Deborah Bloomfield

The world’s oldest modified mammoth ivory pieces may have been used by children to mimic the tools of their parents, or possibly as teaching aids to help them produce utensils of their own. Discovered at the site of Medzhibozh A in western Ukraine, the extraordinary items were excavated from a layer of rock dated to […]

Asteroid 2024 YR4 is back in the spotlight. Brand new research has produced a better estimate of its size and orbit, which give it a 3.8 percent chance of hitting the Moon. Now a different group has looked at its orbital past, suggesting a likely place of origin: the middle of the main asteroid belt […]

Earth is no stranger to geomagnetic storms, but none have rivaled the one sparked by the most powerful solar storm on record: the Carrington Event of 1859. It turns out that the disruption to Earth’s magnetic field during the Carrington Event was even more severe than once thought. A 2024 study used a combination of […]

Imagine walking along a simple country path with your kids only for one of them to rummage around in some stones and return with an ancient amulet. This unlikely experience, which sounds like the setup to a movie, actually happened to a family during a trip to Tel Azekah, near Beit Shemesh, Israel. “We were […]

A student playing around with fluids and magnetic materials in the lab may have accidentally found an “exception” to the laws of thermodynamics, according to the authors of a new paper based on his work. The result is a strange “shape-recovering liquid” that forms a Grecian urn shape no matter how much it is shaken. […]

On November 16, 1974, the incredible Arecibo radio telescope was used not to receive radio light from the universe but to send out a message to the stars. And 50 years on, the message, the content, and even the attempt at communicating with aliens remain as influential and somewhat controversial as ever. First of all, […]

Every year, over 400 million tonnes of plastic are produced. About five percent of that ends up in rivers and eventually the sea, or is thrown directly into the ocean by the fishing industry. Plastic, whether it breaks down into microplastic or not, is an unfolding environmental and health catastrophe that affects the whole planet. […]

At IFLScience, we bloody love a nature documentary. They bring the wild into our homes so that we can travel the globe from the safety of our sofas, but every now and then, they deliver a scene so heartbreaking it stays with you for a long time. Most recently, this included the curious behavior of […]

Scientists have discovered what could be one of the most bitter substances known to date. The potent chemical compound comes from a “bitter bracket” mushroom and has helped shine a light on how humans detect and react to such strong bitterness. Researchers at the Leibniz Institute for Food Systems Biology at the Technical University of […]

Saturn’s moon Titan has many of the ingredients we think are necessary for life. However, a new study argues the separations between them present a drastic obstacle. The amount of life for the whole moon that could depend on the most plausible reaction would fit in the luggage allowance of a passenger flight. Titan has […]

Though you may be pretty certain just from looking about the place that we are living in a three-dimensional (plus time) universe, there are a number of physicists out there who believe this could be an illusion, and we are in fact holograms projected from a distant two-dimensional surface. Black holes are strange objects that […]

The seas of Earth are facing an uncertain time, with oil drilling, coral bleaching events, and plastic pollution. However, one marine biologist has discovered that the creatures below the waves are pretty resourceful, after finding an octopus mom sheltering inside a glass bottle with her brood. Hanna Koch was snorkeling in the Florida Keys to […]

Something strange is stirring deep beneath Earth’s surface. Just a few decades ago, human activity set off a slow-motion shift in the molten rock of the upper mantle beneath Eurasia. The changes are occurring beneath what was the Aral Sea, located between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Once one of the largest lakes on the planet, the […]

A comet first discovered in late March has already become bright enough to be seen with binoculars under dark skies with a 2-degree tail. It should reach its brightest around May Day and offers a good chance of becoming visible to the naked eye. The last 12 months have been a bit of a boom […]

Silver: it makes for nice jewelry, fancy forks, and even parts of the device you’re using to read this article. But would you put it in your mouth and swallow it? Some people do, claiming that silver in the form of colloidal supplements is the answer to all manner of ills. Trouble is, it really […]

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Have you heard of the Blue Java banana? If social media is to be believed, the fruit is bright blue and tastes like vanilla ice cream.  Perhaps not-so-shockingly, these claims are not entirely accurate. But they are not entirely without basis either. Indeed, in its unripened state, the banana peel possesses a “blue-green” hue–before turning […]

Everything is bigger in Texas – including its oil fields. The Lone Star State is the beating heart of America’s oil empire, pumping out 6.3 million barrels of crude oil every day. To understand how it became an oil-producing powerhouse, you need to look back millions of years ago – and then fast-forward to the […]

Famous for its iconic pyramid and temples, the ancient Maya city of Tikal is no stranger to imperial conflict, having provided the setting for the Rebel Alliance base in Star Wars: Episode IV. However, new research suggests that the jungle-covered site may once have been conquered by another Mesoamerican superpower from central Mexico. Located in […]

Gold mining is putting an immense strain on the Amazon rainforest, but the trees might have a secret weapon up their bark. Just as tree rings can record the passage of time and shifts in climate, new research shows they can also help to track down destructive gold mining practices. Here’s how it works: human-made […]