Deborah Bloomfield

When helmeted hornbills go to battle, they wield their giant heads as weapons in an airborne jousting competition. Diagrams reveal the calamitous outcomes that send one contender spiraling toward the ground as the victor rises, but how do they smash into each other without falling unconscious? That’s just what scientists have been trying to find […]

Up until last month, Japan had 1,035 regulations that involved the use of floppy disks, storage devices that can only fit a couple of megabytes of data at best. The Japanese government has finally got rid of them – now there is only one regulation that uses them, concerning vehicle recycling.  Advertisement Spearheading this initiative […]

On June 27, asteroid 2011 UL21 made a relatively close encounter with Earth, flying by our planet at a distance of 6.6 million kilometers (4.1 million miles), or roughly 17 times the average distance from the Earth to the Moon. Advertisement While not close enough to worry about, the encounter gave astronomers an opportunity to […]

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The mystery of how the bluespotted ribbontail ray got its blue spots has been solved by a team of scientists, yielding what they described as a “surprising and fun solution to the stingray colour puzzle.” Their investigations revealed that the electric blue comes not from pigment, but extremely small structures that influence the way light […]

Ahh the bird world, full of incredibly beautiful species that fly, swim, and even just walk (looking at you kiwis) across a vast array of Earth’s diverse habitats. While some species enter the record books for their amazing feats of endurance, soaring for days without touching the ground, we take a closer look at the […]

Whether you prefer briefs, a thong, or even a jockstrap, the garments with which you furnish your undercarriage may descend from an ancestral pair of undies that were first worn in a chilly Siberian cave 40,000 years ago. At least, that’s the conclusion of a new analysis of the world’s earliest eyed sewing needles, which […]

At some point in your life you have probably learned your blood type, before forgetting it and guessing the most-common blood group (O). But even if you know your blood type, in very rare cases it can change.  Advertisement Sometimes, the change can be temporary. People with rare blood types may receive blood transfusions from […]

A bone from Baishiya Karst cave in Tibet indicates Denisovans were living there roughly 40,000 years ago, well after modern humans had expanded over much of Asia. Combined with previous evidence of their presence in the area 190,000 years ago, the finding reveals extraordinary persistence in the face of exceptionally difficult conditions. It also increases […]

Imagine a “crypto bro” and what do you see? Well, according to a new study, cryptocurrency zealots are more likely to be argumentative guys who spend a lot of their time in fringe social media communities and reading up on conspiracy theories. As for their personality, the findings suggest crypto investors are more likely to […]

When searching for signs of extraterrestrial life, we have for the large part focused on carbon-based lifeforms. It makes sense that we would do so, as the only lifeforms we have found (here on Earth) are carbon-based. Advertisement It has been suggested that silicone could also provide a base for life, though nothing matches carbon’s […]

As pretty much every sci-fi movie ever has taught us, the future is going to be full of lasers. They will power our quantum computers; probe microscopic nooks and crannies in scientific experiments; we’ll use them in medicine, for surgeries, or to assess eye health – the possibilities are endless. There’s just one problem: so […]

Brain fog, trouble concentrating, and memory loss have become common complaints for many people who have contracted COVID-19. In fact, between 10 and 30 percent of the general population has experienced at least one of these post-infection conditions. Now researchers have not only pinpointed a specific protein that may drive it, but have also shown […]

Among the towering rock walls of an Indonesian island, archaeologists have discovered the earliest known example of artwork that tells a story, highlighting a “key development in art history” and a major milestone in the history of humankind. Advertisement The rock art is one of many found around the lowland karst landscape of South Sulawesi […]

Animals mimicking different sounds is nothing new in the natural world: some birds can mimic the sounds of car alarms and camera shutters with surprising accuracy, while some predator species may have learned the calls of their prey to lure them to an untimely end. However, some species have gone a step further and learned […]

For the first time ever, researchers have documented a traditional healing practice involving the use of psychedelic mushrooms on the African continent. Performed by Indigenous diviners and spiritual curers in Lesotho, the ritual involves a species of mushroom that is brand new to science. Advertisement Discovered growing on a cow manure-covered pasture in the Free […]

Precision time-keeping is moving on from atomic clocks and embracing the revolution that is optical atomic clocks. Over the last few years, these instruments have gone further and further in the precision timekeeping they can demonstrate. Their level now is outstanding, well beyond the capabilities of regular atomic clocks. Advertisement Atomic clocks use cesium atoms […]

New research has discovered that the bodacious bodies of hippos go airborne when they trot, building up enough speed to get all four of their trotters off of the ground simultaneously. They might not be giving Superman a run for his money, but the discovery has revealed that these animals are more athletic than we […]

Life ain’t easy being a songbird in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone (CEZ). New research has looked into the birds inhabiting the irradiated wasteland and found a link between radiation levels and their gut microbiome, suggesting their health is being impacted by their troubled homeland.  Advertisement The CEZ is a highly contaminated area in Ukraine surrounding […]

It feels like every other day a new species is in peril, so at IFLScience we like to celebate the wins – most recently, we’re excited about some good news for one of the world’s weirdest dolphins. The Mekong dolphin, also known as the Irrawaddy dolphin, plummeted from 200 to 89 from 1997 to 2020 […]