Deborah Bloomfield

A dangerous animal tranquilizer not approved for human use has been appearing in more and more street drugs like heroin and fentanyl in Massachusetts, according to the Massachusetts Drug Supply Stream (MADDS). The problem has become more noticeable since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and is likely to be indicative of a wider trend […]

In every family tree, there’s someone you’d prefer not to acknowledge. For many paleobiologists that has been Saccorhytus,  an extinct microbe that looked like a talking cactus. What made it particularly embarrassing was that its giant mouth had no counterpart at the rear end. The only thing worse than an arsehole in the family is […]

Monkeys are one of the many animals that can master tools and, staying true to their spirit, they may have used this ability to fashion sex toys out of stones. That’s according to a new study published in the journal Ethology: International Journal of Behavioural Biology.  Advertisement To reach these findings, scientists at the University […]

Learning new things can broaden your horizons, improve your brain function and keep you young at heart. Most of us do the same things every day and the only information we are processing does little to keep our brains fit and our mental health in check, but did you know that a little learning can […]

As one of Britain’s foremost documentary filmmakers, director Pamela Gordon has been working in factual broadcasting for over 30 years. From history to human conflict and even taking TV chef Gordon Ramsey behind bars, her portfolio is rich and varied and most recently includes a feature-length film about lions. Advertisement Lion: The Rise and Fall […]

People in the US will soon be able to get their hands on over-the-counter hearing aids without a prescription or a medical exam thanks to a “historic” new ruling by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The move hopes to make it easier and cheaper for Americans to treat hearing impairment following a goal […]

As heatwaves and droughts continue to grip much of Europe, “hunger stones” from the past have been revealed by the parched rivers and announced a dire warning: “if you can see me, weep.”  Advertisement Hunger stones are a hydrological monument found in some rivers of Central Europe that are revealed when water levels drop. Dating […]

The universe’s expansion stretches space-time itself, including the gravitational waves upon it. The stretching of waves produced when black holes collide could be used to measure that expansion, although we may lack that capacity just yet. Advertisement The discovery that the rate of the universe’s expansion is accelerating struck cosmology like a thunderbolt. Nevertheless, details […]

There’s been a worrying trend recently of talking about monkeypox as if it’s a sexually transmitted infection, or worse, a “gay disease” that won’t affect the majority of people. Neither is true, as a new research letter in the CDC journal Emerging Infectious Diseases has made clear. Advertisement The letter reports a case of a […]

How do you spot a narcissist? Some say the clue is in their eyebrows, or their Insta follows, but a new study suggests a different tack: ask them if the moon landings were faked. Sound strange? It shouldn’t: plenty of studies have found that narcissists – people unusually convinced of their own superiority and entitlement […]

It’s hard to measure the impact of any one drug on world history. But here are five drugs we can safely say made a huge difference to our lives, often in ways we didn’t expect. Advertisement They have brought some incredible benefits. But they’ve usually also come with a legacy of complications we need to […]

The Arctic is warming four times faster than the rest of the world, and in some areas as much as seven times. That’s according to new research by a group of Norwegian scientists. This effect, dubbed “Arctic amplification”, is well documented, though the new study finds the region is warming even faster than previously thought. […]

In a breakthrough described as “game-changing” for patients in need of kidney transplants, researchers have discovered a way to change the blood type of a donor kidney – thus making it suitable for transplant into just about anybody who needs it. Not only is this an impressive feat in its own right, but it also […]

The Sun is slowly approaching the maximum point of its cycle, as we can see from the more frequent warnings of geomagnetic storms. As our star gets more active, it spews more charged particles out into the solar system in the form of coronal mass ejections (CME). And the latest one is set to hit […]

In September 2020, researchers announced they had found the molecule phosphine in the atmosphere. On Earth, the molecule is linked to biological activity, aka life. Its presence on Venus was not expected and couldn’t be explained. Since then, the debate has raged if the observations were correct, if they showed phosphine in the quantities stated, and […]

Drinking cola over multiple months may result in memory impairment and oxidative stress in the brain, according to a new study carried out on rats. The researchers, from University of Southern Santa Catarina in Brazil, found that markers of biological stress were significantly increased in the brains of rats after 68 days of drinking cola-based […]

Some fitness questions are: what’s the best balance between workout frequency and workout length? Do I need to exercise a little every day or have a long session once a week? Researchers at Edith Cowan University, together with Niigata University and Nishi Kyushu University, believe they have an answer. Advertisement While both approaches provide a […]

Today’s apex predators would have been a mere snack to a megalodon, according to a new study that suggests the extinct shark could ingest an 8-meter-long (26 feet) marine mammal in just five bites. Based on this finding, the researchers suggest that Otodus megalodon occupied a higher trophic level than great white sharks and other […]

The intense gravity of a supermassive black hole is so strong that near its event horizon, photons can be forced to do multiple orbits before escaping. This is known as the photon ring. Following the observations of M87*, researchers believed that the faint photon ring was hiding within the historic image. Now, a team has […]

If someone you knew asked for rainbow crystals to be scattered on their grave at their funeral, you’d probably think they were channeling some New Age philosophy. According to a recent study, though, they may be doing the exact opposite – going back to their roots. About 6,000 years back, to be precise. Advertisement “It […]