Deborah Bloomfield

An astonishingly rich trove of Neanderthal remains from Chagyrskaya cave in Siberia’s Altai mountains has offered scientists their first insight into Neanderthal family structure. The group was highly inbred, but more surprisingly were patrilocal – with fathers staying close to home while mothers often came from other populations. Whether this was normal for Neanderthals, or […]

The Black Death, the single greatest mortality event in recorded history, left a huge impression on the makeup of genes that code our immune systems. Centuries later, certain genetic variants related to surviving the Black Death continue to influence people’s risk of disease and health.  In a new study, an international team of scientists analyzed […]

“A party led by artificial intelligence (AI) is attempting to run for Danish government” is a sentence you’d expect to find in a sci-fi about some distant future which is bound to go well for the humans. But, the Synthetic Party is a real thing and it’s hoping to field an AI candidate in Denmark’s […]

Being hospitalized with COVID-19 is associated with an 11 percent increase in the risk of developing schizophrenia, new research has found. While a number of previous studies have detected an observational association between the severity of infection and schizophrenia, this is the first to identify a causal link between the two. Primarily a respiratory illness, […]

While looking over photos of an ancient manuscript during the COVID-19 lockdown, a historian discovered what is thought to be the oldest known map of the stars hidden beneath a medieval Christian text. The map may in fact be the work of Greek astronomer Hipparchus (190-120 BCE), who mapped the stars centuries before any other […]

An increase in flesh-eating bacterial infection has been reported in Florida amid the fallout of Hurricane Ian which tore through the state late last month, resulting in over 100 deaths and a hell of a mess to clean up.  The Florida Department of Health reports 65 cases of Vibrio vulnificus infection and 11 deaths in the […]

A new study has found that over-50s should be getting at least five hours of sleep a night if they wish to slash their risk of getting multiple chronic health problems. Those who slept longer during the night had significantly better odds of avoiding multiple different morbidities later in life, while those that had disrupted […]

From the moment we’re born, we have this strange idea in our brains governing how we think about math. You almost certainly do it yourself: it’s the concept that smaller numbers go on the left, and larger ones on the right. It’s such a ubiquitous concept that only a handful of societies are known to […]

Whether your love of dogs has had you yearning for your very own pup or thinking of entering the field of dog trainer extraordinaire, you still need to have some essential skills to ensure your pup’s success. There are a lot of dog training programs out there, but normally they cover the basics and forgo […]

Are we alone in the universe? This is a question that has intrigued humans for centuries and inspired countless studies and works of fiction. But are we getting closer to finding this out? Now that the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is in operation, we might have taken one giant leap in being able to […]

There’s a certain type of person out there who, whenever they hear some expert come out against beating up children or point out that children’s wellbeing is important to their future development, will reply like this:  “Nonsense! The only time I ever saw my parents was when they came to smack me in the face […]

Newly-discovered medieval court documents suggest that “father of English literature” Geoffrey Chaucer likely did not commit a crime often attributed to him.  For years it has been debated what took place between Chaucer, author of The Canterbury Tales, and Cecily Chaumpaigne, the daughter of a London baker. The debate centered around medieval administrative records known […]

As the COVID-19 pandemic gears up for winter, hospitals in the UK have seen a spike in cases and COVID-related deaths in recent weeks. Tweets from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show how the spike compares to historic outbreaks and indicate that cases are climbing sharply as colder weather settles in the region. With […]

A TikTokker who discovered a strange and mysterious “sea creature” later learned from biologists that she was in fact dealing with a bog-standard whale penis. TikTokker @bootscootinaf found the strange, long, fleshy object the size of her leg in the crystal-clear waters of North Queensland, Australia.  Advertisement The clip shows the “animal part” in all […]

People who use chemical hair straighteners are at an increased risk of uterine cancer, according to a new study from researchers at the National Institutes of Health. The results are particularly concerning for Black women, the authors note, due to their higher and more long-term use of such products. “To our knowledge this is the […]

The world’s oceans are in “imminent danger” of losing the ability to support life and can only be saved by a radical reshaping of our relationship with the sea, according to the authors of a new study. Specifically, the researchers call for the implementation of a legal framework called “Earth law”, which recognizes that ecosystems […]

A video is circulating on Twitter with claims that the animal shown is 80 million years old – while this is obviously not true, let’s give them the benefit of the doubt as to how they reached this conclusion.  The video is from 2007 and was filmed at Awashima Marine Park In Japan. It’s racked up […]

A clinical psychologist has shared four signs your relationship is going to last. The couples therapist Dr Kathy Nickerson gave out the advice to her followers on TikTok. “Number one: It’s easy,” Nickerson begins the video. “It feels easy most of the time. It’s not a struggle, there’s not tonnes of drama, it’s not super […]