Deborah Bloomfield

Neanderthals and other prehistoric hominins have a reputation for being bloodthirsty brutes, existing on a diet of megafauna meat and the flesh of their enemies. However, this is a very reductive (and outdated) view of our hominin relatives. A wealth of evidence shows that Neanderthals had a taste for meat but also an appreciation for […]

Typhoon Tip was the largest and most intense tropical cyclone ever documented. In October 1979, it tore through the western Pacific Ocean, with a swirling mass of wind and water vapor that was nearly half the size of the continental US. Imagine half the country swallowed by a single spiraling engine of wind and water. […]

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When trying to fit in, it’s not uncommon for humans to watch other humans interacting to get an idea of how they themselves should behave. This is what’s known as third-party imitation, and it’s something we used to think was unique to humans. Now, it’s been identified in another animal for the first time. Yes, […]

An epic dance unfolded recently in Hawaii’s Kīlauea volcano, as a whirlwind that’s been dubbed a “volnado” whipped up next to a spewing fountain of lava. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content. The twister appeared during the afternoon on September 2 in […]

Reproduction in the animal world is all kinds of freaky, from penis jousting to mammals laying eggs, there seems to be just about every method going. However, one thing that is not common is females of one species being able to produce offspring of another, but that’s exactly what has been discovered in Iberian harvester […]

A new study has found an interesting and, perhaps, important property of ice. It appears to generate electricity when it is bent. Water ice is abundant on Earth, being one of the most widespread solids on the planet. Given water’s importance to life, and ice’s importance to the Earth’s climate, we have also studied the […]

As they strolled through Tiananmen Square during China’s over-the-top Victory Day military parade, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping were caught on camera discussing the possibility of undergoing multiple organ transplants in order to become immortal. Given that both men have recently doctored their countries’ constitutions to remove any limits on […]

Congratulations, Autumn lovers. It’s finally your time to shine. Latte foam art? Tiny pumpkins? Fuzzy, comfy socks? Go wild, you’ve earned it, and if it’s fabulous fall foliage in the US you’re hankering for then hoo boy, do we have news for you. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in […]

Fortunately, there are many ways you can prove to yourself that the Earth is indeed an oblate spheroid (or a sphere that bulges slightly at the equator). These range from the simple – looking at photos of the Earth from space, or simply at the stars – to using a few sticks and some shadows. […]

In 2013, 13-year-old Jahi McMath went into the Children’s Hospital Oakland (now the UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland), California, to have her tonsils removed. It was a very ordinary procedure, one that takes place hundreds of thousands of times a year across the world, but unfortunately, Jahi’s story is far from ordinary. Although the operation […]

One of the biggest controversies in human evolution just took another dramatic turn after researchers submitted their final, revised version of a study claiming that a small-brained human ancestor buried its dead. Known as Homo naledi, this prehistoric hominid rose to fame a couple of years ago thanks to a Netflix documentary that sensationalized the […]

Be honest: where are you reading this right now? If it’s on the toilet – and we know you’re out there – then things are about to get uncomfortable. A survey of adults undergoing bowel screening in the US has found that people who used their smartphones on the john had a higher risk of […]

Slowly but surely, humanity is better understanding the interior of Mars and with that, what the early Solar System was like. We know that Mars used to be a lot more like the Earth, with water on its surface. Today, Mars is a frigid desert, but deep inside it might retain similarities. One perhaps is […]

A huge project led by neuroscientists from all across the world has achieved world-first insight into what decision-making looks like in the brain. It marks the first time a single-cell, electrophysiological brain map of this size has been generated in a mammal, and it’s already challenging what we thought we knew about how decisions are […]

Growing up in Antarctica isn’t easy. The hostile conditions here have pushed animals to the extremes of evolution to overcome things the rest of us take for granted, like breathing, eating, and not freezing to death. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content. […]

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government has released a video containing AI-generated imagery to warn what would happen if Mount Fuji erupted in the 21st century. While there’s no suggestion the volcano is set to blow any time soon, an eruption within the next century would not be totally unexpected – and the impact on Tokyo would […]

When people think of NASA, despite all the work it does monitoring the Earth’s climate and exploring the bodies of the Solar System, most people’s minds go to the Apollo era, when the US space agency repeatedly put humans on the Moon.  But Apollo was not the agency’s first steps into space, as newly restored […]

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A new study looking at solar flares may have solved a 50-year-old mystery about our host star, finding that solar flares may be far hotter than we realized. Solar flares are a common event on the Sun’s surface. They can be seen regularly throughout the year, and particularly during the solar maximum phase of the […]