Deborah Bloomfield

Years of sample collection on the Hungarian steppe recently revealed four brand new species of fungi, including one that scientists say bears a striking resemblance to an infamous sci-fi monster. Its worm-like body and sandy dwelling place led the team to dub the new species Tulostoma shaihuludii, after the Shai-Hulud sandworms that feature in Frank […]

Looking at a fairy lantern, you might not realise it’s a plant. These ghostly white botanical specimens haunt the forest floor putting on spooky bioluminescent displays, and now we’ve got a whole new genus to add to the list. A genus is a taxonomic category that groups together species. It represents a whole group, rather […]

Tyrannosaurus rex is arguably the most famous of the dinosaurs, renowned for its enormous teeth and gargantuan size, but also its comparatively teeny arms. The fearsome predator was around 12 meters (40 feet) long and yet its arms measured just 1 meter (3 feet). This ridiculous ratio wasn’t reserved solely for the king of the […]

Just weeks after implanting a brain chip into a human for the first time, Elon Musk’s Neuralink has reportedly landed itself in trouble with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Inspectors from the FDA visited the company’s California animal research facility in June 2023 and found numerous problems with record keeping and quality controls […]

Last September, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx brought back to Earth the biggest haul of asteroid material in the history of humanity. And among that, there are the largest physical fragments of an asteroid: pebbles and other small rocks from the surface of asteroid Bennu. By contrast, the Hayabusa probes that collected samples from Itokawa and Ryugu, respectively, […]

Scientists have been pondering whether intentionally drying the Earth’s stratosphere could be a way to tackle the climate crisis (other than, y’know, stop burning ridiculous amounts of fossil fuels). When people talk about greenhouse gases, you probably imagine carbon dioxide and methane, two of the most problematic emissions pumped out by human industrial activity. However, […]

If you’re in the Northern Hemisphere, March 2024 could be an exciting month for comet-watching. If you’re reading this later or elsewhere, there’ll be other opportunities later in the year or down the track. On the other hand, only the seriously hard-core tend to get excited about asteroid spotting. So, what’s the difference, and how […]

When galaxies collide, the supermassive black holes at their center can move close together, begin orbing one another, and eventually merge. Such a merger has never been seen but binary supermassive black holes have been known to exist at the core of several galaxies. And astronomers have now crowned the heaviest pair yet. These two […]

Have you ever wondered why that rich red-looking steak you bought a day or two ago has now turned grey in your fridge? For those who eat meat, you may think the color of the product is a surefire way of assessing its freshness and its quality – the redder the better, right? Well, color […]

Finding a new species can happen in all sorts of different ways from reclassifying species based on new genetic information with a little help from Will Smith, finding them hiding in the trees, or spending months looking closely at museum specimens. Scientists are always learning more about the animal species that surround us. Now a […]

The world’s first jet-suit race zoomed around the Dubai Marina this week with racers donning Iron Man-esque technology darting around floating buoys, hoping to cross the finishing line in a very noisy blaze of glory. The race on Wednesday, February 28, was organized by Gravity Industries, a UK-based aeronautical tech company that specializes in high-powered […]

If you’d told me a year ago that I’d be weeping as Adam Sandler embraced a giant arachnid in space, I’d have rolled with it because that sounds amazing – and oh boy, it is. SPACEMAN landed on Netflix on March 1, 2024, and is based on the novel Spaceman Of Bohemia by Jaroslav Kalfař. […]

Scientists believe they have evidence of the fastest-moving crack in an ice sheet ever recorded. The 10.5-kilometer (6.5-mile) crack formed through an Antarctic ice sheet at a blistering speed of 35 meters (115 feet) per second, or about 128.7 kilometers per hour (80 miles per hour). Researchers at the University of Washington observed the lightning-fast […]

X (Twitter) has a new feature that nobody was asking for: audio and video calls, following in the footsteps of social media giant Meta. The platform announced that the feature is now available to everybody, as of Wednesday. Advertisement ⓘ IFLScience is not responsible for content shared from external sites. While probably useful to somebody, not […]

If you’re wondering what it’s like to come back to Earth from space, but don’t want to put yourself through the training that astronauts do, we’ve got the next best thing. Varda Space Industries’  W-1 spacecraft successfully landed back on Earth after many months in space. And it has filmed its descent back to Earth […]

Being part of a small hunter-gatherer tribe can really limit your options when it comes to finding a mate, especially if most of the people in your clan are your own brothers and sisters. According to the results of a new genetic study, Europe’s last Stone Age foragers got around this problem by making sure […]

We’ve got a message for the dogs out there: you may no longer be the cutest animal to play fetch. Cats could be coming for your crown, as animal behavior psychologists have revealed that our feline friends also love a game of fetch – and they’re the ones dictating the rules.  Researchers from the University […]

Today is Leap Day. Every four years, an extra day is added to the Gregorian calendar (other, better calendars are available), making February 29 days long. This hasn’t always been the case, of course, as calendars have changed a lot over the years and across cultures. Before Julius Caesar introduced the Julian calendar in 45 […]

Pound for pound – or, rather, gram for gram – a short-haul flight is one of the least environmentally friendly ways to travel. Long-haul flights are barely better; domestic ones are worse by far. Which, for anybody hoping to live on a planet Earth that’s still habitable in the near future, is kind of a […]

North Atlantic right whales – a critically endangered species – are shrinking. According to new research, this reduction in body size, induced in part by stressors such as climate change, is impacting their ability to reproduce. It’s not good news for a species already at risk of extinction. Measuring up to 16 meters (52 feet) […]