Deborah Bloomfield

Recent excavations at the Villa of the Quintilii uncovered the remains of a unique winery just outside Rome. The mid-third-century CE building located along the Via Appia Antica portrays a sense of opulence and performance almost never found at an ancient production site. Advertisement This exciting complex illustrates how elite Romans fused utilitarian function with […]

The Sun undergoes multiple cycles of activities that are tracked and then used to predict how such activity changes and the impact it might have on Earth. Modeling the Sun is far from easy and the main prediction is now being challenged by a different one: instead of a July 2025 maximum of activity, new […]

Group sex isn’t uncommon in the animal kingdom, but when you’re dealing with microscopic subjects, capturing it can be easier said than done. Fortunately, scientists like James Weiss who constantly monitor microscopic beasties are primed and ready to record the magic as it unfolds, including a three-way between some tardigrades. The rare and steamy footage […]

Well, it must be a day ending in a Y, because the US is currently losing its mind over safe and well-established medical procedures to end pregnancies.  Earlier this month, Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump-appointed federal judge in Amarillo, Texas, brought a drug called mifepristone storming into the headlines with a 67-page ruling to halt the […]

Marine species that normally live in coastal environments may be becoming a permanent fixture of the open ocean as a new type of habitat is becoming increasingly ubiquitous: floating islands of human trash. Perhaps one of the most famous of these islands is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, where researchers recently discovered that coastal species […]

This Thursday a hybrid eclipse will occur over parts of Australia, East Timor, and occupied West Papua. Mostly, however, it will be over ocean. It’s the first hybrid eclipse since 2013. As always with solar eclipses, people over a much larger area, in this case Australia and South-East Asia, will experience the dimming of a […]

A superbloom has been looming over California for the past few weeks and now it’s here. Triggered by an onslaught of rain that may have been caused by atmospheric storms, the 2023 superbloom is set to be a historic one that’ll set the landscape ablaze with swathes of burnt-orange poppies as well as other wildflowers. […]

The biggest animal that has ever existed on Earth is alive today, and swimming around in the oceans. But most land mammals, impressive though an elephant may be, look like a tiny elephant shrew in comparison to the mighty Brachiosaurus. The bad news is, we are probably not going to see land mammals the size […]

Deep-sea researchers have found polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) – a human-made, carcinogenic pollutant – at one of the deepest points on planet Earth, the Atacama Trench in the Pacific Ocean. This is despite the chemical being widely banned in the 1970s, indicating just how long this potent environmental scourge can continue to linger. Environmental scientists at […]

A collection of artifacts oozing with color, culture, and sexuality has been discovered among the ruins of an ancient city found along Italy’s Almarli coast. Chief among those finds is a vibrant red figurine that depicts Eros, the Greek god of love and sex, riding a dolphin. The relics were unearthed at the site of […]

A distressing story has resurfaced on Reddit over the last few days, concerning a man who was swallowed up by a sinkhole in Florida on March 1, 2013.  Jeff Bush, 37, was asleep when a sinkhole opened up beneath his home in Seffner, Florida. The hole – about 6 meters (20 feet) across and deep, […]

While people tripping on DMT often lose all perception of time, the peak effects of the drug only last for about 10 to 20 minutes before subsiding completely in around half an hour. However, in a yet-to-be-published paper, researchers say they have managed to extend the acute phase of the DMT state to a full […]

Montana has become the first US state to pass legislation banning TikTok from nearly all devices. There are still some uncertainties about how the ban will actually work, but many suspect other states might be looking to roll out similar laws to prohibit the social media platform.  Montana’s House of Representatives voted in favor of […]

A gene that’s only expressed in the testicles of various mammals, including humans, could be the key to an effective, reversible, non-hormonal form of contraception for men. A new study details how manipulating the Arrdc5 gene in mice led to infertility in males, and scientists say that a drug targeting this gene could be a […]

Starship is finally ready to take the sky. The launch window opens at 7 am Central Time (12 pm UTC) and Elon Musk promises that while it might not be successful, it will be anything but boring. Starship is a huge project for SpaceX, quite literally. It is going to be the biggest rocket ever […]

This week, AI sharpens the first-ever image of a black hole with incredible results, it turns out it’s pretty easy to die from soy sauce consumption, and we weigh up just how many organs the human body can afford to lose. Subscribe to the IFLScience newsletter for all the biggest science news delivered straight to […]

Finding life on other planets might well be the holy grail of astronomy, but the hunt for suitable host planets that can sustain life is a resource-intensive task. The search for exoplanets (planets outside our Solar System) involves competing for time on Earth’s biggest telescopes – yet the hit rate of this search can be […]

A strange circular structure in the cold, harsh highlands of Bolivia may once have hosted rituals designed to control the region’s hostile climate, researchers have suggested. Reporting the discovery of the unusual pre-Hispanic ceremonial center, the study authors say the “surprising” construction is unlike any other ever found in the Andes. The ruin was located […]

Deep in the Canadian Arctic, you can find a 51-square-kilometer (20-square-mile) pileup of fallen trees and ancient wood. Scientists have recently mapped this woody pile-up – the largest “logjam” in the world – and believe it’s likely to be having a massively underappreciated impact on the planet’s carbon cycle. The pile-up is located in the […]

Some of the oldest windmills in the world are found in Nashtifan, on the windswept plains of northeastern Iraq. These vertical-axis windmills are thought to have been built over 1,000 years ago. They still work today and could be used to mill grain into flour.  Advertisement Credit: Great Big Story Deborah BloomfieldSource Link: The Ancient […]