Deborah Bloomfield

“Almost everyone wishes to modify their personality in some way,” is the straight-shooting opener to a new paper that promises to detail four mechanisms by which you too could achieve lasting change. But we wouldn’t want you to go in with lofty expectations – the scientists say that small adjustments are the most you can […]

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In a world that changes as rapidly as ours does, it can be hard to imagine much that stands the test of time. Trees, however, seem to be pretty damn good at it (unless we keep chopping them down, of course) – and there’s even one that’s seen us through since the Ancient Egyptians were […]

The team that gave us the first-ever image of a black hole has released a new image of Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, this time seen in polarised light for the first time. The image has captured the magnetic field structures spiraling around the black hole, similar […]

One of the world’s rarest plants just grew in number by 30. Cotoneaster cambricus was once on the brink of extinction with just six known individuals in the wild, but that number has now been boosted to 110, including the secret release of 30 plants reintroduced to a mystery location. C. cambricus is known only […]

A YouTuber has recreated the trolley problem, the moral philosophy conundrum in which you are asked whether it is morally justifiable to kill one person in order to save five. The original problem was posed by philosopher Philippa Foot, and later popularized in an article by philosopher Judith Jarvis Thomson. Advertisement “Suppose you are the […]

How many fish does it take to make a school? The answer may vary, but for the much-studied zebrafish, the answer is three. Put a triad of the little fish together and they will display the same schooling behavior that can save their lives in larger numbers. Two zebrafish act quite differently. Some birds have […]

Think of all the famous psychopaths you know, both real and fictional. Chances are, for every Bonnie you’ve got about 10 Clydes. That’s because we tend to think of psychos as being criminally insane men – an image that has been continually reinforced by on-screen maniacs like Norman Bates (Psycho), Hannibal Lecter (The Silence of […]

Keeping wild animals as pets is a strange one. On the one hand, properly reared exotic animals can thrive as domesticated pets, and they can be looked after with all due care and attention. However, there comes a time when some people can no longer look after their pets, and it becomes difficult or even […]

One of the biggest moments in human history took place 60,000 to 70,000 years ago when a portion of Homo sapiens left Africa. Despite this epoch’s huge significance, we know surprisingly little about people’s whereabouts from 70,000 to 45,000 years ago when they first set foot into the wider world. Thanks to a combination of […]

Ancient deserts were treacherous terrain for dinosaurs, as the environment had a nasty habit of burying its inhabitants. Their loss would be palaeontologists gain a few tens of millions of years down the line, as the unique fossils reveal animal behavior in a way that more scattered remains just can’t, helping us to tackle a […]

Despite his repeated attacks, public trust in scientists and science as an institution actually rose during the US presidency of Donald Trump. Although it is true that mistrust certainly increased across the US, and that views on certain topics have become deeply polarized, any modest rise in mistrust was actually offset by greater trust across […]

Here at IFLScience, we like to cover some of society’s most pressing questions about science. Should death be taught in schools? What do ultra-processed foods mean for our health? And on today’s agenda, perhaps the most important question of them all: what causes an “innie” or an “outie” belly button? What is a belly button? […]

In the hyper-arid deserts of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), water is scarce but sunshine is bountiful. The oil-rich nation currently uses a small army of cloud-seeding drones and aircraft to ease their water woes, but scientists have recently proposed another way to promote precipitation in the region: gigantic solar farms.  In a new study, […]

In the near future, astronauts and private citizens might be able to travel to space and spend time in the Orbital Reef – a private space station for long-term living and used for commerce, research, and tourism. The project, headed by Sierra Space and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, aims to be operational in low-Earth orbit […]

The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) has slowed substantially since the mid-90s, a new study reveals. AMOC is an essential component of the systems that keep the Earth’s regional climates in balance. Without it, Europe could suffer colder winters while the tropics could heat up even faster. Climatologists have identified AMOC as one of the […]

The dessert options available to us nowadays span a wide range of tastes, from a pint of Ben & Jerry’s to good ol’ apple crumble and custard. But how did the glorious concept of dessert begin? To find out, let’s travel back to the ancient Middle East, a region that nowadays covers countries like Turkey, […]

The nature of consciousness, how it emerges, and how it relates to the physical world has been a major philosophical and scientific topic of debate for as long as humanity has been thinking. Are mind and body separate? Some think yes, others think no, but a third camp expresses an in-between and yet more radical […]

Alarming new research has revealed that consuming reused deep-fried cooking oil may lead to higher levels of neurodegeneration in rats and their offspring. Given that the practice of re-heating the same batch of oil for multiple meals is common in homes and restaurants worldwide, the study’s findings could have major implications for human health. Deep-frying […]

Kefir, kimchi, and sauerkraut: not the best combination together, but as a part of a balanced diet, these fermented products are superfoods. Fermentation can make a piece of cabbage last months, even years, but what is the pickling power that makes it possible? What are fermented foods? Food fermentation is an example of biotechnology, which […]