Deborah Bloomfield

A strange, ghost-like ant discovered deep underground has been declared a new species, with a shiny new Harry Potter-themed name to boot. Leptanilla voldemort, as the novel species has been called, is pale, slender, and prefers life on the dark side, much like its namesake. Just two specimens of the mysterious ant were discovered in […]

This article first appeared in Issue 18 of our digital magazine CURIOUS.  In 2011, a UK survey asked the public a simple question: would you like to live forever? More than five out of every six people said no. Advertisement Turn it around, though, and the opposite is equally off-putting: do you want to die?  […]

 CC BY-ND The cargo ship Dali knocked down three main truss spans, constructed with connected steel elements forming triangles, on the Francis Scott Key Bridge just seconds after crashing into one of the bridge piers early on Tuesday morning, March 26, 2024. The bridge collapse happened so fast that it left little time for the […]

Summer normally sees the trees full of green, blue skies (ok, maybe not here in England), and deliciously warm, long days – but for people living in the Northern Hemisphere in 1816, those days never came. What was “The Year Without Summer”? The Year Without Summer was pretty much what it says on the tin; […]

I have been researching the psychology of conspiracy beliefs for seven years now and people often ask me why people believe in them. This is not a simple question. There are many reasons people might endorse conspiracy theories. Something that stands out to me, though, is how our thinking styles can influence the way we […]

Europa is one of the largest of more than 90 moons in orbit around the planet Jupiter. It is also one of the best places to look for alien life. Often termed an “ocean world” by scientists, observations to date strongly suggest that beneath Europa’s icy crust, there could be a liquid saltwater ocean containing […]

Most of us will have been made aware from a young age that “am” and “pm” refer to the first half and the second half of the day, or morning and afternoon/evening – but what do those letters actually stand for? Take a look at Latin Some people might think Latin is a dead language, […]

After getting stranded on a tiny island in Micronesia for over a week, three mariners who made a “HELP” sign out of palm leaves were successfully rescued in a joint mission between the US Coast Guard and Navy.  On April 6, the Coast Guard’s Joint Rescue Sub-Center (JRSC) in Guam received a call from a […]

Sometimes it seems as though there’s a constant stream of new so-called “superfoods”, supposedly nutrient-dense nosh that comes with a bunch of health benefits. Thanks to a new study, the latest that’s been added to the pile is the sea buckthorn berry – but is this small, bright orange ball really capable of tackling diabetes […]

Despite its freezing temperatures, Antarctica is a desert because it receives very little rain or snow. Deserts are defined as landscapes where little precipitation occurs. While there are no strict criteria for what makes a desert, it typically refers to a region that receives less than 25 centimeters (10 inches) of rain or snow per […]

This week, the world’s oldest preserved fossil polyene pigments were found in 12-million-year-old snail shells, long before dogs, foxes may have been humans’ best friend, and we say goodbye to Polaris as we prepare to get a new north star. Finally, we ask what on Earth is a henge? Subscribe to the IFLScience newsletter for […]

Dozens of new species have been discovered along the Salas y Gómez Ridge off the coast of Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island, the remote Pacific island famous for its giant stone moai human statues. Among the never-before-seen critters found here were squid, fish, corals, mollusks, sea stars, glass sponges, sea urchins, crabs, and […]

The ancient Maya civilization is often erroneously described as an empire, when in reality it was made up of numerous disjointed polities, united by a shared culture but divided by allegiances to multiple rulers and vast swathes of impenetrable jungle. However, for a brief, glorious period in the sixth and seventh centuries CE, a group […]

This article first appeared in Issue 18 of our digital magazine CURIOUS.  At the cutting edge of theoretical physics research, physicists are trying to reconcile quantum mechanics with general relativity – two of the most successful scientific theories ever put forward. They can describe so much of our universe, but they do not work well together. This becomes […]

The largest study of hospitalized COVID patients carried out in the UK to date has revealed people with long COVID may have patterns of inflammation that can be picked up in a blood sample. The patterns seem to mirror the collection of symptoms that each individual experiences, and could help doctors devise more effective treatments. […]

Bonobos have a bit of a reputation for being the chillest of all the great apes, with an attitude of peace and love rather than the violent ways of their chimpanzee cousins. But new research is set to turn that assumption on its head, with male bonobos found to be frequently more aggressive than male […]

The volcano snail may sound (and look) like something from a fantasy novel, but it is a real creature that has adapted to live in the inhospitable would at the bottom of the ocean. What is the volcano snail? Volcano snail is one of the common names for Chrysomallon squamiferum, a species of deep-sea gastropod […]

For the first time, an exotic material known as a Wigner crystal formed solely from electrons has been visualized. These impossible-sounding crystals had been claimed before, but never confirmed directly. As well as proving its existence, the images revealed unexpected aspects of the strange crystal’s nature. Materials are composed of protons and electrons, as well […]

The Toyger is a relatively new breed of domestic cat that’s been bred to resemble a mini tiger with the temperament of a family-friendly pet.  As their appearance suggests, the breed’s genome contains a touch of heritage from wild cats, although no new wild cat outcrossing was directly used in their development. Instead, this charismatic […]

Have you ever had a conversation in your dreams? Maybe it’s just everyday chatter, maybe it’s an argument with someone, but it’d be pretty cool if we were somehow able to record it. As it happens, birds also seem to get vocal in their dreams, and a new study has been able to translate what […]