Deborah Bloomfield

You’ve been tasked with representing the whole of humanity in an image. What do you do? If you’re anything like Carl Sagan, who was asked to design such an image to be launched with NASA’s Pioneer spacecraft, you would draw an image of a male and female human in the nude, as was etched onto […]

Spiders have a reputation for being cunning – just look at the Ghanaian folktale Anansi. Now, research suggests that a species of cave-dwelling spiders have cleverly adapted their weaving style to form intricate tripwire-like mechanisms that trap unfortunate prey.  The European cave orb spider (Meta menardi) inhabits the caves of western and central Europe, though […]

Were you to take a time machine to the Triassic Period (252-201 million years ago), not only would you meet ancient dinosaur species but some of the earliest known mammals to roam (or, should we say, scuttle) across the planet.  There are over 5,000 species of mammals alive today inhabiting all regions of the Earth–from pink river dolphins […]

Spiders seem to hang out in all kinds of places, from those that build trapdoors, to some that live in caves or even in your back garden. Now, six new species have been described after being discovered in a mountainous region of China.  The six new spider species in the Pholcus phungiformes species group have […]

Mommy, a centenarian resident at Philadelphia Zoo, has officially lived up to her name – she gave birth to four hatchlings, becoming a mom at the grand old age of 100 (or thereabouts).  The births are a cause of celebration as this marks the first time in the zoo’s 150-year-plus history that a critically endangered […]

A new proposal offers an easy route for our ancestors to have made one of their earliest and most important technological advances. Instead of some australopithecine genius coming up with the idea of carefully striking stones to produce sharp blades, early humans may have begun by using those they found precut. The idea might refashion […]

If you’ve ever watched a Formula 1 race through to completion, you may have a few questions, such as “What happens if they need to pee?”, “Why do the drivers get weighed after a race?”, and “Why am I essentially watching traffic?”. Well, there are good answers to the first two questions, while the third […]

A “major disruption” has recently rocked the Arctic polar vortex, causing it to weaken and reverse direction from west-to-east to east-to-west. Amid the chaos, the vortex shifted off the pole and drifted down towards Northern Europe. For a bit of context: the polar vortex is a swirling mass of cold, low-pressure air that forms high […]

The Breakthrough Prize has announced its 2025 Laureates in Life Sciences, Fundamental Physics, and Mathematics. Among them are Professors Alberto Ascherio from Harvard University and Stephen Hauser from the University of California, San Francisco, who won the prize for their work in understanding multiple sclerosis (MS) and how to treat it. It was established by […]

This week, a study has revealed a biological basis of near-death experiences, a Loch Ness monster trap that’s been lost underwater for 55 years has been recovered, revealing some eerie images, and scientists have drilled to the bottom of the Great Blue Hole and uncovered 5,700 years of history. Finally, we ask the experts why […]

Three Russian satellites launched into space on February 5, 2025, appear to have released a mystery object into Earth orbit. It’s not clear what the purpose of the satellites nor their new companion is, though US officials speculate that they are demonstrating “attack and defense tactics”, showing that they are capable of surrounding and targeting […]

Humanity has been creating new materials since the age of bronze (which does not occur naturally) and since the breakthrough in modern science, we have been able to make some truly peculiar substances. Now, two materials that possess properties that are truly extraordinary have been sandwiched together into a new quantum structure with very unusual […]

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) does what it says on the tin. It accelerates protons and ions to a speed never achieved before by humans, allowing them to probe new energy realms in particle physics. It will undergo upgrades to increase the number of collisions, but ultimately, it won’t reach any higher energies. To do […]

Robot gliders scouted the waters around one of the world’s largest icebergs, A-68a, before it melted and broke apart into obscurity. This was the first time such a feat had been achieved, providing scientists with an unprecedented glimpse into how icebergs impact the ocean. A-68a was sliced off from Antarctica’s Larsen C ice shelf in […]

In a bid to create a less invasive and more accessible form of birth control, scientists have created a self-injectable contraceptive shot, the components of which are able to self-assemble to form an implant. According to a new study introducing the technology, the result is a highly effective and long-term contraceptive method, which could avoid […]

Being in space impacts lifeforms that evolved on Earth. This is true for the many changes (some disgusting) to the human body, but it is also true for microorganisms – from those living in, on, and around us, to the ones we employ in our food. Miso is a fermented soybean paste and scientists have […]

Believe it or not, nearly 90 percent of Christian religious leaders in the US believe in human-driven climate change, according to a new study. Climate change is one of the most significant challenges facing the world today. Despite some vocal opposition, most Americans (72 percent, according to a recent report from Yale University) believe this […]

This week on Break It Down: study uncovers the biological basis of near-death experiences, what a camera trap captured after 55 years in Loch Ness, why it’s taken humans so long to orbit over Earth’s poles, what a sediment core from the “Great Blue Hole” can tell us about the Caribbean’s climatic past and future, […]

Australia is the fastest-moving continent on Earth, resting on top of a tectonic plate that’s drifting at about 7 centimeters (just under 3 inches) each year – that’s somewhere between the rate at which your hair and fingernails grow. By comparison, Earth’s land masses move at an average rate of about 1.5 centimeters (0.6 inches) […]

People living in North Africa today can trace their ancestry back to a unique human population that lived in the Sahara at a time when the region was lush, green, and humid. Identifying this prehistoric lineage for the first time in the genomes of two 7,000-year-old mummies, the authors of a new study confirm that […]