Deborah Bloomfield

Seven years ago, the world was both horrified and enthralled by the announcement of a giant “fatberg” in the London sewers composed of human waste, cooking fat, sanitary products and items that carry specific instructions not to be flushed. That case drew attention to a growing problem worldwide, but two chemical engineers think they have […]

Mesmerizing footage of a weedy seadragon carrying his eggs was recorded recently by a diver in Australia. Jules Casey, who regularly documents the incredible creatures she finds on her journeys around Australia’s coast, was diving at Flinders Pier on the Mornington Peninsula, south of Melbourne. Casey spotted two weedy seadragons (Phyllopteryx taeniolatus) and quickly realized […]

We do not know if there is life elsewhere in the universe. It is likely, given that we are here, that there are other beings out there too. We also do not know if the characteristics of our planet are the best there can be to make life – some might be better. However, a […]

Back in 2018, the world was briefly fascinated by the remains of a particular victim of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE. Victims of the eruption suffered some of the most awful deaths imaginable – with such horrible deaths taking place, it’s hard for a single one to stand out as “unlucky”. But […]

Parts of the “Treasure of Villena” found in the Iberian Peninsula appear to have originated from space, new research has revealed. First discovered in 1963, the Treasure of Villena is a haul of 66 items largely made of gold and silver. The treasure – including bracelets, bowls, bottles, and other ornaments – was a significant […]

China has unveiled the design for its new reusable space shuttle, set to ferry cargo between Earth and the country’s Tiangong Space Station. While we hear a lot about the International Space Station (ISS), it’s not the only science laboratory orbiting our planet. China operates the smaller Tiangong Space Station, which launched its core module […]

A team of astronomers believe they have found a black hole in the early universe gobbling down matter at a rate of 40 times greater than the Eddington limit. The team, led by International Gemini Observatory and NSF NOIRLab astronomer Hyewon Suh, took a look at a sample of galaxies from the Chandra X-ray Observatory’s […]

The deep sea is home to a lot of weird creatures. Some are brand new species living in the midnight zone, while others are recorded visiting the depths of the ocean in something of a surprising move. The deep sea gives rise to all sorts of adaptations and in the case of this recently recorded […]

In 1903, the Wright brothers made the first sustained human flight, flying the first plane above Kitty Hawk, North Carolina for a then-impressive 12 seconds. Before that, on November 21, 1783, in Paris, France, the first hot air balloon ride took place.  But there were other attempts at flight that came before that – and […]

The atomic explosion that struck Nagasaki in 1945 can be traced back to the Hanford Site, an unsuspecting desert in Washington state where colossal quantities of radioactive material were produced in the 20th century. Its days of pumping out plutonium are long gone, but the site has left a nuclear hangover that continues to curse […]

Visibility of, and investment in, generative AI – programs such as ChatGPT, Midjourney, and other large language model (LLM) based technologies – has exploded in the past couple of years, bringing with it a whole host of benefits and drawbacks. But amongst all the existential dread and alarming levels of misinformation, there’s one far more […]

Around 6,000 years before the Bronze Age cart wheel was invented, a group of textile makers in the Middle East may have designed the world’s first rotational tool involving a wheel and axle. After testing out replicas of the ancient devices, the authors of a new study suggest that they were functional spindle whorls that could […]

At just 7.8 million light-years away, the newly discovered dwarf galaxy dw1322m2053 is remarkable for its isolation and lack of star-forming activity. If that wasn’t enough to make you anthropomorphize it and feel sorry for its lonely status, the astronomers who found it have nicknamed it “Hedgehog”. We have detected galaxies billions of light-years away, […]

Earth’s waters are filled with billions of fish, coming in all manner of glorious colors, shapes, and sizes – but which is the smallest fish of them all? It turns out that question isn’t so easy to answer. The smallest fish in the world One of the strongest contenders for the smallest fish is Paedocypris […]

An almost perfect intermediate between Archaeopteryx and modern birds has been discovered with its skull preserved in extraordinary three-dimension. To find such an intact fossil bird that dates back to the Mesozoic is almost unheard of, making the find one of the most significant of its kind, but that’s not all. The dinosaur-era bird is about […]

A beautifully decorated coffin and burial chamber loaded with goods have started to unveil the story of an ancient Egyptian priestess who lived nearly 4,000 years ago. The discovery was unearthed at the ancient Egyptian necropolis of Asyut, a site along the River Nile that’s been undergoing excavations since 2003. According to a new announcement, […]

Science is no stranger to discovering species, losing them, and then rediscovering them again, but what’s less common is to realize that the animal you thought you’d misplaced is actually being photographed all the time. Such is the tale of the marine worm, Haplosyllis anthogorgicola, that’s been photobombing seahorses at a rate of three in […]

Almost 60,000 years ago, a massive underwater avalanche took place just off the coast of Northwest Africa. Initially, about 1.5 cubic kilometers (0.36 cubic miles) of sediments rolled down across the Agadir Canyon, one of the largest in the world. As this sediment rolled down across the 450 kilometers (280 miles) of the submarine canyon, […]

For the first time, amber fragments have been recovered from Antarctica, or, to be more specific, from an offshore sedimentary basin. The fossils mean we now have amber samples from every continent, and provide information about Antarctica’s forests, which were once home to hardy dinosaurs. Atmospheric carbon dioxide was high in the Cretaceous, making the […]

Lovers of all things colorful and sparkly are in for a treat with an unusual variety of ammonite that’s set to go to auction later this month. The “gem” of an ammonite dates back 71 million years, and comes with a curious coating of ammolite, giving it a dazzling rainbow iridescence. “A ‘Gem’ Ammonite in […]