Deborah Bloomfield

From Mesoamerica to North Africa, pyramids were apparently all the rage in the ancient world. Yet while the triangular monuments are most synonymous with Egypt, the world’s largest collection of pyramids actually belongs to another, less visited, country and absolutely dwarfs the number built by Khufu and co. With somewhere between 220 and 255 pyramids […]

It’s the holiday season, and what better time to gather your loved ones together and absolutely trounce them in an hours-long board game marathon? Humans have been playing and enjoying competitive games for centuries. For this special episode of The Big Questions, host Laura Simmons sat down with Kelly Clancy, neuroscientist and physicist, and author […]

Just six years ago, fewer than 100 Sombrero ground lizards (Pholidoscelis corvinus) remained on the tiny Caribbean island they’re named after. Now, thanks to the help of conservationists, they appear to be making a remarkably rapid recovery. The island of Sombrero, found 54 kilometers (34 miles) off the coast of Anguilla, is only 38 hectares […]

I am sure it is something everyone has experienced at some point. You’re walking outside on a cold day, the wind is blowing, and, of course, your nose is streaming. It’s an ugly thing at the best of times, but it’s made worse if, like me, you have a mustache that seems to almost take […]

If there’s one thing you, and Gollum, should know about volcanoes, it’s that “lava=hot”. That, and it’s not a great idea to attempt to plug them up with concrete. But some volcanos are hotter than others. At Ol Doinyo Lengai in northern Tanzania for instance, the lava flows at temperatures so low it is possible […]

It’s just one of those fundamental things – all animals need water to survive. For us humans, getting it into our bodies is as simple as drinking it. But what about fish? They live in water, so are they just straight up absorbing it, or do they also need to drink? First things first, fish […]

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A potential murder may have been partially solved, after police found a man loading a human-like figure into a back of a car on Google Street View. Back in November 2023, in the small town of Tajueco in the province of Soria, Castile and León, Spain, a 33-year-old resident of the nearby city of Soria […]

A controversial 2020 study that claimed the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine showed promise for treating COVID-19 has been retracted, after sparking widespread criticism from scientists ever since its publication. The study was originally published online in the International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents on March 20, 2020. With a small sample size of just 36 total participants, […]

Popular and sometimes controversial YouTuber James Stephen Donaldson, known on YouTube as “MrBeast”, has revealed he has rented out the Great Pyramids of Giza for an upcoming YouTube video. While you might think that the ancient wonders of the world cannot be hired out like a wedding venue, you are only partially correct. Though wedding […]

Atmospheric rivers – vast flowing streams of water vapor that flow high up in Earth’s atmosphere – appear to fuel sweaty heatwaves in summer, as well as unseasonable warm weather in the winter, according to a new study. The phenomenon of atmospheric rivers is closely associated with rainfall because they shift huge amounts of water […]

Astronomers have found a new type of stellar phenomenon: stars that for a few months might suddenly get up to 20 times as bright with a temperature of hundreds of thousands of degrees. These objects are being called millinovae and they have never been seen before. The international team found 29 of these events in […]

Considering its formalization in medieval Europe, chess has some unexpected quirks. The pieces are named for positions in the royal court, but the most powerful piece – and the most valuable – is not the king, but the queen. A knight and a bishop have equal value, just as in the UK House of Lords; […]

For the first time in 11 years, a complete mastodon jaw has been unearthed in the state of New York. What makes this discovery even more remarkable is that the prehistoric specimen turned up in someone’s backyard. The bizarre yet thrilling find was reported by a homeowner near Scotchtown in Orange County, who happened to […]

Tis the season to stuff your face with treats: sugar cookies sparkling like snowflakes, Christmas cake that could double as a doorstop, and drinks so sweet they’ll make your dentist wince. But behind every corner of the dessert table, someone might be desperately googling like their life depends on it, trying to figure out if […]

An ancient skeleton and a silver artifact are helping to rewrite the history of Christianity’s spread across Europe. The remains, dated between 230 and 270 CE, provide the earliest “authentic evidence” of Christianity north of the Alps in Europe discovered to date. The relics were found just outside the German city of Frankfurt at the […]

The forests of Maui have just become home to the world’s rarest crow for the first time. Five ‘alalā, also called the Hawaiian crow, were released after having been raised in captivity under the care of San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance at Keauhou Bird Conservation Center in Volcano and Maui Bird Conservation Center in Makawao. […]

Pretty often at IFLScience Towers, we find ourselves faced with a conspiracy theory we’ve not seen before – and this week was no exception. “Can you believe,” one of our intrepid reporters asked the office, “that some people think online gambling sites don’t use random numbers?” Well, chalk it up to mathematical nit-pickery, but technically, […]

Christmas is less than a week away now, so you may be feeling the pressure to have everything ready for the big day. But sometimes something slips through the net, and you may not have all the gifts you need on time. If you feel bad about these (hopefully) occasional late exchanges, then you’ll be […]

We know that whale calves and mothers communicate with one another, but what are they trying to say? A new study has provided fresh insights into the vocalizations of young humpback whales, revealing what appears to be the first evidence for begging calls in baleen whales. The calf vocalizes and slowly moves into position beneath […]