Deborah Bloomfield

Are you a mosquito magnet? It often seems the tastes of blood-sucking insects favor certain flavors of human over others, but now new research has uncovered that certain soaps can greatly increase and decrease your chances of being bitten by a mosquito. “It’s remarkable that the same individual that is extremely attractive to mosquitoes when […]

Two new studies have highlighted that the use of cannabis by teenagers may greatly increase the risk of developing schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders, particularly in young boys. While currently only correlational, the studies suggest that the scale of the issue may be larger than previously thought, supporting previous research into how cannabis may be […]

John Cleese, the British comedian, once summed up the idea of the Dunning–Kruger effect as, “If you are really, really stupid, then it’s impossible for you to know you are really, really stupid.” A quick search of the news brings up dozens of headlines connecting the Dunning–Kruger effect to everything from work to empathy and […]

In 1993, a strange sight was found in a cave in Altamura, southern Italy. Inside the Lamalunga cave – created by a sinkhole – was a virtually complete fossilized skeleton of a human, embedded within a rock. As well as that, the remains were covered with “cave popcorn”; tiny spot-like marks all over the bones. […]

Over five years of observation have resulted in an incredible infrared atlas of stellar nurseries, the vast clouds of gas and dust from which stars are born. These mosaics provide insights into stars in the making as well as fledgling stars and their motions. A truly remarkable achievement. In the work, researchers piece together over […]

Scientists have been trying to find ways for dreamers to communicate with the waking world for decades, but to date, their efforts have been largely unsuccessful. However, a team of sleep experts think they may have found a way for lucid dreamers to “talk” while they sleep.  The term “lucid dreaming” was first coined in […]

If you’ve been on Twitter today, you may have come across a tweet that made you tense your butthole as tight as it is possible to go.  If you haven’t, here are the basics: Twitter user BradiusZero shared a scan which appears to show a butt plug embedded within someone’s body far higher than a […]

A large study has found that there is not enough evidence to suggest antidepressants are effective at treating chronic pain. Despite some prior evidence suggesting that antidepressants do help reduce neuropathic pain, there has never been a large meta-analysis of the papers, and now the results do not appear to be as clear.  Experts urge […]

Scary Barbie is so hot right now. In a matter of weeks, two papers by two independent groups have been published defining AT2021lwx, also known as ZTF20abrbeie. Probably more famous for its nickname “Scary Barbie”, it’s the largest cosmic explosion ever detected.  A study published last week suggested it was a star being ripped apart […]

Scientists at Washington State University have made history at the grill this month, by cooking up the first sausages in the US to be made with meat from gene-edited pigs. Once upon a time, chowing down on the charred corpse of some deer or mammoth you recently brought down on a hunting trip with your […]

If you want to get a sensational measurement you either go big or go home. And this story really went big. It involves a unique supernova, a galaxy cluster so massive it warps space-time, and the most important problem currently going on in cosmology. A fantastic set of ingredients for some exciting research. Refsdal Supernova […]

When people think back to the time of the dinosaurs, most people picture a giant Tyrannosaurus rex or a majestic sauropod roaming through our prehistoric planet. Mammals on the other hand, though around at the time of the dinosaurs, remained small and rarely weighed over 10 kilograms (22 pounds). However, 20 million years after the […]

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are extremely powerful but incredibly brief flashes of radio waves coming from distant galaxies and lasting just milliseconds. As a general class, they are very puzzling to astronomers. Some repeat, others do not. Some seem to be from a clear type of source, others could be explained by many different events. […]

Neuroscience owes much to the brains of the gruesomely injured, whose crushed cortices have enabled doctors to study the workings of the mind under conditions that could never be ethically recreated in laboratory experiments. One such case is that of Patient M, who began experiencing the world back-to-front after being shot in the head during […]

What’s the lamest excuse you’ve ever used to get off work? Go on, we won’t tell anyone – or, say, commit it to stone in a way that’s readable thousands of years from now. Unfortunately for a group of Ancient Egyptians, such evidence of their slack-offery sits in the British Museum on an artifact known […]

To remove dead skin cells from their considerable bodies, humpback whales have been filmed scrubbing themselves in a sandy spa. Although this is not the first time this behavior has been suggested, this is the first time researchers have filmed them underwater rolling around in the sand on the sea bed. In these shallow bay […]

If you’ve ever heard the idea that HIV/AIDS was created in a US military laboratory, you’ve been exposed to a viral fake news story that was planted by the Soviet Union over 30 years ago. Despite this idea now being wholly disproven, it still holds traction in some parts of the world and serves as […]

If you’re not an avid cyclist, there’s a chance you won’t have come across the term “bonking” before. Actually, you probably have, but not in this context. Bonking is the word cyclists and endurance athletes give to that feeling of hitting a wall, the moment during your workout when all your reserves have run dry […]

Thanks to advances in artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots and warnings by prominent AI researchers that we need to pause AI research lest it destroys society, people have been talking a little more about the ethics of artificial intelligence lately. The topic is not new: Since people first imagined robots, some have tried to come up […]

The first images of Earth from a brand new weather satellite have been sent back home and our planet looks spectacular. The new satellite reveals details about the weather over Europe and Africa at a level not possible before at 36,000 kilometers (22,370 miles) away from Earth. The Meteosat Third Generation Imager-1 (MTG-I1) is a […]