Deborah Bloomfield

The pandemic has represented a triple blow to childhood vaccination rates. A World Health Organization report shows nearly 40 million children missed at least one measles dose in 2021. The decline in vaccinations, in general, is alarming epidemiologists, but there are reasons why measles is their biggest concern. Getting children vaccinated was a logistical problem […]

Human beings generally have pretty lousy hearing, so it’s unsurprising to learn that there are a lot of animals we weren’t aware are actually talking behind our backs. At the same time, our penchant for anthropomorphizing often has us thinking animals are trying to communicate when really they’re not. For the purpose of this article, […]

Here’s a fun “what if”: what if all microbial life on Earth was to suddenly disappear? One team of biologists has pondered this question and come up with an answer: we could survive, but only briefly, and during that time life “would become incomprehensibly bad”.  The team broke down their answer to separate out what […]

The winners of the 2022 Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards have been revealed, showcasing some of the year’s funniest and wildest images of the natural world. This year’s top prize was scooped by Jennifer Hadley for her photograph of a lion cub losing its grip on a tree trunk titled “Not so cat-like reflexes”.  She captured […]

Flushing a toilet is something we do to get rid of waste – but while the basin’s contents go swirling into the sewers, some of the contents actually go up. This is why we have toilet lids (there’s also a reason why we have horseshoe-shaped seats), and if you don’t flip the toilet’s top down, […]

Many of us have heard: “Don’t go outside without a coat; you’ll catch a cold.” That’s not exactly true. As with many things, the reality is more complicated. Here’s the distinction: Being cold isn’t why you get a cold. But it is true that cold weather makes it easier to get the cold or flu. […]

As 2022 starts to conclude its final chapter, Google Trends has revealed the past 12 month’s most searched terms globally, providing an interesting snapshot of this strange, surreal, and action-packed year. Both in the US and globally, the most searched term on Google in 2022 was “Wordle”, that daily online word game that millions of people […]

The sex of human and other mammal babies is decided by a male-determining gene on the Y chromosome. But the human Y chromosome is degenerating and may disappear in a few million years, leading to our extinction unless we evolve a new sex gene. The good news is two branches of rodents have already lost […]

Good news everybody who doesn’t want the police to be able to kill people using robots: San Francisco have paused their scheme to allow just that, following a backlash after they voted it through last week. Last week, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted in favor of approving a policy that allows police to […]

There are probably many hazards from having a neck twice as long as your body. When it comes to leaving a legacy, one is the low chance your constituent parts will be preserved together so scientists millions of years later will be able to reconstruct the pieces. For elasmosaurs, a group of plesiosaurs whose heads […]

A “graveyard” filled with hundreds of fossilized shark teeth has been found off the coast of Australia. Scientists working on Research Vessel (RV) Investigator, a ship operated by Australian national science agency CSIRO, were amazed by the discovery, which came from a small area of the seafloor over 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) below the surface. […]

An awesome website allows you to simulate, in ridiculous detail, exactly what would happen if an asteroid impacted a place in the world of your choosing, including your evil in-laws’ house. Asteroid Launcher demonstrates the utter destruction of an asteroid impact and even allows you to choose the size, speed, and impact angle of the […]

While it might have been a runaway sensation over lockdown, the 2020 documentary Tiger King brought to light some truly shocking revelations about the practice of keeping big cats, such as lions and tigers, in private collections and roadside zoos in the United States. Even more worrying than the fact that more tigers exist in […]

Whenever you think you know something, Mother Nature is ready to throw you a curve ball. Take, for example, gamma-ray bursts – brief flashes of the most powerful light in the universe. The short-duration ones are created in the kilonova produced by the merging of compact objects such as neutron stars. The long-duration ones are […]

Archaeologists have discovered what they’re calling the oldest narrative artwork scene in the world. While you might be expecting a painting of a graceful God or a victorious battle scene, it actually depicts a guy holding his penis as he’s being attacked by leopards. Men, eh?  The scene was found on a Neolithic bench in […]

For the first time in over a century, archaeologists have discovered ancient mummies buried alongside painted portraits, providing an unprecedented glimpse into the lives of the ancient Egyptians. The portraits were found at the Gerza archaeological site in the ancient city of Fayum around 100 kilometers (62 miles) southwest of Cairo, as per a recent […]

The world’s oldest DNA has been recovered from Ice Age sediment in northern Greenland, revealing some surprising insights into this unique ecosystem. The 2-million-year-old genetic material provides a snapshot of a thriving prehistoric ecosystem like nothing we see today, made up of animals including – most unexpectedly – mastodon, an Ice Age elephant-like mammal that’s […]

Being an empath has become a badge of honor for people who feel they are highly attuned to the emotions of those around them. However, new research has found that while we’re pretty good at identifying playfulness in people and animals, we’re actually quite bad at spotting aggression. Particularly in dogs. Humans are receptive animals, […]

Following the start of a four-day work week pilot program in the UK in June, 86 percent of respondents to a survey of companies taking part now state they are likely to continue the idea when the trial ends. The data comes at the halfway point of the trial and demonstrates that while workers are […]