Deborah Bloomfield

Why doesn’t the rainbow have colours like black, brown and grey in it? – Ivy, aged four, Kent, UK Many of us have seen rainbows in the sky once the sun starts shining again after a spell of rain. For us to see a rainbow, the conditions need to be just right. Advertisement We need […]

Gregor Mendel, the “father of genetics”, had his 200th birthday in 2022. As a fitting tribute to this pea-loving prodigy, researchers boldly decided to dig up his body and study his DNA.  The understanding of genetics has progressed by leaps and bounds since Mendel carried out his landmark experiments in the 19th century. Mendel was […]

Three weeks ago, the Russian Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft sprung a leak as it was attached to the International Space Station (ISS). In the immediate aftermath, a spacewalk had to be canceled but a more serious concern became clear as time went on. How will the two cosmonauts and one astronaut that used it to get […]

Caenorhabditis elegans, the humble roundworm that has taught us so much about genetics, has been given an upgrade. A team at the University of Rochester modified some C. elegans so their mitochondria can harvest light to produce more energy. In a finding probably coming to superhero films any day now, the modified worms were more […]

In 2016, scientists discovered time crystals, solids with an oscillating internal structure that repeats itself in time rather than in space. Now, they have found a new one, in a regular crystal that can be easily made at home in one of those grow-your-own-crystal toys.  As reported in two studies published in Physical Review Letters and Physical Review […]

A study looking at the language people use when they are going through breakups has found that markers of an impending breakup can be seen three months before the breakups occur.  Researchers from the University of Texas at Austin looked at 1,027,541 posts from 6,803 Reddit users. The users were specifically chosen because they had posted […]

Are you interested in Blockchain technology and cryptocurrency? It’s no wonder, considering how the crypto workforce is expected to be worth over $68 billion by 2030. That’s a whole lotta cash and proves the job market is and is going to remain pretty viable for the next 10 years at least. If you’ve been looking […]

Every year, millions of people around the world make New Year’s resolutions. And every year, the great majority of us break and abandon those resolutions. Self-control is a major problem for many of us, so failure to maintain our resolutions isn’t surprising. But is it inevitable? Is there anything we can do to make it […]

Research has shown that about half of all adults make New Year’s resolutions. However, fewer than 10% manage to keep them for more than a few months. As a professor of behavioural addiction I know how easy people can fall into bad habits and why on trying to give up those habits it is easy […]

On the surface, it may not appear that Dr Dolittle and artificial intelligence (AI) have much in common. One belongs in 1900s children’s literature, while the other is firmly rooted in the 21st century. One is a physician turned vet who can talk to animals, and the other a computerized technology that cannot. Unless… AI […]

This article first appeared in Issue 3 of our free digital magazine CURIOUS.   Conservationists based at the UK’s Chester Zoo announced earlier this year that they have begun freezing tissue samples of the world’s rarest animals in an attempt to safeguard them from extinction. Here, Nature’s SAFE (one of Europe’s largest “living biobanks”) was founded […]

It’s that time of year when people make their New Year’s resolutions – indeed, 93% of people set them, according to the American Psychological Association. The most common resolutions are related to losing weight, eating healthier, exercising regularly and saving money. However, research shows that 45% of people fail to keep their resolutions by February, […]

This week, a comet not seen in 50,000 years is about to be visible to the naked eye, we consider all the strangest facts to come out of 2022, and researchers discover that they can see depression on a brain scan.  Earth Is About To See An Object Last Seen During The Time Of Neanderthals […]

From 34 species of moths to three new dinosaur species and 19 new species of stick insects, the researchers and scientists at the Natural History Museum have described 351 new species in 2022 and given them all scientific names so they can be better protected for years to come.  Among the bumper crop of new […]

If you’re in the Northern Hemisphere and the skies are clear, you might get a few natural fireworks on New Year’s Eve. The Quadrantids meteor shower lasts from December 28 to January 12, peaking on January 3/4. It’s one of the best showers of the year in terms of the brightness and frequency of its […]

We’ve all heard our fair share of conspiracies. There’s the one about the US government being run by a secret cabal of pedophile Satan worshippers, for example – or the even more sinister one about birds not being real. It’s easy to dismiss such theories as nothing more than the ramblings of cranks – but […]

A weight-loss drug that’s been shown to encourage weight loss in people with obesity is now available for children as young as 12 in the US. Last week, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the drug Wegovy for use in adolescents who are 12 years old or over, according to the drug maker […]

Archivists have recently stumbled across a walking cane that’s believed to depict a suspect in the case of Jack the Ripper, the notorious serial killer who raised hell in the East End of London in the autumn of 1888. Jack the ripper was responsible for the murders of at least five female sex workers in […]

It’s no secret that removing abortion access leads to an uptick in death rates among pregnant people and babies – it’s not even surprising, really, since by definition it involves removing access to lifesaving healthcare to those who need it. But a new study has shown another deadly aspect of draconian anti-abortion laws: they could […]

A team of scientists has recently headed to the South Pole in a push to dig deep beneath Antarctica and capture some of Earth’s oldest ice. To provide a little snapshot of this important work, one of the project’s scientists Austin Carter, a graduate student at Scripps Institute of Oceanography, recently shared a stunning time-lapse […]