Deborah Bloomfield

A new giant virus with “unusual” features – including an unprecedentedly long tail – has been discovered in the Pacific Ocean. At 2.3 micrometers long – that’s 0.00023 centimeters – it may not be huge by our standards, but in the viral world, it’s a whopper. In fact, it’s the longest virus appendage described to […]

A zoo in Denmark has called out to the public to donate healthy chickens, rabbits, and guinea pigs to feed to its predator residents. In a translated social media post, Aalborg Zoo stated that these animals “make up an important part of the diet of our predators – especially the European lynx, which needs whole […]

Deep-sea jellyfish might not have a brain, but they don’t aimlessly drift around the world’s seas. In fact, they seem to stick within their set territory with an incredible sense of order.  In a new study, scientists at the University of Western Australia used historical records, molecular tools, and genetic analysis to study the geographical […]

Tyrannosaurus rex deserves its fearsome reputation, at least when it comes to bite force, a new analysis has concluded, but some of its fellow giant theropods were surprisingly weak in the jaw. Naturally, some of the largest predators ever to walk the Earth had a fearsome armory to bring down prey, but they apparently relied […]

A man born with Usher syndrome type 1b, a rare genetic disease that causes congenital deafness and progressive blindness, has reportedly experienced “substantial improvement” in his vision, after receiving a new type of gene therapy as part of an ongoing clinical trial. The 38-year-old man was the first patient in the world to be given […]

A giant marine reptile that lived during the age of dinosaurs has been discovered in Germany. Retrieved from the world-renowned Posidonia Shale fossil beds, the newly named Plesionectes longicollum has features unlike any other plesiosaur found to date. A new-to-science species, and the first plesiosauroid of its kind. Its name is derived from the Latin […]

Sometimes, genetics likes to throw a bit of a curveball when it comes to coloration of animals. These quirks can tip the scales in favor of all white or all black fur, feathers, or even skin and can even land somewhere in the middle in a genetic condition known as leucism.  Recently, the North Island […]

It is often remarked upon that the distribution of rings and moons around the giant planets of the Solar System – Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune – are themselves like miniature solar systems. Now, researchers think that giant planets outside our Solar System, too, might build their own personal collections of moons. In interstellar space […]

Much of the bottom of the North Sea is upside down, with older layers of sand lying on top of younger ones. This defiance of basic geological principles has been seen elsewhere, but never on this scale. Now, two geologists think they have an explanation. The North Sea has been extensively drilled for oil, hosts […]

We’ll give ourselves some credit, humans can be pretty hardcore. Doctors performing surgery on themselves, researchers deliberately self-infecting in the name of science – but some of the best examples of badassery come from elsewhere in the animal world. The most metal of them all? Well, that title might just go to the Iberian ribbed […]

We like the August sky because there are usually lots of beautiful things to see. We have had amazing solar eclipses, like the Great American Eclipse in 2017, and we will have two brilliant ones next year and the year after. The best meteor shower of the year, too, is in August: the Perseids. But […]

Adult winter-run Chinook salmon have been seen in Northern California’s McCloud River for the first time in decades.  On July 15, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) reported the sighting of an adult female Chinook salmon in McCloud River near Ash Camp, displaying spawning behavior and guarding her nest. They also spotted several […]

Over 20 years ago, the Hubble Space Telescope looked at a little patch of sky for days, with this methodical approach catching the light of galaxies that existed when the universe was not even 1 billion years old. This was the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, a panorama of 10,000 galaxies that took 400 orbits of […]

Like Ross and Rachel, modern humans and Neanderthals had something of an on-again, off-again love affair. Yet while Friends may have gone extinct after 10 seasons, our ancient ancestors repeatedly reunited over hundreds of thousands of years, and new research may have pinpointed exactly where on the planet these romantic episodes occurred. Previous studies have […]

A hundred years ago, explorer Percy Fawcett went in search of a lost city deep in the Amazon rainforest. His quest to find “The City Of Z,” as he called it, was inspired by a mysterious “Manuscript 512” and Indigenous legends, including El Dorado, but did such a place ever exist? Despite warnings and several […]

Dormant cancer cells in the lung could be reactivated after a bout of COVID-19 or flu, according to new research. The findings suggest that a respiratory infection could spark a chain of events leading to a new metastatic tumor in patients who have previously survived a cancer diagnosis. Even after treatment and with a cancer […]

Our hair and nails are constantly growing, but not at a constant rate – indeed, everything from our hormones, to our nutrition, to age, to simple genetics can affect how fast they grow. But what about something not connected to our bodies at all? What about the season? You may have heard that our hair […]

Relics of the distant past and echoes of recent tragedy lie hidden within the cerulean depths of Belize’s Great Blue Hole. The Great Blue Hole is a large marine sinkhole in the Caribbean Sea, some 70 kilometers (43 miles) from the coast of Belize. With a diameter of 318 meters (1,043 feet) and a depth […]

What’s the biggest volcano in the world? Well, it depends on how you measure. Highest, biggest, most massive; they all have different answers – and each is as fascinating as the last. Highest volcano Sea level to peak, there’s a clear winner for the highest volcano: it’s Nevado Ojos del Salado, on the border between […]

When we’re feeling peaky, we might pop to the pharmacy for a remedy to help get us back on our feet, or visit a doctor for an expert opinion – we may even make ourselves a hearty bowl of chicken soup (there’s more science behind it than you might think). Other animals don’t have the […]