Deborah Bloomfield

This article first appeared in Issue 17 of our free digital magazine CURIOUS.  The twilight zone is filled with bizarre, alien-like species that look as if they splash-landed from outer space, and yet there is something that connects us: sexual reproduction. There’s no Tinder in the twilight zone, so how are animals looking for love in […]

In 1938, a new book hit the shelves: Named Rebecca, it told the story of a young woman who marries a wealthy widower and moves into his estate, only to be continually psychologically tortured by the household’s and society’s devotion to her new husband’s first wife. Of course, it was a work of fiction – […]

Habitat loss, pollution, poaching, climate change – the list of threats against Earth’s species seems only to be growing. In the midst of these struggles lives a small population of critically endangered freshwater porpoises: meet the Yangtze River finless porpoise (Neophocaena asiaeorientalis asiaeorientalis). As the name suggests, this porpoise species lives in China’s Yangtze River […]

A not-so-fresh loaf of 8,600-year-old bread has been found at Çatalhöyük, an extremely early city located in today’s Turkey. While older flatbread – or at least what’s left of it – has been found in Jordan, the researchers on this project believe the doughy discovery might be the oldest bread loaf of its kind. Archeologists […]

Caffeine appears in all manner of places, from your morning cup (or three) of coffee, to the pills you pop when you’ve got the flu, or the bar of chocolate you chomp down on of an afternoon. In fact, caffeine is the most widely used psychoactive substance in the world. It’s also no stranger to […]

The organic molecules that enabled life to emerge were present on Mars around 4.5 billion years ago, research suggests. And while these critical components may have hitched a ride to Earth around the same time, it was on the Red Planet that life found the most hospitable conditions. Earth and Mars are both members of inner Solar […]

In the northeastern region of California, close to its border with Oregon, lies the Lava Beds National Monument. Here, a half-million years of eruptions from an unassuming looking volcano have left their mark, creating a rugged, geologically rich landscape. Medicine Lake volcano The big cheese responsible for all of the cool geological features seen at […]

You wouldn’t be alone if you hadn’t heard of a lava tube, but it turns out there’s actually quite a lot of them – so what exactly are they? And if human curiosity is getting the better of you, but you’re a bit worried about, y’know, molten lava, don’t worry: it’s long gone. What are […]

This week a 390-million-year-old forest in England snatches the title for the world’s oldest forest, geologists conclude we’re not yet living in the Anthropocene, and Asian elephants have been observed burying and loudly mourning for their dead calves. Finally, we investigate all four of Earth’s hemispheres. Subscribe to the IFLScience newsletter for all the biggest […]

The threat of extinction is becoming all too real for the mammals that live in our oceans, but one unfortunate species takes the top spot as closest to that danger: vaquitas. With less than 10 left on the planet, let’s look at what’s led vaquitas to this point and, importantly, what’s being done to prevent […]

According to the record books, the Pan-American Highway is the longest road in the world, stretching some 30,000 kilometers (19,000 miles) from Alaska to the southern tip of Argentina. However, depending on who you ask, a few people might take issue with that assertion. The vision of the Pan-American Highway was first proposed in 1923 […]

Contentious claims that an interstellar meteor possibly containing alien technology hit Earth a decade ago is on even shakier ground – quite literally. Last year, pieces of the meteor were collected from the ocean off Papua New Guinea, though later analysis brought into question the “alien tech” nature of the spherules recovered. Now, it appears […]

Microplastics have now become a major concern across the planet. Humans have spread plastic so far that they are impacting every aspect of the natural world. But they are also invading our bodies through inhalation and ingestion, the long-term consequences of which are still unknown. So, what can we do about it? When we say […]

The inhabitants of ancient Egypt were infested with parasites, many of which caused anemia and other debilitating conditions. According to a new meta-analysis of prior research on Egyptian mummies, around two-thirds suffered from worms of various kinds, while 22 percent had malaria and 40 percent had headlice. In the famous Valley of the Kings, for […]

Beyond the glass cabinets of natural history museums lie thousands more rare specimens, but for many people – researchers and the public included – those specimens remained behind closed doors, accessible to only a select few. Now, thanks to the completion of a six-year-long project, we finally get to see some of them in impressive […]

Crack out the celebratory balloons and get those MRI machines clanking: A giant reserve of helium has been found hundreds of meters below Earth at a drill site in Minnesota, US.  The load of helium was found in the early hours of February 28 by Pulsar Helium. While drilling their exploratory boring well, they discovered […]

NASA has opened the call for its next class of astronauts. So if you dream of traveling in space and being an advocate for the space agency, this is your chance. You will have competition; the last call saw 12,000 applicants, but do not be put off. NASA wants the widest possible range of people, […]

Spiders come in all shapes and sizes, from tiny, intelligent jumping spiders, to the extremely deadly and chonky Hercules. Giant mythical spiders have been depicted time and time again throughout history – most recently in the form of Adam Sandler’s space-therapist – but fiction aside, what is the biggest spider currently stomping around the Earth […]

The techniques a network of satellites may one day use to find life beyond the solar system have been verified by applying them to the one place we know life exists: Earth. Of course, there is a rather spectacular difference in the distance over which the observations needed to be made versus those planned for […]

Once upon a time, there was a horse called Sampson. A shire gelding born in Bedfordshire, England, in 1846, Sampson was special for one reason – he was a really big deal. Shire horses are known to be pretty large beasts. They are a British breed of draft horses that are valued for their strength, […]