Deborah Bloomfield

Dogs are not called our best friends for no reason. Throughout human history, our lives have been intertwined with those of our canine companions – they protect us, work for us, and just keep us company. By combining modern genomics techniques with the knowledge of Indigenous communities, science just gained a new insight into a […]

What’s the opposite of a night owl? According to new research, it’s not a morning lark, but a Neanderthal. “By analyzing the bits of Neanderthal DNA that remain in modern human genomes we discovered a striking trend,” said John Capra, associate professor in epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco, and lead […]

“Mind reading” may be about to become a reality – and in the most literal sense possible, as a new breakthrough from researchers at the University of Technology Sydney’s GrapheneX-UTS Human-centric Artificial Intelligence Centre sees thoughts transformed into words on a screen. “This research represents a pioneering effort in translating raw EEG waves directly into […]

The JWST has confirmed the results of lesser telescopes as to how fast the universe is expanding. Instead of settling physics debates, this makes things worse, because the previous measurements contradict what astronomers think should be happening, based on the echoes of the Big Bang. This (probably) doesn’t mean we need to throw out most of […]

Around 600,000 years ago, humanity split in two. One group stayed in Africa, evolving into us. The other struck out overland, into Asia, then Europe, becoming Homo neanderthalensis – the Neanderthals. They weren’t our ancestors, but a sister species, evolving in parallel. Neanderthals fascinate us because of what they tell us about ourselves – who […]

Extinction is becoming a real threat faced by countless creatures across the animal kingdom. Famously, there are an estimated just 10 vaquitas remaining in the Gulf of California, Mexico. Now, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) has issued the first-ever extinction alert in its 70-year history, to spur action to help the world’s tiniest and most endangered marine […]

It’s that time of year with Christmas parties abound, and also the time of year when many people will be standing in line for a club, meeting the eyes of bouncers, and suddenly realizing they may have had one free drink too many. Whilst there are folk remedies galore for sobering yourself up enough to […]

The fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of King Solomon’s temple, one of the Old Testament’s most significant events, has been marked by the announcement of archaeological discoveries from the site. Digging on Mount Zion has uncovered ash from the fires that burned much of the city, arrows of the invaders, and an earring left […]

Without seasons, the Earth would be very different – and it’s quite likely we would not be around. If the Earth’s axis was much more tilted than it is, making seasons more extreme, civilization probably could not exist. The same might also be true if our seasons were more erratic (sorry George RR Martin), as […]

If one of us humans was found having a cheeky nap, there probably wouldn’t be a whole scientific study on it. But for sharks, getting caught snoozing is an entirely different matter, especially when some species need to keep moving in order to keep breathing, lest they end up napping for eternity. This was thought […]

This article first appeared in Issue 17 of our free digital magazine CURIOUS. “There came wise men from the east to Jerusalem saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.” That’s how Matthew describes the “Star of Bethlehem” […]

If the idea of time traveling to the oceans of the Cretaceous has ever sounded like an appealing idea to you, you might be about to change your mind. Researchers have described a brand-new, 72-million-year-old species of mosasaur, that’s thought to have terrorized the ancient Pacific Ocean. The study describing the mosasaur came as a […]

This article first appeared in Issue 17 of our free digital magazine CURIOUS. They say no two snowflakes are alike, but, when you think about it, how could anyone possibly know that? The truth is that you can’t, for reasons we’ll dive into later, but what we can know is that your chances of getting two […]

All things being equal, you’d expect there to be about a one in twelve chance of sharing your birthday month with someone else, right? Well, not quite – at least, not if that person is your mom. “Not only did we find that women’s own season of birth influenced the seasonal patterns in the births […]

This week a tap dancing spider has been rediscovered in Portugal after 92 years, scientific evidence sees a conviction overturned for a mother jailed for killing her four children, and mysterious green “ghosts” appearing in Earth’s upper atmosphere have been explained. Finally, we investigate the gruesome history of tooth transplants. Subscribe to the IFLScience newsletter […]

NASA’s Perseverance has spent over 1,000 sols – Martian days – inside Jezero Crater. The location of an ancient impact, the crater was for a time a lake with a river carrying water into it. A prominent delta has been sculpted in the rocks and it is there that the rover has been exploring. And […]

Depending on your point of view, raisins are either a tasty lunchbox treat, or an evil catfish just waiting to lure you into taking a bite of what you thought was a lovely chocolate chip cookie. Love them or hate them, though, you’re probably fairly confident in what a raisin actually is. But what happens […]

Saturn’s moon Enceladus has a deep ocean, with hydrothermal activity, and complex chemistry. These are excellent conditions for life to emerge, and researchers have added a bit more hope to the mix. A new analysis suggests that there might be more chemical energy within this distant moon than previously thought. Enceladus releases plumes which were […]

What did early primates munch on to keep themselves nourished? It’s likely that their foods of choice were soft, probably including sweet fruits, says a new study on their teeth from researchers at the University of Otago, New Zealand, and Duke University, USA. The researchers looked at fossil teeth of anthropoids – an infraorder of […]

Does your dog know the names of its toys? Lots of dog owners may think their precious pooch can identify their favorite toys by name, but the phenomenon is actually pretty rare. In fact, many dogs who are believed to have this ability have usually had it trained into them and they can only identify […]