Deborah Bloomfield

Over 100 endangered woylies have been set free from a fenced-off area of Mt Gibson Wildlife Sanctuary, marking an energetic leap in their return to life in Western Australia’s Wheatbelt region. Never mind kangaroos or koalas, woylies have to be up there with the most audaciously Aussie of all animals. Picture a mouse crossed with […]

A single deposit has produced a wealth of fossils revealing the late Triassic ecosystem, where giant amphibians cohabited with newcomers, including turtles and pterosaurs. The 12 million years leading up to the end-Triassic extinction have been relatively poorly represented in the fossil record, making this find particularly precious. Almost 209 million years ago, Arizona was […]

The way to find the darkness could be to look for the light. It might be a Zen, but the statement is also the latest proposal to find the nature of dark matter. The authors think that objects powered by dark matter could be small but detectable sources of light near the center of the […]

An enormous column of ash estimated to be 18 kilometers (11 miles) high is currently looming over Mount Lewotobi Laki Laki on the Indonesian island of Flores, after the volcano explosively erupted on Monday (July 7) morning. According to a report from the head of Indonesia’s geological agency, Dr Muhammad Wafid, observations of the volcano […]

Researchers investigating a strange “goo” discovered when maintaining a ship in Cleveland have discovered an entirely new lifeform. Last September, the research vessel Blue Heron – the largest US academic research fleet vessel on the Great Lakes – was brought out of Lake Erie and into the Great Lakes Shipyard to fix a noisy propeller […]

Between May and August, thousands of humpback whales migrate north along Australia’s East coast to warmer waters. They travel from the chilly Antarctic waters to tropical regions such as the Great Barrier Reef to breed, and sometimes babies are born along the way. One such humpback calf is making waves for being a rare white […]

A 2,000-year-old burial cave in Israel is continuing to stir debate. Who exactly was buried here? Was it one of Jesus’ female disciples, a woman said to have assisted at the birth of Christ, or an ancient Jewish princess related to one of the biggest bad guys of the Bible? The Cave of Salome is […]

A new analysis has found that over 100 health datasets from US government agencies were “substantially altered” in the two months after the beginning of the new administration earlier this year, in many cases switching the word “gender” to “sex”. Only a small number of the changes were logged, something the authors behind the analysis […]

Famous for its colossal stone heads – or moai – Easter Island is the scene of one of the great archaeological mysteries, as a unique monolithic ritual culture emerged and then vanished here – all for reasons unknown. Until now, it was widely believed that this rise and fall occurred in isolation from the outside […]

The discovery that birds are dinosaurs shook up how we structure the tree of life, and led to a lot of jokes about chicken nuggets. However, it has made some people wonder why they’re all so diminished in size compared to the giants of the past. There were plenty of small dinosaurs pre-asteroid, but the […]

Psychologists have demonstrated a robust psychological illusion that distorts how we remember when something happened. The illusion causes a mistaken belief that repeated experiences actually occurred longer ago than they really did. How do you judge when an event occurred in the past? For big things that happened across years, we have calendar reminders; holidays, […]

We often assume our ancestors were smaller than us – and usually, it’s true. Out on the northern fringes of the Roman Empire, however, there appears to have been a small population of giants standing guard some 2,000 years ago – at least, if their shoes are anything to go by. “I think there is […]

Researchers have found that people scoring high for psychopathy have structural changes in parts of their brains related to impulse control and emotional regulation. The results further our understanding of people with these associated personality traits and behaviors and could lead to new treatments and rehabilitation strategies. Psychopathy is a tricky subject due to decades […]

This week, a 125,000-year-old Neandertal “fat factory” reveals that they gorged on energy-packed bone grease, a new study has found that there really is a link between eating cheese and having nightmares, and scientists were stunned to find a cave full of mummified, never-before-seen, eyeless invertebrates. Finally, in 2032, Earth may witness a once-in-5,000-year event […]

This week, if you looked up at the right time and with the right equipment, you may have witnessed a “V” and an “X” shape on the surface of the Moon. While your chance to see that event has passed (for now), it is possible to witness another lunar event on Friday, July 4, as […]

While studying a remote, coral-covered island in the Mediterranean, scientists were shocked to discover that it has become riddled with some of the highest levels of microplastic pollution ever recorded in the region. The discovery was made in the volcanic bay of Illa Grossa, located on the Columbretes Islands marine reserve around 50 kilometers (31 […]

This week on Break It Down: We’ve just seen our third-ever interstellar object whizzing though the Solar System, eating cheese really might give you nightmares (but so might dessert), cavers are rewarded with a treasure trove of blind, mummified invertebrates including the only known cave-adapted wasp, the Neanderthal fat factory is just as delicious as […]

An exceptional celestial finding is about to go up for auction at Sotheby’s this month. Meteorite NWA 16788 doesn’t have the catchiest name but it will soon be famous, as it is likely to become the “most valuable” meteorite in the world once it does; the estimated sale price is $2-4 million. At 24.5 kilograms […]

Surgery is always risky, and when you’re operating on an animal rather than a person, the logistics involved can be pretty serious, especially when that animal typically lives in the water. Kimalu, a beluga whale, has just become the first known beluga in the world to recover from general anesthesia after an operation to remove […]

Space, famously, is the final frontier. That makes just about everything we do there unprecedented – and sometimes, they’re un-succeeded, too. One such event – never before tried; never since repeated – was the flight of Soyuz T-15. With a crew of just two cosmonauts, featuring a Soviet space station on its last legs, and […]