Deborah Bloomfield

You’ve probably seen the meme “Your job can wait. Tell us about your favorite dinosaur.” Luckily for us, that’s a daily chat at IFLScience, but it’s interesting to see just how often the classic childhood favorites come up: triceratops, stegosaurus, T. rex etc. Despite the resurgence of Jurassic World introducing the world to some lesser-known […]

Imagine this: you go into a vintage clothes store and buy a Victorian-era costume only to find it hides a heavily encrypted message that can’t be deciphered. We’ve all been there, right?  Well, this was actually the reality for Sara Rivers-Cofield, an archaeological curator who bought a 19th-century silk dress from an antique mall in […]

A nightclub in London, UK, has been fined after accidentally serving tequila shots with caustic soda instead of salt. On 7 December 2021, four customers at Tiger Tiger nightclub asked for tequila shots, traditionally served with salt and lime. The barman noticed there was no salt and, according to the Westminster City Council, went to […]

The inhabitants of the earliest human megasites got most of their protein from peas rather than meat, new research has revealed. Located in modern-day Ukraine and Moldova, the rural towns of the ancient Trypillia culture were founded more than 6,000 years ago and contained around 15,000 residents, making them the largest known prehistoric settlements in […]

If you’re a Brit reading this, we have some news that may shock you. No seriously – you may want to sit down for this. Many Americans have never tasted the flavor of blackcurrant. Told you it was shocking. “But what about purple sweets?!” you cry. Well… most of them are grape-flavored. Now that the […]

On December 14, China launched an experimental and reusable spaceplane into low Earth orbit, the spaceship’s third trip into space. China is keeping quiet about the purpose of the spaceplane, however, four days into the mission amateur astronomer and satellite tracker Scott Tilley noticed that trailing behind the craft were six “mysterious wingmen”, several of […]

Here’s something we haven’t come across before: some people are apparently confused why there are marine fossils at the top of Mount Everest. At the summit, there is the sedimentary rock limestone known as the “Qomolangma Limestone“. Within it are a number of fossilized marine creatures from the Ordovician Period 488.3 million-443.7 million years ago. […]

In the battle of the sexes, there’s one fight that never seems to die: who bears more pain? Childbirth is pretty much the gold standard of “this hurts” in everyday conversation – but ask someone with testicles, and they may well think that a swift kick in the balls simply must hurt more. Heck, even […]

Imagine this: it’s the summer and you’ve just been painting your garden fence when it starts to rain. At the same time, and not too far away, a friend has just finished doing the same, but their weather is far nicer, so their freshly painted fence is surrounded by dry conditions. Which fence will dry […]

During the chilly and long twilight hours of winter, reindeer make a bizarre change unique amongst daytime mammals – their eyes change color. Researchers now believe this oddity gives them specialist night vision, helping them to seek out a tasty lichen dinner. The discovery that the surface of reindeer eyes changes color from golden-orange in […]

The Dordogne region of southern France is home to some of the oldest known artworks in the world. Across the walls and ceilings of over 200 caves in the region are an array of colourful paintings created by our ancient ancestors. But despite their significant age, it is not completely clear just how old they […]

For something we’re all just toting around without a second thought, the human brain has some very impressive capabilities. So impressive, in fact, that even the most sophisticated computers cannot yet replicate all its functions. But that could be about to change. Scientists at Western Sydney University just unveiled their new supercomputer DeepSouth, the first […]

Digging a hole straight through the Earth is an extremely popular thought experiment. It can teach people about so many properties of our planet as well as some pretty cool physics. However, the process of digging such a hole is impossible, and not just because the interior of our world goes through molten and liquid […]

At 10:17 pm UTC last night, a major eruption shook Iceland. The event has been expected for a while, but that makes it no less spectacular. It started with a series of strong quakes, and about an hour later lava fountains appeared from cracks in the ground. The fissure is currently about 4 kilometers (2.5 […]

If you are someone who has a uterus and menstruates then bleeding between periods can be a bit unsettling, however, there are many different reasons for this happening. From vaginal discharge to bleached patches on your underwear, there always seems to be something being expelled from down there that makes you scratch your head. Now, […]

Something peculiar is going on a long way beneath our feet. The rotation of the Earth’s inner core is not aligned with the rotation of the mantle, creating a wobble that affects the motion of the poles and even the length of the days that our planet experiences. The variations are small – so they […]

You’ve got to love a scientific paper that includes the line, “The Sun is formidable and destroying it is generally considered to be a difficult problem.” Rather than a primer for a Bond villain, the study in question instead explores the possibility the Sun could be hiding a black hole inside, and whether doing so […]

It was a bad year for science publishing with more than 10,000 research papers being retracted, setting a new record for the most retractions in a single year. The results suggest this is just a fraction of the dodgy papers still out there. According to recent analysis conducted by Nature, the number of retractions issued […]

After successful preclinical studies in mice, researchers have this week begun the first human trials of a hormone-free male birth control pill. YCT-529, the drug being tested, is the first of its kind to reach Phase I clinical trials. Whilst scientists have been working away for decades in an attempt to create contraceptive options for […]

The first streaming video carried by laser beam from beyond the Moon has been received from 31 million kilometers (19 million miles) away. For extra points, it’s ultra-high definition (and very cute). Among the technical challenges required for human colonization of the Solar System, improved communication systems may not be top of mind. However, when […]