Deborah Bloomfield

A newly explored site in the Fezouata Shale reveals creatures similar to those found in nearby sites, but even larger, showing how big the ancestors of modern arthropods once grew. Today, arthropods, which include spiders, barnacles, and millipedes, are known mostly for their abundance and extreme diversity, but few are very large. Once, however, they […]

Did you know that in addition to capturing innumerable selfies and pictures of your meals, your iPhone camera works as a translator, too? While the march of technology is truly marvelous, we all know innovation and easy access to a software boost are no substitute for actual knowledge. So if you want to really know […]

Seals get a good rap as one of the cutest marine predators swooshing through our oceans, but did you know that they have nails? Zookeepers become occasional manicurists for their seals and sea lions, many species of which have nails similar to those on our toes and fingers on their flippers. Curiously, the seal nails […]

Proteins have been used to generate a material able to absorb supersonic impacts, a new study shows. The research, which is yet to be peer-reviewed, reports on how the material can absorb shots at 1.5 kilometers per second (3,355 mph) while preserving the projectile so that it can be easily removed. The protein in question […]

Elon Musk has made a lot about how he is going to rid his newly-acquired social media site Twitter of the bots. On Sunday, part of that clean-up happened according to Musk, who triumphantly tweeted in emoji form that the bots were now dead. For a test of his own personal Twitter feed, Musk asked […]

The U.S. Department of Energy and scientists at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory are expected to deliver a big announcement related to nuclear fusion. It appears that the NIF has finally created nuclear fusion ignition, producing more energy than is put in by the lasers. The news of the successful […]

Take a look a look through a telescope this week and there’s a chance you might make out a glowing dot edging across the night sky. Could it be a certain Saint prepping for his annual trip across the globe? Or perhaps the celestial omen of a new messiah?  Unfortunately, there’s nothing supernatural going on […]

On December 11, the Artemis I mission concluded with the successful splashdown of the Orion capsule in the Pacific Ocean. The end of this mission came on the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 17 moon landing – the last time humans walked on the surface of the Moon. The Artemis program aims to land humans, […]

The Northern White Rhinoceros is a subspecies on the very edge of existence. Just two individuals remain alive after catastrophic poaching has wiped out the population. The last two surviving rhinos are both females; 33-year-old Najin, and her daughter, 22-year-old Fatu. You might think this would mean the end of the species entirely – but […]

A lone moose was spotted wandering around Mount Rainier National Park in southwest Washington for the first time last week, some 563 kilometers (350 miles) from where large numbers of the species can be found in the Selkirk Mountains. Rangers from the Mount Rainier National Park shared a photo of the moose as it trampled […]

Two years and one week ago, the Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa-2 delivered to Earth a special cargo: samples of material collected on Asteroid Ryugu. Analysis of the precious few grams of soil from the surface and subsurface of the asteroid has revealed new insights into the past of our planet and the whole solar system. An […]

Winter has arrived in many places, and for some, this comes with frosty and magical winter mornings. Unfortunately, for a few people, the mystical time can also bring a sense of pain – their bodies can experience more than just cold toes and fingers, but an allergic reaction to the freezing weather.   This allergy […]

Genes facilitating the sixth sense – proprioception – have been described in a new study in mice. The sixth sense, often overlooked in favor of its five more famous counterparts, is the sense of body position in space on which our ability to perform coordinated movements depends. Proprioception, unlike the senses of sight, hearing, smell, […]

Last week, NASA announced that members of the Artemis I mission had hidden several easter eggs around the capsule for people to solve. We have to admit that some had us stumped and we even dismissed one as part of the design rather than an actual puzzle to solve. The puzzles were tributes to late […]

A TikTokker has explained to the masses why the UK can feel colder than Canada, even though it definitely isn’t, after another who has lived in both countries posed that exact question. “Ok someone please tell me how I was able to survive Canadian winters for 25 years of my life,” Megan Ruthie said on […]

Thanks to a new experimental gene therapy, one teen’s previously incurable leukemia is now entirely undetectable, marking an incredible breakthrough in genetic immunotherapies. Alyssa, 13, from Leicester in the UK, was told that the only remaining options were end-of-life care to ensure she was comfortable as the aggressive T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia took hold – […]

Microdoses of psilocybin – the psychoactive compound in magic mushrooms – have been found to normalize certain elements of cognitive performance in young rats with autism. And while it’s far too early to say if the drug produces the same benefits in humans with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), the fact that larger doses of psilocybin […]

While getting ready to deck the halls and put up the Christmas tree this year, you may have been wondering what’s better for the planet: slashing down a natural tree or buying a synthetic reusable one made out of plastic. It’s a bit of a fiddly question, but real trees are marginally better for the […]

A man who showed up to the doctors with fevers and swelling discovered that his problems were caused by worms dancing around in his scrotum. The 26-year-old man had been suffering from low-level fever, and pain and swelling of his scrotum for around a month before he was seen at an outpatient clinic at a […]

You know what we love about the holiday season? The savings! And our love of savings means you get to score even more throughout December, with new deals dropping all the time — like this 24-hour Green Monday flash sale that’ll help you upgrade your PC’s productivity software. Today only, you can get the entire […]