Deborah Bloomfield

As you will know if you’ve ever suffered from dry skin, you will try just about anything to find some relief. Well, dermatological dilemmas affect our animal friends too, and some of the solutions that we may turn to ourselves can also be beneficial for them. The Japanese tradition of the yuzu bath has been […]

If you think navigating the human dating pool is hard, it’s time to get familiar with the sex lives of white-throated sparrows (Zonotrichia albicollis). For these birds, any one individual can only mate with one-quarter of the species. Why? Because they decided to evolve two extra sexes on top of the two they already had. […]

You have always dreamed of being a world traveller. We don’t blame you. There is so much to see and do in the world, but the expense can put anyone off. However, thanks to this fabulous deal on a tried-and-trusted program and more, you can live your dreams, and start traveling for way less while […]

Lifelong learning is important. Not only does education improve cognitive brain function, but it improves your chances of getting the job you want. If you want to expand and improve your job prospects through the acquisition of new skills, but have worried about the how and when, we’ve got a great solution.  The Mindfulness Complete […]

Make no mistake: smoking tobacco is utterly terrible for you. Along with upping the risk of heart disease, diabetes, and strokes, the overwhelming majority of lung cancer cases are directly linked to smoking. Despite this risk, though, only 10 to 20 percent of lifelong smokers will actually develop lung cancer. Some people manage to smoke pack after pack of […]

“Foal slippers” is the cutesy name given to a rather grim feature of newborn horses, who are born with eponychium, a kind of hoof capsule that’s thought to protect the mother while the foal is in utero. Eponychium is actually present on the tiny feets of many hooved animals, including cows, deer, and even rhinos.  […]

It’s that time of year again when news outlets begin publishing their big lists of things that Nostradamus predicted would happen in the following year.  Last year, predictions included everything from famine causing people to eat their “fellow man” in despair after honey becomes more expensive than candles, to the robot uprising and human extinction. […]

Before fire, before the wheel, and perhaps even before language, humans had something that made these achievements possible. Psychologists call it “fluid intelligence”: the capacity to solve challenges we have never encountered before. It’s not unique to humans, as astonishing videos of crows encountering human-designed puzzles reveal, but it’s what makes us stand out. However, […]

There is a type of tinnitus that you may not have heard of, called pulsatile tinnitus. It can range from being a slight annoyance to a completely debilitating condition that makes it difficult to even sleep. People with this condition frequently hear a whooshing, throbbing, or thumping noise that is often noticeable when the person […]

A bloody scene awaits anyone unlucky enough to come across a deer shedding velvet. The scarlet strips of fuzzy flesh that hang from their antlers look like something out of a horror film, but in reality it’s a perfectly healthy part of deer life and helps them get ready for mating season. Shedding velvet, as […]

Japan is looking to fire up its use of nuclear energy once again, marking a major change of heart from the previous decade that formed in the wake of the Fukushima meltdown in 2011.  Back in November, Japan said it will look into keeping some nuclear reactors operating beyond the current 60-year limit and develop […]

Simply type in your address into this interactive map and you can see what your location looked like at the time of the dinosaurs and beyond. Using the Ancient Earth Map – freely accessible at https://dinosaurpictures.org/ancient-earth – you can easily click through these colossal changes and see how the Earth appeared through the eons.  The […]

If you want evidence of evolution by natural selection, look no further than your own body.  Whether it’s your tailbone, goosebumps, or a weird little tendon on your inner wrist, the human body is covered with parts that don’t serve any purpose to us anymore. Yet they’re still there as a genetic relic from our […]

JWST has been the star (pun intended) of this year in science, wowing the world with the beauty of its images and forming the basis of an astonishing number of abundant scientific papers, published in record time. When looking at some of the highlights, it’s important to remember it’s only been in orbit for just […]

Look, we get it, it’s been too weird of a year (like the year before it, and the year before that, and the year before that) to keep track of everything weird that took place. Fortunately, we have been keeping track of all the strange developments as well as odd things we’ve come across in […]

William of Ockham, the 14th-century Franciscan friar and Catholic theologian, probably never expected his name to become synonymous with a scientific principle lasting 800 years after his death.  That makes sense, since Ockham’s Razor, as we now know the maxim, was around long before William made it popular – John Duns Scotus got there before […]

The Bering Land Bridge was a strip of land that once connected Asia to Alaska. Now, scientists have discovered that it emerged around 35,700 years ago, later than once previously thought. The Earth is constantly changing, and in the past, there have been many ice age cycles. Ice ages come with the large formation of […]

Defined by limited emotional range, inability to empathize with others, and self-centered manipulativeness, psychopaths aren’t exactly fairytale lovers. Yet as Bonnie and Clyde proved, even those with the darkest personalities can become romantic icons. Still, when your relationship is based on a common interest in murder, it’s debatable whether or not it counts as true […]

It probably hasn’t escaped your attention that in 2022, Queen Elizabeth II died, and was buried. During the funeral arrangements, there were a number of strange traditions (for example, the Informing of the Bees). However, one odd fact stood out: her coffin weighed a surprising amount, given how small she was in life. This is […]

The bones of ancient people laid to rest in the Chincha Valley of southern Peru can often be found covered in an unusual brick-red pigment. The reason behind the colored bones is often debated by modern-day researchers, but a team of archaeologists who recently studied the specimens argues they are a clear reflection of how […]