Deborah Bloomfield

In amongst the flurry of AI news as ChatGPT takes over our entire lives, Google threw their hat in the ring and released Bard, their competitor AI. Unfortunately for them, the first demonstrations were less than optimal – a promo video for Bard showed it explaining that the JWST was the first telescope to ever […]

This week, Bing’s new chatbot claims to be both sentient and depressed, a bizarre 10-meter-long jellyfish is captured on film, and we investigate Third Man syndrome, a potentially life-saving hallucination. Scientists Have Tested The “Enjuin Mummy” To Find Out What It Really Is The Enjuin “mummy” was found in a box in a Japanese temple. […]

Caves have always been home to the weirdest and most bizarre members of the animal kingdom. Owing to their unique environmental properties of being largely dark, wet and sometimes humid, this has given rise to a whole host of funky critters, adapted to living in low light and these tricky conditions by convergent evolution. Now, […]

When you start to notice them, psychopaths seem to be everywhere. This is especially true of people in powerful places. By one estimate, as many as 20 percent of business leaders have “clinically relevant levels” of psychopathic tendencies – despite the fact as little as 1 percent of the general population are considered psychopaths. Psychopaths […]

Our Solar System is a pretty busy place. There are millions of objects moving around – everything from planets, to moons, to comets and asteroids. And each year we’re discovering more and more objects (usually small asteroids or speedy comets) that call the Solar System home. Astronomers had found all eight of the main planets […]

The original creator of the internet believes that we have gone down the wrong path and is looking to change how the entire internet works with his company, Inrupt. Sir Tim Berners-Lee states that the internet as we see it today has deviated from his original vision when he created the world wide web in […]

If we ever establish colonies on Jupiter’s four big moons, those living there will enjoy looking up. Besides the sight of Jupiter hanging in the sky from the planet-facing side of each moon, and views of every other moon, big and small, there will be beautiful aurorae to watch. Surprisingly, this is something we have […]

More than a dozen human burials, complete with sophisticated jewelry and ornaments, have been uncovered by archaeologists working in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas, Mexico. Described by those working on the site as one of the most important local discoveries in recent decades, the excavation offers a glimpse into the ancient funerary practices of the […]

Research has shown that “cat people” tend to be more intelligent than “dog people.” On top of that, the study found the pro-cat camp tends to be more creative, independent, and rebellious. However, the science suggests it isn’t all negative for dog lovers – and not all positive for feline folks either.  The findings come […]

Astronomers have cast their nets wide searching for habitable planets, and a team at the University of Georgia, Athens, argues that may be too broad to be useful. What we need, they suggest, is not simply to find planets that could support life, but to seek out those that could support the life we can […]

A video on TikTok has been circulating that claims to show how to make radiation visible to the naked eye. Although it might be tempting to conclude that this video is some sort of hoax, the phenomena being demonstrated is actually well documented using a piece of equipment called a “cloud chamber”. Not only are […]

Introverts across the world would likely understand the desire to isolate themselves for long periods of time, but a recent archaeological discovery shines light on a little-known medieval practice that would make even the most austere introvert blush. Researchers with the University of Sheffield and Oxford Archaeology have unearthed the remains of a 15th century […]

Deep beneath an unassuming corner of Tennessee, you can find America’s “Lost Sea”: the largest non-subglacial underground lake in the US, and likely the second largest in the world. Found in Craighead Caverns, this colossal body of underground water is so large that no one’s actually sure how big it is.  It’s located amidst the […]

A peculiar and mysterious yellow glass can be found in the desert of Egypt and Libya. It has been known for thousands of years and was famously used to make a scarab for the pectoral of 18th-dynasty pharaoh Tutankhamun. For a long time, people were uncertain of its origin, but researchers think they have found […]

Scientists have identified the murder weapon used to massacre 34 people in a German cave 5,000 years ago, as well as another person in Spain around the same time. To figure out how the ancient victims were slain, the researchers built and then smashed a series of fake skulls using popular Neolithic “weapon-tools”, noting the […]

With an estimated three million shipwrecks littering the ocean floor, chances of stumbling across one during your routine deep-sea scuba dive are higher than you might think. So, what should you do if you find a shipwrecked treasure trove, and can you keep the booty? The laws surrounding the discovery of shipwrecks, and who’s entitled […]

Beloved Hollywood actor Bruce Willis has been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, according to a statement released by his family. The 67-year-old, known for his roles in movies like Pulp Fiction and the Die Hard franchise, had decided last year to take a step away from acting after developing aphasia. Now, his family have sadly confirmed that his […]

We wouldn’t normally expect milk to be used in many medical procedures today, least of all in blood transfusions – but for a brief period of history, this substance was actually transfused instead of blood.  For as long as humans have been injuring themselves, there has been a need for blood replacements. According to some, […]

A mystery from the deep just got a little bit less mysterious thanks to the first scientific paper to arise from the Viking Expedition Team. While drifting through Antarctic waters, they spotted the scyphozoan (fancy word for jellyfish) Stygiomedusa gigantea, commonly known as the giant phantom jellyfish. Looking a bit like an errant piece of […]

Experiments have shown that ChatGPT is capable of passing a theory of mind test with the ability of a 9-year-old child. The question is: is artificial intelligence (AI) truly understanding the task at hand, or are we just being tricked by some super-smart mimicry?  Theory of mind is the ability to understand the unobservable mental […]