Deborah Bloomfield

In Australia and snake-infested parts of Indonesia, it pays to be resistant to snake venoms even, or perhaps especially, if you’re part of the same zoologic order as snakes. A study of how large and medium-sized lizards handle the problem of their cousins’ toxins has revealed a never-seen-before evolutionary sequence its discoverers compare to Russian […]

Barbie-pink sea pigs, rattail fish, and a unicumber: these were the unexpected stars of a recent expedition into the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ) where scientists are studying biodiversity. The region’s animal life is of particular interest because it’s also the proposed site of deep-sea mining, being home to a huge volume of “sea potatoes” that contain […]

Palaeontology and archaeology have aligned in northeast Brazil, as a “remarkable” site featuring dinosaur footprints alongside ancient rock carvings has been uncovered.   The Serrote do Letreiro Site, in the Sousa municipality, Paraíba State, is home to three main rock outcrops, where the fossilized footprints of theropod, sauropod, and iguanodontian dinosaurs from the Early Cretaceous […]

Gravitational wave detectors on Earth have already revolutionized astronomy and in the next decade, we will have LISA, the first gravitational observatory in deep space. But there is scope to build a detector in between these two types, both in terms of location and frequencies. This can be done by building it on the Moon. […]

Earth is being struck with strong geomagnetic storm activity after a coronal mass ejection was blurted out by the Sun over the past weekend. It’s a big one, but authorities say the risk to the public is minimal. It could also be a great opportunity to spot some aurora if you live along the appropriate […]

The humble cutting board, whether plastic, wooden, or glass, is a staple of the kitchen. That being said, if they’re not looked after properly, they can quickly become much more problematic by harboring some of the pesky bacterial species that can cause food poisoning. So just how much bacteria can be found on the average […]

It’s not long now until the 2024 total solar eclipse and, weather permitting, it should be a spectacular celestial event. As exciting as it is, there are a number of safety concerns, particularly in the parts of the US that will be in the path of totality, with some now announcing the deployment of the […]

When learning a new language, it’s easy to get the impression that native speakers can churn out sentences far faster than your brain can process. Surely you don’t speak this rapidly in your mother tongue? Rest assured, this isn’t necessarily your poor language skills or linguistic relativism – some languages may indeed be “faster” than […]

This week, a CRISPR-edited pig kidney has successfully been transplanted into a living person, breeding efforts welcome ridiculous-looking hatchlings of the world’s rarest fish, and scientists simulate black holes in the lab using “quantum tornados” for the first time. Finally, we investigate the longest solar eclipse on record. Subscribe to the IFLScience newsletter for all the biggest […]

You may have heard people claim the longest word in the English language is “antidisestablishmentarianism,” a dusty old term that’s defined as the “opposition to the withdrawal of state support or recognition from an established church.” With 28 letters and 12 syllables, it is certainly a mouthful, but it isn’t necessarily the lengthiest. Bury your […]

Anyone who’s experienced a menstrual cycle knows it can often feel like you’re at the whim of your hormones, but some people believe they have a solution: seed cycling. But what exactly is it – and, most importantly, does it actually do anything to help? What is seed cycling? Cast aside the image of a […]

After the invasion of the actually pretty friendly alien pea pods, we’re back with another banger of an aquatic blob – but this one isn’t quite so harmless, according to a new study, thanks to more frequent and intense ocean heatwaves. These gelatinous sea creatures are called pyrosomes, which are made up of colonies of […]

One of the great quests in astronomy is to find the first stars. These stars lived and died within a few hundred million years of the Big Bang, but for those in very distant parts of the universe, their light may only be reaching us now, having spent 14 billion years crossing the space between. […]

A poonado of epic proportions may have saved some sperm whales from a fatal interaction with a pod of orcas off Western Australia’s southern coast. The highly scatological wildlife encounter was the first time this year that sperm whales had been seen in the area, and they put on a display nobody was expecting. The […]

Astronomers have confirmed the existence of a new trojan asteroid in the orbit of Mars. This new companion of the Red Planet precedes Mars in its orbit, but unlike other trojan asteroids, this one might be in an unstable orbit, which suggests intriguing possibilities about its past. Trojan asteroids are located in the same orbit […]

Bramble sharks are incredibly camera-shy. Typically found lurking at the bottom of the seafloor, this elusive species is scarcely ever seen alive in its natural habitat. So, you can imagine the surprise when researchers from OceanX managed to stumble across an individual while exploring the deep waters off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, […]

It’s the 21st century, but conspiracy theories about a “long-lost race of giants” still live strong (honestly, you wouldn’t believe how many messages we receive about it). Rumors about one such colossus have recently emerged in South America where it’s said a huge humanoid skeleton has been uncovered. However, armchair archaeologists should take this wild […]

Regardless of your own personal views on the morality of eating meat and fish, the facts are clear: humanity’s current habits are not great for the environment, our health, or animal welfare. And if you know all this, it can be hard to justify continuing with a meat-based diet, rather than switching to full veganism. […]

Scientists researching the complex habitats of Utah’s Great Salt Lake sediments had a hunch that the nematodes also known as roundworms lived in these spaces but no one had ever found them – until now. This new discovery suggests there could be a whole web of hidden life within the Great Lake. A professor and a […]

In a world first, doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) have successfully transplanted a genetically modified pig kidney into a living human recipient. The patient, 62-year-old Richard “Rick” Slayman, had been living with end-stage kidney disease, relying on dialysis to survive after a previously transplanted human kidney had begun to fail. The medical team praised […]