Deborah Bloomfield

Remains of extinct human relatives are annoyingly rare, leaving many chapters of our own evolution a mystery. However, a review of an old fossil discovered over 40 years ago has busted open an important part of the story we didn’t previously know.  Paleoanthropologists have taken a second look at some ancient human remains discovered in […]

Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to [email protected]. Could people breathe on Mars? – Jack J., age 7, Alexandria, Virginia Let’s suppose you were an astronaut who just landed on the planet Mars. What would you need to […]

Earth has received a record-breaking laser-beamed message from far beyond the Moon for the first time, an achievement that could transform how spacecraft communicate. If NASA can get a message from its spacecraft from 16 million kilometers (10 million miles) away, your beau has no excuse for leaving you on read. In the farthest-ever demonstration […]

There is a region of the North Atlantic Ocean that is unusual – it’s a sea that has no coastlines. The Sargasso Sea is characterized by its unique boundaries defined by ocean currents rather than land. It’s also a sea characterized by its natural, and unfortunately unnatural, accumulations of algae and detritus. The Sargasso Sea: […]

Solar Cycle Maximum, here we come. The Sun’s activity is truly picking up steam, meaning more sunspots, coronal holes, and even solar flares. The strongest yet for the current solar cycle, Cycle 25, is an X 2.8 class flare: the strongest recorded since September 10, 2017, and about 5 to 10 percent of the strongest […]

Some 10,000 to 20,000 years ago, cataclysmic floods of water tore through a portion of North America now known as Washington State. Incredibly, the scars gouged into the earth from this violent event can still be seen today, revealed by satellite images from space. As explained by NASA Earth Observatory, these satellite images were captured […]

On September 13, 1848, railroad foreman Phineas Gage suffered one of the most horrific workplace accidents in history when an iron bar punched a hole in his skull, obliterating a significant part of his brain. Despite the wound, Gage lived for another 12-and-a-half years, remaining active and (relatively) normal throughout. For the first time, scientists […]

Scientists have fused human brain tissue to a computer chip, creating a mini cyborg in a petri dish that can perform math equations and recognize speech. Dubbed Brainoware, the system consists of brain cells artificially grown from human stem cells, which have been fostered to develop into a brain-like tissue. This mini-brain organoid is then […]

The results of a small clinical trial of a vaccine for an aggressive form of breast cancer have been presented at a conference, and the researchers say there’s cause for optimism. The 16 patients in the trial all received three doses of the vaccine, with the majority developing a robust immune response and no major […]

Zookeepers worldwide know that many of their animals appreciate herbs in the diet, or sometimes just to play with or roll in. One zoo has decided their charges will like it even better if the herbs are fresh and in season, and have built a garden of 200 types to keep them happy. Most zoos […]

The Al Naslaa Rock Formation is a great example of how nature is a serious force to be reckoned with, being a giant, solid boulder that looks as though it was split down the middle with the aid of an alien’s laser weapon. Far from a story about extraterrestrial antics (as cool as that explanation […]

In season 3 of IFLScience’s podcast The Big Questions we tackled some of the most fascinating scientific mysteries of 2023, from how to prepare for the next big solar flare to the chances of making Jurassic Park a reality. Hosts Dr Alfredo Carpineti, Rachael Funnell, and Eleanor Higgs were joined by international guest experts to […]

Microbial communities known as stromatolites have been found in previously unstudied lagoons in Patagonia. Fossilized stromatolites represent some of the earliest evidence for life on Earth, and while these are not the only survivors today, they resemble the fossils in ways no other known examples do. Although the individual organisms that make up stromatolites require […]

Are blondes dumber than brunettes? No, of course not – but generally, people think they are. Similarly, you probably don’t want a more experienced doctor in the ER, and there’s a pretty good chance any given teenager is less horny than you right now. So why is it that we tend to assume the opposite […]

Rediscovering previously lost to science species is becoming a bit of a hot topic at the moment and shows no sign of slowing down. After the rediscovery of Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna, the team at Re:wild’s Search for Lost Species project are at it again, and this time they’ve found a tap-dancing spider in Portugal. The […]

In late September, NASA successfully returned a sample of asteroid Bennu to Earth. Since then, they have begun the painstaking and delicate process of opening the sample, which the team had spent months rehearsing. Unfortunately, the team then hit a small snag: two of the 35 fasteners on the Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism (TAGSAM) were […]

The oldest roof tiles ever discovered in Israel may have sat atop a fortress that played a key role in the story of Hanukkah, which today is celebrated as the Jewish festival of lights. Lasting for eight days, the religious holiday commemorates the Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucids, and archaeologists say the tiles were probably […]

We all have sounds that we can’t stand. Nails on a chalkboard is a classic one that sends shivers up the spines of many people, and you probably have your own personal pet peeves as well (knuckle-cracking, anyone?). But have you ever stopped to wonder why it is that we’re extra-sensitive to some sounds? And […]

Whether it’s the oldest water on Earth, lava, or the sludgy remains of an ancient corpse found inside a giant black sarcophagus, the public only has one question on their mind: what does it taste like? That question, it turns out, stretches to deadly radioactive metals. People on the Internet have apparently been wondering what […]

We hope you’ve been looking up at the sky lately, as December 13 and 14 sees the peak of the Geminid meteor shower, one of the strongest (and prettiest) meteor showers this year. Objects burn with different colors depending on their chemical composition as they fall through the atmosphere.  Advertisement “Most meteors appear to be […]