Deborah Bloomfield

JWST has spotted the 29th moon of Uranus, finding an object that’s probably the size of a small city 2.7 billion kilometers away. Within six years of discovering Uranus, William Herschel had found two moons. Although Herschel thought he had found four more, it took 64 years before the next two real discoveries. In the […]

Trails left in ancient rock have been attributed to fish getting the hang of the then-newfangled concept of crawling. If correct, this would push back the conquest of the land by vertebrates by 10 million years. That’s assuming these pioneers didn’t just nope it out back to the water (like whales later would), until braver […]

There are plenty of species that we know exist, but the finer points of their day-to-day lives, breeding behavior, and ecology have not been extensively studied. In the Paraguay River basin in Brazil, a species of catfish has been observed shimming their way up the side of waterfalls in great numbers, a behavior that has […]

Researchers have recently discovered an impressive hydrothermal system in the western Pacific Ocean, and according to the team, it’s “challenging long-held assumptions” about where hydrogen is generated beneath the waves. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content. To say this newly found field […]

The Atacama Desert might be one of the driest places on the planet, but even this barren landscape can occasionally bloom into a sea of colorful flowers – and we won’t have to wait long until the next time it does. Speaking to UPI, Jorge Carabantes, the head of protected areas at Chile’s National Forestry […]

It’s strange, then, that we know so little about them. Oh, sure, we know how they looked – more or less, anyway – and what they ate, stuff like that. But how did they act? How did they move? A new study suggests the answer isn’t quite what we were taught – at least in […]

It’s something of a rite of passage for anyone who lives by the seaside to get pooped on by a bird, and now a new study has discovered that aerial pooping really does seem to be a preference among seabirds. Using cameras strapped to the bodies of streaked shearwaters, it recorded how the birds will […]

Astronomers have reported the discovery of an unlikely rainbow in the Solar System, showing that whenever there’s a bit of precipitation and light, rainbows appear. The celestial rainbow appears above Enceladus, the icy moon of Saturn, which is responsible for the formation of Saturn’s E ring. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. […]

While cleaning out a drawer during a recent house move, I found the diary I kept in high school. Obviously, I couldn’t resist the temptation of reading the things 14-year-old me had seen fit to document – friendship dramas and getting braces featured heavily – and while a lot of it made me cringe, it […]

A new study has used an alternative method to work out how much Mercury has shrunk since its formation, finding that the planet has gotten significantly cooler in its first 4.5 billion years. Back in 1974, NASA’s Mariner 10 mission flew by Mercury and discovered evidence that, already the smallest planet in the Solar System, […]

A sprawling landscape of some 6,00 salt wells can be found arranged in stepped terraces on the hillside of the Qaqawiñay mountain, Peru. Known as Salineras de Maras, or the Salt Mines of Maras, they are located 52 kilometers (32 miles) northeast of Cusco city and sit at an altitude of 3,200 meters (10,500 feet) […]

Meet one of the world’s newest feline breeds: the Highlander cat. Breeding of these unusual-looking felines began in 2004. The goal? To craft a domestic cat that resembled big wild cats without the wild behavior. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content. Originating […]

Whatever your answer, there’s a very high chance it’s not as long as some divers out there. Whether through culture, evolution, or just one dude’s strangely specific obsession, there are plenty of people in the world who saw the classification of humans as a terrestrial animal and thought, “nah” – and sometimes, the limits they […]

We are in a special time where Earth and Saturn’s tilts create two wonderful illusions for lovers of the night sky. Not only have Saturn’s rings disappeared from view, but its largest moon has cast its shadow upon the planet a handful of times this year, something you only have two more chances to see; […]

The mummification process is perhaps one of the most talked-about aspects of Ancient Egyptian life. It’s a complex process that we’re still trying to understand, not least because trying to step into the mindset of people living thousands of years ago is tricky when you’re burdened with the cultural norms of the 21st century. Still, […]

The availability of oxygen beyond Earth is a crucial factor for human exploration of space. We do need it to breathe after all. Already, there have been tests for extracting the precious element both in microgravity and on Mars. There is a major challenge when it comes to microgravity production, and researchers now report an […]

Psychedelic drugs like LSD, DMT, and psilocybin are known for their ability to trigger kaleidoscopic visual hallucinations, raising interesting questions about how people with aphantasia – or the lack of a “mind’s eye” – experience these trippy substances. Astonishingly, research is beginning to reveal that some individuals with this condition may actually acquire visual mental […]

Physicists have demonstrated they can move atoms with incredible reliability, both in 2D and in 3D – and to really show it off, they created the world’s smallest cat video: a movie of 2024 rubidium atoms showing the famous quantum cat thought experiment first suggested by Erwin Schrodinger. The approach employs a machine learning algorithm […]

The rarest whale in the world is the spade-toothed whale (Mesoplodon traversii), with only seven confirmed specimens to date since first reported in the 1800s, and nobody’s ever seen one alive. All but one of them have been reported in the seas around New Zealand. Last December saw the first-ever dissection of one after it […]

Congratulations! It’s a bouncing baby flounder. Look at its sweet, symmetrical eyes. Adorable, aren’t they? Well, take a picture, because they won’t stay there for long. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content. For flounders and other flatfish, it’s a rite of passage […]