Deborah Bloomfield

Astronomers have found an Earth-size planet orbiting a white dwarf, suggesting that maybe the fate of our world is not to be destroyed by the Sun in about 5 billion years. This system is located 4,000 light-years away from us and it is truly a preview of one of the possible futures of Earth. Advertisement […]

Often hailed as the best-preserved woolly mammoth corpse ever discovered, the body of a young female specimen named Yuka has just yielded a staggering surprise. By analyzing cut marks on the animal’s hide, researchers have now determined that the beast was butchered by humans 39,000 years ago, thus providing the earliest evidence for the presence […]

What happens when we think about nothing? No, we don’t mean some zen “clear your mind” meditative exercise: we’re talking about math – and as it turns out, it takes a lot of brainpower to think about zero. Advertisement So. Zero is a weird number. Okay, not a weird number as in being abundant but […]

It’s come to our attention that there are those walking among us who fear the possibility of encountering a nest of spider eggs at the bottom of their banana. And so, in the finest tradition of IFLScience, we’re here with a PSA: there are no spider eggs in your banana, and this is not something […]

A science education center is scheduled to open soon at the site of the mighty Arecibo telescope, and pilot phase programs were run there over the summer. However, some still have concerns that this is a token gesture that will fail to take the great telescope’s place. Astronomers are also waiting to hear about the […]

This week on Break It Down: the major African civilization the world forgot, the world’s oldest cheese gets found on mummies, blasting asteroids with X-rays, a fish that’s basically got tongues for legs, the resurrection of a biblical seed, and why no one can decide how fast the universe is expanding. Available on all your […]

The United States itself might only be a measly 248 years old, but there are plenty of sites now existing within it that have been around for far longer. That even includes cities – but which city is the oldest of them all? Pack your sunglasses (and maybe a helmet), because we’re off to Florida. […]

Sometimes, world-changing discoveries are made in the field, or the lab, or are accompanied by a cry of “Eureka!” and a naked Greek dude running down the street dripping bathwater as he goes.  Advertisement Other times, though – probably more often than you might expect, in fact – they’re found collecting dust in a box […]

Ever since their discovery in the 19th century, Neanderthals have been unfairly tarnished as the heavy-browed, brutish cousins of Homo sapiens (whose name, by comparison, means “thinking man” in Latin). While the stereotype has been tough to shake, a huge amount of research has helped to reinvent the image of Neanderthals in the 21st century; […]

Built and designed over 50 years ago, the Soviet K-222 submarine still holds the record for the world’s fastest submarine ever built, reaching speeds of 82.8 kilometers (51.4 miles) per hour or 44.7 knots. Advertisement Initially known as K-162, the K-222 was developed under the orders of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of […]

A new study dates the start of the Anthropocene, the epoch where human impact on the Earth system causes it to deviate from its natural behavior, as having started in the middle of the last century. Human activities have reached a point where their impacts on the planet’s system can be observed, and it’s driving […]

The great thing about having telescopes that can look further and further into the past is being surprised by what we see there.  Advertisement With the infrared JWST, we were hoping to learn more about the formation of galaxies, as well as clear up mysteries about how supermassive black holes became so large. But we […]

The jets released by supermassive black holes are formidable. Some extend for millions of light-years and most have particles that move close to the speed of light with incredible energies – and it seems that might affect events completely unrelated to them such as novae eruption. Advertisement A nova is a temporary brightening of an […]

Paleontologists have described a brand-new species of duck-billed dinosaur with one hell of a honker, and this giant schnoz – alongside some pretty huge toothlike structures – is part of the reason why they were able to identify it as such. The new species, dubbed Coahuilasaurus lipani, is thought to have lived around 72.5 million […]

There are some sentences you never expect to write. Things like: the porcupine C-section was a success, and both mother and porcupette are doing well. Advertisement And yet, that’s where we find ourselves – because that’s exactly what has happened. This April saw the birth by cesarean section of Dakota, a male baby porcupine from […]

A 50-year-old idea about electromagnetic waves known as the Zel’dovich effect has been tested by physicists in the lab, and proven to be correct.  Advertisement The idea behind the Zel’dovich effect came from a strange place. In 1969, British physicist and mathematician Roger Penrose suggested that energy could be extracted from black holes by lowering […]

Life isn’t easy under the sea, but luckily its resident creatures have evolved all sorts of clever tricks to keep themselves out of the jaws of predators. That includes the humbug damselfish, which new research suggests takes a much more complex approach to hiding from predators than previously thought – and it dazzles while doing […]

Satellite images of the test site of Russia’s infamous “Satan II” superweapon taken this month appear to show that a test launch ended in failure. Advertisement The RS-28 Sarmat, sometimes called “Satan II”, is a liquid-fueled intercontinental ballistic missile developed by Russia as a replacement for the Soviet-era SS-18. Back in October, Russian president Vladimir […]

Brace yourself to meet the Lammergeier, a bone-crushing bearded vulture that dyes its feathers red with baths in springs of iron-rich mud. As tough as it appears, the intense-looking vulture has been wiped out from much of its historic range and continues to face existential threats in parts of its habitat. The species (Gypaetus barbatus) […]

A little-known population of orcas living off the coast of Chile has been seen hunting and eating dusky dolphins for the first time. The behavior may offer insights into the lives and diets of all orcas in the southern hemisphere, which could help future conservation efforts. Advertisement Off the coast of Chile is the Humboldt […]