Deborah Bloomfield

This week on Break It Down: Tracks left in ancient rock suggest fish crawled out of the seas 10 million years earlier than we thought, a 140,000-year-old child’s skull is the earliest evidence Neanderthals and Homo sapiens got it on yet, a bright orange nurse shark makes history as the first example of xanthism in […]

There are just two northern white rhinos left in the world. Najin and Fatu, a mother and daughter pair. They can’t continue the species on alone, but a world-first attempt was made to bring a new northern white rhino calf into the world using frozen samples, in vitro fertilization (IVF), and a surrogate southern white […]

The Solar System does not have a clear border. The influence of the Sun in certain domains is small enough for the Voyager probes to have escaped into interstellar space, but there are comets and larger worlds orbiting our Sun at incredibly far distances. Astronomers have been wondering what might lurk in those dark regions, […]

In a remote area of Coos County, Oregon, a mighty Douglas fir is burning. The tree, known as the Doerner fir, is thought to be between 450 to 500 years old and has lost about 15 meters (50 feet) in height since the fire started on August 16. The rest of this article is behind […]

What is heavier: 1 kilogram of feathers or 1 kilogram of steel? Whilst the answer to this classic riddle is that they both weigh the same amount, it may be surprising to discover that the color of a feather can result in different weights.  When we think of feathers, especially from a tropical bird, we […]

Prehistoric sled dogs in the Siberian Arctic ate a mix of fish, reindeer and polar bear, according to a new analysis of 9,000-year-old turds. Recovered from the early Holocene site of Zhokhov in the extreme north of Russia, the paleofeces contained high rates of various parasitic worms, which may have severely compromised the dogs’ ability […]

The Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope has been a game-changer. It has delivered some of the highest resolution views we have ever taken of the Sun. Now, it has provided the highest resolution observations of coronal loops during a solar flare. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe […]

Modeling of the consequences of a giant body smashing into Jupiter has undermined one of the main theories used to explain the strange nature of its solid core. Not everyone is satisfied with the alternatives, however, so the quest to make sense of the innards of the king of planets will go on. Although most […]

It might seem hard to believe, but the ancestors of today’s whales were once land-dwelling animals. Given that they’re now very much residents of the ocean, clearly they left land for water at some point – but what did that look like? For a long time, the answer to that question was a mystery – […]

Many languages talk about the future in ways that are strikingly different from English. And whether we notice it or not, those differences may shape or reflect how we think, how we behave, and even the choices we make every day. In English, there’s a hard future tense that marks what lies ahead, clearly separating […]

At Pūkaha National Wildlife Centre, New Zealand, a little white kiwi has been recorded by one of the rangers trotting back to his burrow in broad daylight. Typically nocturnal birds, the footage has appealed to many online, suggesting he might have been up to no good.  The rest of this article is behind a paywall. […]

Japan’s first osmotic power plant has gone live in Fukuoka City, providing the local region with electricity using the difference in salt concentration between seawater and fresh water. The Fukuoka District Waterworks Agency opened the facility with a ceremony at Mamizu Pier earlier this month. It’s believed to be the first power plant of its […]

A new study has re-examined the famous “Wow!” signal, finding that it likely has an extraterrestrial origin after all, and may have been even more intense than previously believed. On August 15, 1977, at the Big Ear radio telescope observatory at Ohio State University, a narrowband radio signal was received. A few days later, astronomer […]

Life in space is never boring, but it can certainly be a bit serious. Astronauts are there to work, but so far away from home, even leisure time can feel like it’s not really relaxing. Some of the astronauts take photographs, others play instruments. There’s Samantha Cristoforetti, who cosplayed in orbit, and Scott Kelly, who […]

The advent of refrigeration and freezing has meant we can now store food in our houses until we’re ready to eat it. Perishable items like prawns can sit snuggly in the dark of our freezer, waiting until it’s their time to shine – only, some of that seafood might already be glowing without you knowing. […]

On August 2, 2027, viewers in Europe, North Africa, and parts of the Middle East will view a total eclipse of the Sun, with totality lasting around 6 minutes and 23 seconds. That’s unusually long for a total solar eclipse. As well as being the longest total eclipse viewed on land since 1991, it will […]

Imagine this: you’ve had a long week at work and fancy a little treat. There’s that bottle of bubbly that’s been hanging around in the back of the cupboard since Christmas, but there’s a problem – you’re not planning on drinking it all in one go, but you’ve got nothing to seal it with. Then […]

We don’t know what alien life might be like. It could be wildly different from Earth’s own; if we’re looking at microorganisms, especially their fossilized traces, we might not even recognize it as life if it’s too dissimilar. But what if it’s not that different? Planet Earth has the only life that we know of, […]

When someone asks you to name a deadly species in the US, chances are your mind immediately races to that iconic Western movie villain, the rattlesnake. However, with fatal animal encounters on the rise across the country, researchers have now revealed which creature kills the most people, and it doesn’t hiss or rattle. The rest […]

For decades, humpback whales across the world have been seen performing a weird and unique trick. While underwater, the large animals start to spiral while blowing strings of bubbles, forming rings that float towards the surface. This is not an idle pastime, however, it’s a cunning strategy the whales have developed to catch their prey, […]