Deborah Bloomfield

Never one to shy away from hot-button topics, it looks like the creators of South Park have used ChatGPT to write parts of a recent episode that pokes fun at the much-hyped artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot. Released on March 9, 2023, the fourth episode of season 26, titled Deep Learning, sees students at South Park Elementary […]

A new study has discovered a previously unknown link between two genes and schizophrenia, while also showing that a third gene may be linked to autism. This is the largest study of its kind, which also revealed how schizophrenia risk is conferred across ethnicities. The implications could be important for our understanding of brain disease […]

Native speakers of German and Arabic have distinctly different brains, with increased connectivity in areas needed to handle the specific natures of their respective languages. The work not only explains why people may find it particularly difficult to learn a language with highly different structures from their native tongue, but it also boosts the credibility […]

You’ve probably heard about the medication Ozempic, used to manage type 2 diabetes and as a weight loss drug. Ozempic (and the similar drug Wegovy) has had more than its fair share of headlines and controversies. A global supply shortage, tweets about using it from Elon Musk, approval for adolescent weight loss in the United […]

Dozens of people across Europe have come down with a dangerous neuropathic illness called botulism after receiving “gastric Botox” injections in Türkiye. According to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), the outbreak has been traced back to two private hospitals where the procedures were conducted, and several of those affected have been […]

The gasoline in your car began its life (for want of a better term) around 360 million years ago. That’s long before even the first dinosaurs wandered the Earth; despite the popular image of the typical automobile being “fueled by exploding T. Rexes”, it’s actually ancient algae and plankton. Given how long it’s been hanging […]

This week, GPT-4 managed to trick a human into passing a CAPTCHA test for it, the discovery of a new fossil hints at a dinosaur with the longest neck in the known animal kingdom, and we investigate just how (in)accurate modern depictions of the Vikings are. Earth Just Dodged One Of The Fastest Coronal Mass […]

A woman in New York has been in remission from HIV for more than four years after being treated with stem cells carrying a gene that confers resistance to the virus. Originally the third person to be potentially cured of HIV (there has subsequently been a fourth and fifth), the so-called “New York patient” is […]

Mariana Trench animals occupy one of the deepest and darkest pits of the oceans (though it’s not the world’s deepest continental trench). It’s a location so hard to get to that there have been more humans in space than at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, and while we’ve identified a few species that pass […]

Researchers might have uncovered what is believed to be the earliest evidence of a meteorite’s impact on Earth. In rocks from 3.48 billion years ago, researchers have discovered structures consistent with a collision from the heavens. These are rock spherules whose structure and chemical composition indicate that the extraterrestrial hypothesis is most likely the correct […]

The “terminator zone” doesn’t sound like a good place to seek extraterrestrial life, but it might be our best chance, new research suggests. These zones are marked by perpetual twilight and are a feature of most of the known planets with prospects for hosting life while being close enough to study. Consequently, the question of […]

In Irish folklore, it’s been told that leprechauns would hide treasure where rainbows met the Earth. While it’s of course fiction that fairies in the form of little old men are running about the Irish countryside burying pots of gold, the story of rainbow cups that were thought to come from those refractions in the […]

If you’ve ever seen Jaws you’ll know that few animals strike fear into the human psyche quite like a great white shark. These epic ancient apex predators swim around in cool coastal waters and are the largest predatory fish on the planet. One is particularly massive, and she’s called Deep Blue. Despite their size, great […]

It’s been almost 40 years since the Chernobyl nuclear disaster saw the evacuation of around 120,000 people from their homes in northern Ukraine and Belarus. While the irradiated surrounding area is still home to very few people, some species of animal have beaten the odds to survive in this most unlikely of places. Exposure to […]

“Plastic rocks” have been found on a remote volcanic island off of the Brazilian coast in what geologists have described as a “new and terrifying” development. They added that the discovery is yet another sign of how human activity is drastically changing the natural world and even Earth’s geology.  Dubbed “plastiglomerates,” the rocks are a […]

Viking-inspired tattoos with Norse imagery and runes have become somewhat in vogue in the era of Pinterest-inspired body art, but did the Vikings actually have tattoos? There’s no solid archaeological evidence that tattoos were common in the Viking age since it’s rare for skin to remain intact for centuries. Nevertheless, we know from written sources […]

A physicist in the UK has proposed a new method of disembodied transport in quantum computers. Instead of relying on a system of quantum teleportation, where a particle is destroyed in one place and then recreated elsewhere following an exchange of information, the new system – called counterportation – claims that it doesn’t need even […]

In the 19th century, a rumor circulated in the scientific world that a “lost continent” was laying undiscovered at the bottom of the Indian Ocean. They named it Lemuria as their misguided efforts were driven by some very confusing lemurs.  The idea is largely credited to British zoologist Philip Lutley Sclater who wrote a paper […]

Three hikers were recently caught in a flash flood while hiking the Buckskin Gulch slot canyon in southern Utah. The men in their 50s were experienced hikers, but the severity of the conditions meant that only one was found alive after they were reported missing. Buckskin Gulch in Utah is the longest and deepest slot […]

In 2000, a hiker was walking near the Fukang Mountains, China, when they stumbled on something spectacular. What is now known as the Fukang meteorite is an incredible stoney-iron meteorite rock packed with honeycomb-like crystals. It is now the most famous meteorite in the world, but what makes it special?  Pallasite meteorites  The Fukang meteorite […]