Deborah Bloomfield

NASA’s Advanced Composite Solar Sail System is a brand-new technology demonstration of solar sailing. The space agency is not the first to employ this technology but there are new materials, or older materials in new combinations, which require testing in space before larger solar sails are employed in larger missions. Advertisement The latest test – […]

There’s little doubt that the last few months in Death Valley National Park have been particularly toasty, but officials have now confirmed that the hottest place on Earth has just experienced its hottest-ever summer. Advertisement “Death Valley National Park experienced the hottest meteorological summer (June-August) on record, with an average 24-hour temperature of 104.5°F (40.3°C),” […]

Two large pterosaurs have been discovered in Afro-Arabia, including a new species that’s been named Inabtanin alarabia and had a 5-meter (16-foot) wingspan. The fossils were preserved in an unusually three-dimensional way, enabling scientists to establish how these giant flying reptiles got around between 66 and 72 million years ago. Advertisement The new species is […]

A small meteor about 1 meter (3 feet) in diameter burned up over Luzon Island in the Philippines, yesterday night local time. The celestial show was seen by many people, filmed, and photographed. That’s because, for only the ninth time ever, we were ready for it. Asteroid 2024 RW1 was observed before impacting Earth, meaning […]

The Ulas family, in southern Türkiye, is like no other. For the last two decades, some of its members have been quietly challenging just about every theory we have about evolution and genetics – and all despite being unable to read, write, or even talk easily with outsiders. Advertisement Why? Because, unlike just about every […]

We’re willing to bet you didn’t have “mushroom-powered robots” on your 2024 bingo card. Fortunately for all of us, scientists at Cornell University have come in clutch with a pair of fungus-fueled biohybrid robots that respond to their environments, walk – or wheel – around, and look a bit like extras from The Addams Family. […]

While studying some humdrum sealife activity off the coast of Canada, scientists stumbled across a band of northern elephant seals exhibiting a fascinating behavior: each time the device let out a pulse of sonar, the seals headed down for a meal, just like the ringing of a dinner bell.    Advertisement The behavior was observed […]

A bizarre ancient fish has scientists stumped as a new review of two fossils says all theories to date of what it might be are probably wrong. The preprint paper, which hasn’t yet undergone peer review, concludes that Pegasus volans’ position in the phylogenetic tree remains unclear, but puts forward some new ideas for where […]

There are many words that come to mind when we think of dinosaurs. Majestic. Powerful. Terrifying. You know: generally, whatever the opposite is to “similar to a weird little gnome”.  Advertisement Not so with a new species of dinosaur recently discovered in Tamba-Sasayama City, in the Hyogo Prefecture of Japan. Comprising 17 well-preserved bones, most […]

To us, the Moon looks like an immutable gray world. As it goes through its phases, month after month, its face doesn’t change. But this is only a recent development. The Moon has changed much over its long life, from internal and external forces, sometimes both. Magma oceans and volcanism might be a thing of […]

We at IFLScience are lucky enough to explore the weird, the wacky, the downright out of this world – sometimes literally! – every single day. And yet sometimes, a study hits our desks that leaves us with little to say but… “Wow!” That was pretty much our reaction when we learned that scientists had used […]

Yesterday was not an easy day for the flight team of BepiColombo. The mission is a collaboration between the European and the Japanese space agencies and it will put two orbiters around Mercury in a few years. Unfortunately, back in April, the mission experienced thruster problems so for its fourth flyby, the team decided to […]

An abalone identity crisis has finally found a solution thanks to hardworking scientists in New Zealand. Found off the Manawatāwhi/Three Kings Islands, it had long been suspected the small abalone was unlike any other, but it took a deep dive into its DNA to finally settle the debate. These precious sea creatures are considered treasure […]

Astronaut Matthew Dominick has captured the moment a meteor collided with the Earth’s atmosphere, creating a huge flash of light. Advertisement Take a look out your window wherever you work and it most likely looks like a trash-filled alley behind a fast food restaurant in comparison to the view astronauts get aboard the International Space […]

It’s not every day you see a northern hairy-nosed wombat, so ecologists were blown away to capture footage of a young member of the critically endangered species stumbling around an Australian wildlife refuge. Advertisement The baby northern hairy-nosed wombat was recently spotted by researchers at the Australian Wildlife Conservancy (AWC) while scrolling through 100 hours […]

Neon signs look cool as hell, there’s no denying. Ain’t nothing more retro than a glowing tube in the shape of a cocktail, but how do neon lights work? Advertisement Neon light first started being incorporated into signs back in 1912 when French engineer Georges Claude and associate Jacques Fonseque sold the world’s first neon […]

Homeopathy: an alternative approach to healing, or the prototypical pseudoscience, depending on who you ask. It’s been around for over two centuries, and still has many devotees across the world. But by all empirical standards, homeopathy is simply not scientifically sound. Let’s unpack what homeopathy is, what people believe about it, and why we can be […]

When we consider ancient mega-structures like Stonehenge or the pyramids, it’s easy to experience a sense of cognitive dissonance. Whoever created these places, we think, lived in a time before things like math and engineering; heck, they didn’t even have wheels, as far as we know. And yet, somehow, they were able to build these […]

New images from the wreck of the Titanic show the historic ship is rapidly deteriorating in the murky depths of the Atlantic. But it isn’t all bad news for the forlorn vessel; the recent expedition has taken photographs of a beautiful statue that many feared had been lost to the seas. RMS Titanic Inc., an […]

Where do baby dinosaurs come from? It’s a question that’s been burning in the collective brain of the IFLScience team for some time. In this episode, host Rachael Funnell speaks with science writer and palaeontologist Riley Black to find out what science has discovered so far about the sex lives of dinosaurs. You can listen […]