Deborah Bloomfield

Fossilized teeth discovered in Ethiopia have revealed a new-to-science species of Australopithecus, a genus of early hominins that lived from the Pliocene to the Early Pleistocene. Not only does it add to our busy human family tree, but the discovery proves they were living alongside the oldest specimens of Homo, the genus of early humans […]

If those are two ends of a spectrum, then beating your 7-year-old nibling at an elementary board game probably falls somewhere in the middle – but it’s precisely that which a new preprint, possibly written to justify a group outing to a pizza place, is tackling. “We prove[d] an optimal strategy for the children’s game […]

Some of the oldest air ever studied by scientists was trapped inside rock over 800 million years ago. Cracking the rock open and allowing the air to escape, the team who found it got a pretty astonishing surprise about the ancient atmosphere of Earth. When studying the Earth’s atmosphere in the ancient past, scientists have […]

If you ever wondered what would happen if you were to throw a black hole at a star, well astronomers now have an answer: it goes “boom” in a truly distinctive way. Researchers have spotted an interesting supernova event that had never-before-seen behavior. A study revealed the involvement of a black hole and its interaction […]

Chinese and American scientists claim to be the first to make large enough quantities of diamonds with a hexagonal structure to test their physical properties. The substance has been sought for 60 years, reflecting the extraordinary anticipated hardness of the gemstones. The team responsible may have scooped another team who described a method for achieving […]

A 500-year-old Inca document made of alpaca wool and human hair was made by an unknown individual of low social status, shattering the common belief that only high-ranking imperial officials knew how to produce these strange thread-based records. Known as a khipu, the artifact forms part of a “proto-writing” tradition that was widespread in the […]

A team of scientists studying strange spectral lines observed on Mars may have discovered a previously unknown mineral. For nearly two decades, scientists have been receiving data from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, constantly in orbit around Mars. On board the orbiter, the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) analyzes the spectra of the planet’s […]

A study of five common Australian bird species in southeast Queensland has found on average, 4.8 percent of them have sexual organs that don’t align with their chromosomes. The authors don’t know the cause of the deviation from biology textbooks, nor how representative the findings are for avian populations elsewhere, but it does appear to […]

The TRAPPIST-1 system is a multi-planetary system made of seven Earth-sized planets orbiting a cool red dwarf just 40 light-years from Earth. Of the seven, three planets sit in the habitable zone, the distance from their star where temperatures would allow for liquid water, making the whole system an object of great interest. Observations so […]

A deeply bizarre group of dwarf crocodiles with fiery orange skin lurk in the caves of Central Africa. Immersed in the environment of Gabon’s Abanda cave system, the crocs have developed several strange adaptations that set them apart from their surface-dwelling counterparts. Dwarf crocodiles (Osteolaemus tetraspis) are the world’s smallest living species of crocodile, measuring […]

Stretching around 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) along western North America, the Tintina fault has long been assumed to be inactive. Now, a new study has challenged that assumption, finding that the fault has generated “numerous large earthquakes in the recent geologic past” – and it could be brewing another one of “at least” magnitude 7.5. […]

The search for life beyond Earth is a complicated affair. Elsewhere in the Solar System, we are looking for microorganisms, and our robotic explorers do not have the ability to do the things that we do in the lab. There are many ways for rovers and spacecraft to look for evidence of life, recent or […]

While whales today are the giants of the ocean, it was a different story 26 million years ago. Back then, their ancestors were much smaller – but don’t let that lull you into a false sense of security. As one newly described ancient whale species makes clear, appearances can be deceiving.  The rest of this […]

Here are some of the best. Louie the otter Careful planning and strategizing is great, but sometimes, you’ve just got to cut it and run. That’s what Louie the otter did earlier this year, and he’s never been happier. “Due to the length of time that Louie has been missing, we believe he has made […]

Blue lava oozes from the Kawah Ijen volcano of East Java. The flowing molten rock gets its vibrant appearance through the combustion of sulfur gas, which burns blue, as it seeps out from volcanic cracks at high temperatures and reacts with oxygen in the air.  The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please […]

Scientists have found over 300 underwater canyons that spread out from the continental margins of Antarctica, some of which plunge for over 4,000 (13,123 feet) meters into the abyss.  The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content. Two researchers from University College Cork in […]

There is a great total lunar eclipse coming up in a few weeks, and it will be enjoyed by the vast majority of people on the planet from Oceania to Brazil! The event will happen, depending on your time zone, during the evening between September 7 and 8, and from partiality to the total spectacle […]

For beings of our size and lifespans, space is pretty big. So big, in fact, that to make it to our nearest star system you would need to factor in the fairly sizeable downside that you will die of old age before you get there. Humanity has focused on making our spaceships more speedy, as […]

When you think of radar, you probably think of large rotating military antennae and a green screen with blinking dots. But radar could do more than that, as radio waves are so versatile that they can be used not just to find aircraft, but also buried things, with applications in archaeology, construction, and mining. A […]

Do dolphins and whales actually play together, or are the dolphins just harassing the whales? Researchers sought to answer this question by looking through hundreds of photographs and video clips in a new study to determine if these species are mutually playing, or if their interactions are all one-sided.  The team looked at 199 separate […]