Deborah Bloomfield

An autonomous Black Hawk helicopter has cracked on with its latest test flight and shown it safely and reliably perform cargo resupply missions – all without the need for human pilots.  In mid-October, the helicopter managed to fly without any crew onboard for 133 kilometers (83 miles) around the Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona while […]

What and how we eat plays a huge role in keeping us healthy. How our diet can help us when we are fighting off diseases is also vital but not discussed enough. Host Dr Alfredo Carpineti is joined by Dr William Li, physician, scientist, President and Medical Director of the Angiogenesis Foundation, and author of Eat […]

Messier 77, also known as NGC 1068, is one of the most studied galaxies outside our own, but it can still surprise. Beloved by amateur astronomers for its beautiful spiral shape, Messier 77 has been revealed to be producing many high-energy neutrinos. To find this out researchers had to go, not into space or to […]

A surprising correlation between smoking cannabis and creativity levels has been found by new research, indicating that the drug has no effect on creative thought – but does impact how creative the user sees themselves and others. A team of researchers carried out a number of experiments into how moderate everyday cannabis use can affect […]

Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has been fully cut off from the power grid following shelling by Russian forces, leaving it to rely on backup diesel generators, according to the Ukrainian State Enterprise National Nuclear Energy Generating Company “Energoatom”. The company said that the last lines connecting the power station to the grid were damaged […]

There are subreddits for just about everything, from one dedicated to loooooong furbies to one created by a community that likes to staple bread to trees. One that stands out is “nofap“, which acts as a sort of support group for people who (for one reason or another) have chosen to stop masturbating. People in […]

A single dose of psilocybin – the psychedelic compound that puts the “magic” in magic mushrooms – has been shown to significantly reduce the symptoms of depression in people who had previously not benefited from treatment.  In the largest study of its kind to date, scientists from Kings College London studied a group of over 200 […]

Buried beneath a gravel road in a Finnish forest, archaeologists have discovered tooth fragments belonging to a child that lived some 6,000 years ago in the Mesolithic period. And while none of the youngster’s bones survived the intervening millennia, a few animal furs and bird feathers were retrieved from the grave, providing some fascinating insights […]

Take a look at any overhead power lines in the US and you’ll perhaps see a number of big yellow, orange, red, or white balls gripping the wires. Some people have speculated that they are weights for the lines, weather sensors, or even surveillance systems. However, none of these guesses are correct.  Along with jazzing […]

Last month, we discovered that a bunch of people were convinced of time travel due to a 1937 painting appearing to depict a man holding a cell phone, and reacting like he’d seen a really bad tweet. This month is following in a similar fashion, with people convinced that a 1938 video shows a woman […]

Worldwide, cases of cholera, the deadly but treatable disease that kills its victims in a particularly messy way – to put it bluntly, you vomit and diarrhea yourself to death – have soared this year, leaving health agencies across the globe scrambling to cope with the increased demand for vaccines.  The disease is being reported […]

For the fourth time in two years, a giant piece of a Long March 5B rocket is descending to Earth in an uncontrolled fashion. Parts of the rocket could land over much of the planet, with only high latitudes truly safe. Although the chance of debris hitting humans, or even valuable infrastructure, is small for […]

WhatsApp has had a major update with the ability to bring multiple groups into a larger community, allowing for individual discussions to be had within groups but updates to be shared with ease across every group at once.   Meta claim they have made the communities feature with neighborhoods and schools in mind; so, a […]

A computer model successfully simulated a clinical trial, testing two Alzheimer’s drugs head-to-head in a first-of-its kind study. “We’re calling this a virtual clinical trial, because we used real, de-identified patient data to simulate health outcomes,” said lead author Dr Wenrui Hao, of Penn State University, in a statement. “What we found aligns almost exactly […]

A common bacterium that lingers on many people’s skin appears to flare up the autoimmune condition lupus, according to new research. The idea has only been proven in mice so far, but the study offers some much-needed insight into this chronic condition. Lupus, aka systemic lupus erythematosus, is a long-term condition that causes joint pain, […]

A rare type of leukemia can evade current treatments and remain harmful while others can benefit from therapies, and scientists now believe they know why. Dubbed “chameleon cancer”, the cancerous cells are thought to be able to change their appearance to evade immune responses, lying low in the body and becoming a different type of […]

A new function of the cerebellum has been discovered by researchers at the University of Basel, Switzerland. This region at the back of the brain, near where the spinal cord attaches, is usually known for its involvement in regulating movement – but new findings show that it plays an important role in the storage of […]

Dr Emma Yhnell is a senior lecturer at Cardiff University. With a PhD in neuroscience, she is an expert on all things neurons and takes great pride in sharing this knowledge with her students. There are many strings to Yhnell’s bow: when not busy teaching, she is a passionate science communicator, writing and talking about […]

While technology has many quirks, it’s improved our lives in some surprising ways. One of those is active noise cancellation, and right now you can put some amazing science in your ears with these JBL earbuds, part of our Every Day is Black Friday sale. We’re taking Black Friday deals out of the day after […]