Deborah Bloomfield

This article first appeared in Issue 16 of our free digital magazine CURIOUS.  Dreaming is an almost ubiquitous human experience. When we drift off each night, imagery fills our sleeping minds – sometimes it’s vivid and realistic, other times nonsensical or nightmarish. Some dreams are consigned to memory, to be shared, laughed at, or perhaps even […]

The 1915 Çanakkale Bridge, recognized as the world’s longest suspension bridge, stretches across the Dardanelles Strait and represents a significant infrastructural achievement. It connects the European and Asian continents within Turkey, offering a swift passage that eliminates the need for a traditional ferry journey that normally lasts about an hour and a half. Standing at […]

More things than you would think fall out of the sky at seemingly random intervals. Pieces of meteorite in Germany and frozen igunanas have all hit the deck in the not-too-distant past. Now, however, 200 parrots have dropped from the skies, and scientists aren’t quite sure why. In northern New South Wales, Australia, around 200 […]

European hedgehogs might be a popular garden visitor, but having to share space with humans can sometimes put them at risk, including from the smart tech that keeps our lawns looking tidy. New research has highlighted how some robotic lawnmowers could cause harm to hedgehogs, but thankfully, it’s also come up with a creative safety […]

If Earth is so unremarkable in the grand scheme of things, where are all the aliens? A team of scientists from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has tackled the question by looking at the Great Filter theory, humanity’s place in it, and our future as a species.  In the paper, they warn that the filter “has […]

It’s Groundhog Day today and in the town of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, a woodchuck named Phil is about to give his annual weather forecast. That’s probably not the most bizarre thing you’ve ever read about on IFLScience, but it’s also an event that doesn’t go down well with animal rights organization PETA, which has once again […]

Early data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggest that the latest round of COVID-19 shots are 54 percent effective at preventing symptomatic disease. The updated vaccines offer protection against the JN.1 variant that’s currently dominating worldwide, and yet uptake continues to be low. “Everything from this study is reassuring that the […]

After its brief resurrection, the upside-down SLIM Japanese lander has shut down for the lunar night, since it lacks the battery power to last long without refreshment from its solar panels. This raises the question, just how long is the lunar night? Also, does it matter whether you’re near the lunar equator or the poles? […]

Biologically speaking, hybridization is defined as the breeding of two organisms from different species. This process creates a hybrid, an organism that’s a genetic mix of two different species. There are countless examples of hybrids in both the wild and captivity. A study from University College London suggested that up to 25 percent of plant […]

While fossilized plants turn up fairly often in the fossil record, they are usually preserved as a trunk or the odd leaf, giving little idea of what the whole tree might have looked like. Newly discovered fossilized trees from New Brunswick, Canada however have enough in the record to reveal that they had a very […]

Archaeologists have discovered a complete mosaic Maya jade mask bearing an uncanny resemblance to the one Jim Carrey sported in the 1994 film, The Mask. This ancient version, however, was found in the tomb of a Maya king who once ruled from Chochkitam, a lesser-known Maya polity in Guatemala near the borders of modern Mexico […]

Light, as we perceive it, is an illusion. Without even considering all the light we cannot see, the white light we experience is a combination of endless shades that we categorize as seven colors. Occasionally, atmospheric phenomena can help free the colors, giving blue skies, red sunsets, and rainbows. And, occasionally, a green flash. This […]

A female North Atlantic right whale has been found dead off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, with a rope wrapped around it, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced on Sunday. “On the afternoon of January 28, 2024, NOAA Fisheries was notified of a deceased female North Atlantic right whale near Joseph Sylvia […]

Crystals are regular arrangements of atoms that repeat in space. But what if you had an arrangement of particles that repeat in time? Spontaneously coming together with a certain period over and over again, even though the properties might change? Theoretically, this was defined by Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek in 2012, and over the last […]

A pig brain has been kept alive outside of its body for five hours using a new machine developed by scientists at UT Southwestern Medical Center. The newly developed system allows the brain to be isolated from the rest of the body using a super-smart artificial pump that takes care of its blood supply. Advertisement […]

It’s rare to catch a supernova as it explodes, and it is even rarer to see stars just going boom. This has nothing to do with astronomers’ abilities, and more to do with the fact that we don’t really know when a star will go supernova – and there are a lot of stars out […]

A 3-month-old puppy has surprised vets by unexpectedly regrowing his jawbone after it had been surgically removed because of a tumor. Tyson the French bulldog had to have the majority of his lower left mandible cut away, yet enters the history books as the first reported dog ever to regenerate a lost jaw. Vets first […]

It’s been a rocky road for Japan’s SLIM lunar lander ever since it touched down on the Moon’s surface. Having made a record-breaking landing with a bump that jeopardized its entire mission, it made a comeback, rejuvenated by the Sun’s rays. But now, it faces its toughest challenge yet: surviving the freezing lunar night. This […]

The next time you sit down to tackle a jigsaw puzzle, bring your calculator – you just might need it. Math kind of has a reputation for being a dry topic, suitable only for boffins and… uh… FBI agents? But the truth is, mathematicians are fun, cool people, who enjoy maximally efficient parties and humorous […]

The waters of the St. Lawrence River are flowing with antidepressants, simulants, painkillers, and many other kinds of drugs, according to a new study. Scientists have recently studied the pharmaceutical pollution of the river and concluded that some of the compounds could pose a threat to the aquatic organisms living in the environment.  The entire […]