Deborah Bloomfield

How do we know when someone is truly dead? It used to be simple: no pulse + no breath = no life. Now, new discoveries are changing what we know about what happens when you die and blurring the line between life and death in the process, especially when it comes to donor organs and […]

A small fragment of rock found at Stonehenge in 1924 may provide the key that unlocks the mystery of how the prehistoric monument was constructed. Known as the Newall Boulder, the bullet-shaped lithic lump sits at the heart of a heated archaeological dispute over whether the stone circle’s enormous building blocks were brought to the […]

A black bear at Yellowstone National Park was killed by park staff last week after a series of incidents indicating that it had learned to associate the presence of people with food, something that the park says puts “both people and wildlife at risk.” According to a statement from Yellowstone, the first incident occurred back […]

It’s perhaps one of the greatest injustices of human bodily functions that the yawn has become so stigmatized in social settings. Crack one out and you’ll likely receive accusations of being bored or rude. It seems ironic, really, because the science of yawning tells us that, if anything, it’s a sign you’re trying harder to […]

A viral Reddit video shows the terrifying moment NASA astronaut Dale Gardner floated untethered in space to capture a satellite. There are a lot of terrifying things you can find in space, from mysterious massive voids 250 to 330 million light-years across, to tiny droplets of water in your space suit that could very easily drown you. […]

There are many obstacles that hinder our ability to establish a permanent presence on the Moon. One being the small problem of having to transport basic resources such as water, oxygen and fuel from Earth. Now, scientists have developed a new technique that could harness the satellite’s natural stocks, paving the way for a lunar […]

What exactly does it take to live a quote-unquote “good life”? Historically, there have been two schools of thought. The first – the hedonistic camp – emphasizes feelings of happiness and positive emotions. The second – revered by eudaimonics – calls for a life of greater meaning, marked by virtue and purpose. Now, psychologists are […]

If you’ve ever raised a child and watched them learn to read and write, you may notice that they can tend to get jumbled up with their letters, sometimes writing letters or words backwards, rather than in the usual direction. Known as “mirror writing”, the first thing you should know is likely that there is […]

A massive blob lives in Utah, and its name is Pando, which literally means “I spread”. The sprawling lump of quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) has lived up to its name in spreading across 42.6 hectares (105.3 acres) in Fishlake National Forest with a network of 47,000 stems that were created through asexual reproduction, essentially making Pando a […]

It’s a story that sounds vaguely dystopic. More than half of Tuvalu’s 10,000-strong population have entered a ballot offering them a chance to win a permanent visa to Australia with climate change posing an existential threat to the low-lying island nation.  According to the public service broadcaster SBS Australia, a grand total of 5,157 applications […]

Antarctica’s “oldest ice” has reached the next leg of its journey: a laboratory in Cambridge, England. Here, it is to undergo a detailed analysis later this month, which scientists hope will unravel the mysteries contained within this 1.5-million-year ice sample.  The project is part of an international effort to improve our understanding of the Earth’s […]

Astronomers have discovered that the Milky Way might be just a small piece of a much larger cosmic structure than previously believed. If confirmed by future observations, this research could suggest that our current model of how the universe evolves is still missing some crucial pieces. As we study the universe more, we have found […]

The Red Planet is home to some genuine natural wonders, including Olympus Mons – the largest volcano in the entire Solar System – and the colossal Borealis Basin, which covers around 40 percent of the Martian surface. Yet in our attempts to explore this alien world, we’ve also stumbled upon a host of hoaxes and […]

Some asteroids are dense. So dense in fact, that they may contain heavy elements outside of the periodic table, according to a new study on mass density. The team of physicists from The University of Arizona say they were motivated by the possibility of Compact Ultradense Objects (CUDOs) with a mass density greater than Osmium, the […]

Physicists have finally observed a phenomenon whose predecessor was observed in the mid-19th Century. The scientists who made it happen claim the work may lead to better management of temperatures where this needs to be precise and highly localized. William Thomson (better known as Lord Kelvin) noted in 1851 that if one end of an […]

This week, scientists have, for the first time, observed matter-antimatter asymmetry in special particle decay, the first known trilobite fossil collected by Romans may have been used as a “magical” pendant or as a board game piece, and the “earliest moment” of planet formation has been spotted for the first time around a star 1,300 […]

Fly over Buenos Aires to the northwest, venture through the “middle of nowhere”, and you might be lucky enough to come across a giant “eyeball” slowly glancing around the green wilderness.  This strange sight is actually a floating forest island that stirs around in a surprisingly circular lake. It’s known as El Ojo, Spanish for […]

Evolution is an incredible process that has filled our world with a richly diverse set of species. In this sense, it is a brilliantly creative process that finds various ways to solve issues. But sometimes the process can appear a little cut and paste, as multiple independent species find similar ways to adapt towards specific […]

An international team of astronomers has gained new understanding of some of the densest objects in the universe and where the source of their X-rays is. This is all thanks to PSR J1023+0038, or J1023 for short, a transitional millisecond pulsar, which spins on its axis almost 600 times every second. Pulsars are a type […]

In 2012, Johnny Messner, an actor in several B-movies and TV bit-parts, was being interviewed by IGN. Throughout its course, he variously gestured at his crotch, lamented what he called “the way America’s getting s*** on”, and belched out loud. His excuse? “I’m an alpha male.” It’s an idea that’s become weirdly – and some […]