Deborah Bloomfield

Imagine you have an important meeting you have to attend. Maybe it’s a date, a job interview, or something else. Regardless, as you’re making your way, you find your preferred route is blocked. You’re faced with a choice: you can take a diversion that will take longer to reach your destination, or you can double […]

Thanks to the natural magnification from gravitational lensing, researchers have been able to study a small galaxy from when the universe was not even 1 billion years old. They saw that it is made of many clumps. This has earned the object the nickname “Cosmic Grapes” and has also challenged some of our expectations around […]

Despite the vast number of meteors that fall from our skies each year, there has only ever been one confirmed impact with a human: the poor and unfortunate Ann Hodges. It was November 30, 1953, a day like any other, when Ann decided to take a nap on her couch in the town of Oak […]

An offshore canyon that’s twice as deep as the Grand Canyon recently turned up 40 potential new-to-science species when scientists embarked on the first-ever high-tech dive to the region. Using the Schmidt Ocean Institute’s remotely operated vehicle, ROV SuBastian, the expedition was livestreamed as it captured alien-looking squids, Barbie-pink lobsters, and a sea star with […]

The glorious August sky continues to deliver beauty. Not only has this week seen the peak of the Perseids meteor shower, two planetary conjunctions, and a planetary alignment, but if you wake up early or stay up late this weekend, you’ll be able to see the Moon getting close to the Pleiades – by far […]

What do tennis and the search for extraterrestrial intelligent life have in common? Well, don’t ask us because we don’t know either. However, French tennis player Térence Atmane has put the two on a collision course with his quarter-final victory at the 2025 Cincinnati Open.  He signed the plexiglass in front of one of the […]

A woman has found the diamond for a future engagement ring at a state park in Arkansas known for its sparkling gemstones and wild geological history. Micherre Fox, a 31-year-old from Manhattan, New York, recently unearthed the 2.3-carat diamond – about the size of a pea – at the appropriately named Crater of Diamonds State […]

A major science journal has rejected calls from US Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr to retract a published study, after he called it “deeply flawed” and accused the researchers of having “bought conclusions”.  The study, published in July in Annals of Internal Medicine, reported the results of a long-running study […]

The winners of this year’s joint BMC Ecology and Evolution and BMC Zoology image competition have been revealed, with submissions from ecologists, zoologists, and palaeontologists across the world showcasing the very best in science images and stories capturing an incredible range of wildlife behavior, and researchers’ attempts to understand it, through photography.  The rest of […]

A species’ common name can often be misleading. Koala bears aren’t bears, starfish aren’t fish, and the mountain chicken is actually a frog. So naturally, when we first heard the name “crab-eating foxes” (Cerdocyon thous), we were a little bit skeptical as to whether they really lived up to their moniker. The rest of this […]

For decades, Racetrack Playa in California’s Death Valley and its “racing rocks”, or “sailing stones“, was a mystery that inspired speculation ranging from epic storms to supernatural intervention. A decade after the movement of rocks across the desert floor was explained, their behavior has inspired a lab experiment that could one day see new methods […]

Had a bit of an iffy belly lately? Maybe you feel hungry and tired all the time, or you just can’t seem to stop farting. These could be signs of all sorts of things – like staying out late a lot and eating handfuls of cheese even though you’re intolerant to dairy. Fall onto the […]

Lining up for your seasonal flu shot is an annual ritual, but what if it didn’t have to be this way? Wouldn’t it be great if we could develop a universal vaccine that could protect us against all current and future virus strains?  The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in […]

Almost all human languages follow Zipf’s law of abbreviation – and it turns out, so do bird songs. This strange observation shows how many systems, not just human language, are guided by an unwritten, surprisingly consistent mathematical order. What is Zipf’s law of abbreviation? Developed by American linguist George Kingsley Zipf in the 1930s, Zipf’s […]

Many suspect that California’s San Andreas Fault is brewing yet another major earthquake. However, it might not necessarily play out as scientists thought it would – just look at the recent disaster in Myanmar. In a new study, researchers from the California Institute of Technology took a close look at the Mw7.7 Mandalay earthquake that […]

Commissioners of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) have decided to allow black bear hunting for the first time in 10 years within the state of Florida. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content. The decision was made based on a […]

A survey of US adults has revealed efforts to boost vaccinations against preventable cancers may be aiming for the wrong target, which would certainly explain their limited post-pandemic success. When a sample of 22,344 people were asked if they were aware of the human papillomavirus (HPV), more than a third were not. Even among those […]

Until now, it was generally assumed that the ability to produce projectile weapons like bow-fired arrows was exclusive to Homo sapiens, yet the puzzling discovery of a series of arrowheads that predate the arrival of our species may be about to change all that. Found at the Obi-Rakhmat rock shelter in Uzbekistan, the small, sharp […]

A new study on Uranus has found it is hotter than we thought, prompting scientists to suggest we should return to the ice giant. While Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn are regularly visited by human spacecraft, the outer planets Neptune and Uranus have only been seen up close once, as Voyager 2 flew past them on […]

Researchers in Mexico have uncovered the lost ancient Maya city of Sak-Bahlán, locating it using information outlined in a letter written in 1698 CE.  After the Maya people known as Lakandon-Ch’ol were forced out of their capital, Lakam Tun (“Great Rock”) in 1586, they moved further into the jungle, creating the city of Sak-Bahlán, or […]