Deborah Bloomfield

Cephalopods are always full of surprises that push the boundaries of what we think we know about animal life – and few are more fascinating than the octopus squid (Octopoteuthis deletron), a deep-sea loner with removable limbs and a strong tendency towards same-sex behavior.  Most squids have a total of 10 appendages, consisting of eight […]

This week on Break It Down: why Venus just got very exciting as a potential site of extra-terrestrial life, how you make butter out of thin air, a Stegosaurus on sale for $44 million, the discovery of the first Moon cave, why Earth just landed itself a new microcontinent, and pseudoscience Vs anti-science – what […]

Space weather can be beautiful, such as the incredible aurorae seen around the world in May, and dangerous, damaging technology both temporarily and permanently. Predicting space weather is incredibly important. And researchers now report a better understanding of coronal mass ejections, a crucial development in knowing what kind of danger lies in the future. Advertisement […]

Words like “fruit”, “berry”, and “vegetable” are thrown around with reckless abandon, taking little care for their botanic classifications. So, if you’d like help reducing your circle of friends, stick with us and we’ll teach you how to correctly identify all the taxonomic inaccuracies surrounding fruit and veg. Let’s start off easy to whet your […]

The Sun has a main cycle of activity that lasts about 11 years. We count them from minimum to minimum. We are currently around the maximum of activity and that has been the main focus of scientists. This is a period of intense solar storms, as we saw back in May. But within that flurry […]

Ozempic, Wegovy, GLP-1 – they have all become online buzzwords. A miracle drug for weight loss that makes you feel full and has apparently minimal side effects? But there is more. A flood of studies and clinical trials are investigating whether Ozempic and its sister drugs could treat an assortment of heart, kidney, and liver […]

The UK has become the first European country to approve the sale of lab-grown meat – not for humans, but for cats and dogs.  Advertisement UK-based company Meatly is now authorized to sell pet food products containing cultivated chicken, according to an announcement on their website. They hope to start selling the product later this […]

An international group of researchers has developed a new tool for measuring gender inequality between women and men in the United States, and in doing so, revealed which states have the greatest levels of inequality for women. Advertisement According to the team’s findings, gender inequality is at its highest in Arkansas, closely followed by Louisiana […]

Creativity. We usually associate it with the work of great artists or thinkers: from Beethoven to Einstein, from Picasso to the mastermind that gave us Tiramisu. Creativity is also part of our everyday lives. Every time we make novel associations between concepts, or come up with a new hack to use a straw to hull […]

A newly launched floating platform will trial a novel way around the challenges of harvesting the wind over deep waters, putting two giant 8.3-megawatt (MW) turbines in a V formation. This enables a combined power greater than any existing floating turbine, or indeed any wind platform in widespread use. Advertisement Offshore wind provides a small […]

Observing the wonders of the natural world is a pretty incredible experience, from beluga whale migration live streams to visiting your zoo of choice. But what about the wonder of long-dead species that roamed planet Earth millions of years ago? IFLScience took a trip down to the Natural History Museum, London to learn all about their […]

The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE showered the Roman town of Pompeii in volcanic ash and pumice before blanketing it in a rapid stream of piping-hot gas and volcanic matter. While the red-hot wrath of the volcano may seem like the prime killer, new evidence has shown another deadly force was at play: […]

After less than an hour and a half of bidding, the remains of a Stegosaurus dubbed “Apex” sold for a whopping $44.6 million at Sotheby’s on Wednesday, making it the most expensive fossil ever to have been sold at auction. The successful bidder was American hedge fund manager and multi-billionaire Kenneth Griffin, who doesn’t seem […]

A strip of scarlet-red cloth that was discovered in Israel’s Cave of Skulls has been dated to over 3,800 years old, marking the earliest archaeological evidence of a dyed textile using crushed bugs. Despite being crafted in the Bronze Age, the color of the extremely rare pigment is still full of life – and mystery. […]

Yesterday one of the longest solar prominences seen in years caused the Sun to fire out a major coronal mass ejection (CME). The prominence is estimated to have reached a length greater than the distance between the Earth and the Moon, around 380,000 kilometers (236,000 miles). Although CMEs are common so close to solar maximum, […]

Habitat loss and destruction is one of the key issues facing species today. Fortunately, conservation groups are working hard, both with species in conservation areas and with those populations that need to be raised in captivity, to bolster the population. Now, for one species at least, it seems the results are paying off as the […]

Tripping on magic mushrooms causes brain activity to become less organized and more random, with these effects lasting for several weeks. Having observed this phenomenon in action, the authors of a new brain-imaging study suggest that this scrambling of connectivity patterns may lead to more flexible cognition, which could explain how psychedelics help to alleviate […]

In the annals of history, few names inspire as much awe and fear as Genghis Khan. And that’s for good reason: he was arguably the greatest conqueror in history, building what would become the largest continental empire ever seen out of a group of squabbling nomadic tribes in central Asia. Advertisement That’s not the kind […]

As sea ice melts, it creates feedback that warms the Earth. New research shows that feedback is happening faster than previously estimated. As a result, there has been a 13-15 percent reduction in the cooling effect of global sea ice since the early 1980s, more than the loss of ice itself. Advertisement Ice plays an […]

Over the last decade or so, beards have enjoyed a prominent place in men’s fashion. What was once deemed a temporary resurgence among hipsters in the late 2000s has now become a staple feature of chins across the land. But regardless of whether you think beards are hot or not, those with them have various […]