundering apes and found that embarrassment may play a role in appeasing awkward social situations, eliciting behaviors like avoiding eye contact and blushing. Embarrassment is […]

About 14 billion years ago, everything we know of started with the Big Bang. A common misconception, however, is to envision it as an explosion. The actual event did not explode into anything; space and time were created as the universe began. Picturing it as an explosion makes us also think that it started at […]

Teams at CERN have announced the first evidence of a rare decay in the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider Physics Conference in Belgrade. The work has yet to be published, and it seems the most important questions about the decay process have yet to be answered, but the announcement nevertheless marks a major […]

A team has discovered a gold necklace that’s not been seen since the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. Recently found among the ship’s wreck off the coast of North America, they are even hoping to find the family of the jewelry’s owner by using artificial intelligence (AI).  The insight comes from Magellan, a UK-based […]

There is a lot of speculation about the end of the universe. Humans love a good ending after all. We know that the universe started with the Big Bang and it has been going for almost 14 billion years. But how the curtain call of the cosmos occurs is not certain yet. There are, of […]

Bad weather has unveiled previously hidden stone carvings of a phallus, a face, and a cornucopia at a Roman fort in eastern Spain.  Tossal de La Cala is a ruined Roman fort, or “castellum”, located on top of a cliff on the coast of Benidorm. It was first built around 77 BCE and was occupied […]

The largest rough diamond ever found is known as the Cullinan Diamond and its story is pretty interesting. Found in South Africa in 1905, this whopper of a gemstone weighed 3,106 carats and was 10.1 x 6.35 x 5.9 centimeters when it was first found. To put this in context the diamond weighed 621 grams […]

Neanderthals may have invented a complex method for transforming birch bark into glue, indicating that our extinct cousins probably dabbled in chemistry long before the Bunsen burner came along. Analyzing samples of the ancient adhesive, researchers found that it was most likely synthesized in underground chambers that restricted oxygen flow, thus shedding light on the […]

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has, once again, pleaded with Americans to stop chugging poppers. The health agency has revealed it is continuing to receive reports of people falling seriously ill and even dying after drinking poppers, mistaking them for energy shot drinks. Poppers are a funky-smelling liquid that typically contains amyl nitrate, […]

A lawyer in New York has found himself in trouble with a judge after he submitted legal research which had been created by artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT. During a case of an airline being sued over an alleged personal injury, lawyers for the plaintiff filed a brief containing several cases to be used as […]

Flint tool-makers often cut themselves in the course of their craft, but injuries that can today be easily treated with bandages and antibiotics would have often turned deadly in the Paleolithic era. Calculations of the danger show just how valuable tools must have been to make them worth the risk, and how precious each tool […]

Issue 11 (June 2023) of CURIOUS is out now, bringing you science highlights for the month plus deep dives into intriguing topics, interviews, exclusives, diary dates, and explanations for some of Earth’s most perplexing natural phenomena and landscapes. In This Issue… Advertisement OUR COVER STORY: Should We All Be Meditating? Does the science show any […]