Deborah Bloomfield

An enormous red circle briefly appeared in the Italian sky last week. This fleeting event, lasting a fraction of a second, looks like the dusting of a crimson doughnut but in reality, is a rare atmospheric event known as an ELVE. ELVES are an Emission of Light and Very Low-Frequency perturbations due to Electromagnetic Pulse […]

Follow Peseshet as she carries out the day-to-day activities of a doctor in Ancient Egypt, from treating patients to teaching the next generation of students, as outlined by Elizabeth Fox. Peseshet, who lived around 2500 BCE when the pyramids were being built, is considered the earliest known female physician in Ancient Egypt, possibly in history.  […]

Dinosaur footprints were discovered during a chance encounter back in 2022 as a diner at a restaurant in China asked about some unusual pits on the stone floor. The person noticed there were a dozen evenly-spaced imprints along the outdoor courtyard of the Garden Restaurant in Sichuan Province, which were later confirmed to be dinosaur […]

SpaceX’s Starship might finally take to the sky. The launch vehicle is the tallest and most powerful rocket ever built, even bigger than NASA’s massive Space Launch System that took Artemis I to the Moon. It’s also the first to be designed for complete reuse. All going well, its inaugural flight will take place next […]

Robotic probes have dived into the watery ruins of the Fukushima nuclear power plant and revealed that vital supporting structures appear to be damaged. While the discovery is not an immediate concern, it’s feared it could become a major issue if another earthquake rocks the area. Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (TEPCO) uses remote-controlled probes […]

Multiple ticks across the UK have been found to carry tick-borne encephalitis virus, and one human case has been confirmed, making it the first case of the rare virus in the UK. Health officials now warn the public to stay away from ticks where possible, as this adds to the potentially dangerous diseases they may […]

Religion is a human universal. For thousands of years, humans have held religious beliefs and participated in religious rituals. Throughout history, every human society has featured some kind of supernatural or religious belief. Why is religion so prevalent? One reason is that it’s a powerful tool for explanation. Advertisement The world is a mysterious place, […]

New research argues that 64 Viking shields, previously assumed to be ceremonial in nature, were actually used in battle. A reanalysis of the iconic wooden round shields suggests they may have been covered in rawhide and used in combat. In 1879, two farmer’s sons decided to dig up a large burial mound located on the […]

An amateur gold prospector in Victoria, Australia, recently discovered a gold nugget big enough to hold in two hands, worth around A$240,000. It was a lucky find, but he had chosen the right place to look. Central Victoria was home to one of the world’s great gold rushes in the 19th century, which was focused […]

A new study has found a potential link between the amount of lithium within the water supply and higher rates of autism in the population, marking one of the first times lithium has been associated with autism risk. The study of data from Denmark suggested that pregnant women whose tap water had more lithium showed […]

In the latest version of The Climate Change Performance Index 2023 (CCPI), Chile is ranked as the country with the best climate protection performance in Latin America, and the third best in the world. Chile has now committed to achieving net zero emissions by 2050, with specific policies relating to greenhouse gas emissions, renewable energy, […]

These days, checking whether you’re pregnant or not is as simple as peeing on a stick and waiting a minute or two. In fact, it’s now so quick and straightforward to get procreative peace of mind that it’s easy to forget what a modern invention these little disposable tests really are – yet for most […]

The amount of sea ice surrounding Antarctica fell to the lowest level ever detected in the modern era this Southern-Hemisphere summer. This is the second year in a row that the record for the minimum sea ice extent has been broken, although it’s still too early to say if this downward trend is likely to […]

Cocaine usage is on the rise in the UK and America, and it can cause a range of serious adverse health conditions, including significant sinus and nasal damage. But a new study suggests that this consequence is routinely misdiagnosed as a rare but otherwise nonthreatening nasal disease. Cocaine is a stimulant made from the leaves […]

A new testosterone patch to alleviate symptoms of menopause is being developed. Researchers state that the testosterone patch may help the loss of sex drive that many women experience during menopause, with clinical trials set to begin in Autumn.  Professor David Haddleton, founder of the company behind the new therapy, Medherant, has announced that the […]

Scientists performed the famous magic trick known as the French drop for three species of monkeys and found one saw right through it. Crucially, the difference was not in the animals’ eyes, but in their hands. Those with opposable thumbs like our own were taken in by the performance, sharing our expectations of how the […]

Discovered in the year 2000, the Cave of Crystals sits some 300 meters (984 feet) below the surface of the Sierra de Naica Mountain in Chihuahua, Mexico. Home to some of the largest known crystals on the planet, this vast, otherworldly cavern is both beautiful and deadly. Occupying a U-shaped cavern in the depths of […]

A team of students is about to beat NASA to a lunar first: sending a rover to the Moon before they have. The team of students from Carnegie Mellon University expect the Iris rover, and an additional sculpture project named MoonArk, to launch on May 4.  “Hundreds of students have poured thousands of hours into […]

A team of researchers may have found a way of improving large language model (LLM) chatbots, including improving ChatGPT-4’s accuracy by around 21 percent. In a new preprint paper, yet to be peer-reviewed, the team explains how they achieved it: allowing artificial intelligence (AI) agents to reflect on their own mistakes. The team used a […]

Research into a tiny cat that lives in the Moroccan desert has revealed big things for the Felis genus. Not only are sand cats the title holders for the largest range in the genus, living a seemingly nomadic life, they’ve also exhibited a behavior never seen before in wild cats. The nocturnal sand cat, Felis […]