Deborah Bloomfield

As much as 1.1 million gallons of oil may have leaked into the Gulf of Mexico, according to the US Coast Guard (USCG), after an oil sheen was spotted off the southeast coast of Louisiana last Thursday. Whilst a task force overseen by the USGC is attempting to mitigate the impact of the spill, there […]

Adorable jumping spiders that aren’t considered to be social critters may be able to remember one another. The curious finding comes from a pre-print into Phidippus regius, a big-eyed spider species that behaved differently towards jumping spiders it had “met” before, compared to those that were total strangers. Individual recognition is considered to be a […]

Bacteria, despite lacking neurons, synapses, and a nervous system, are capable of forming something akin to memories, new research has discovered. What’s more, they can pass these “recollections” to their progeny for at least four generations. Now, we don’t mean that bacteria are prone to taking a trip down memory lane, reminiscing about the time […]

We’re not quite sure why, but there seems to be a resurgence in people attempting to play amateur volcanologist and asking, “Why can’t we just pour concrete into a volcano to stop it from erupting?” The suggestion has popped up on Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit in recent months as a way of preventing deaths. Advertisement […]

It’s easy to laugh at the alchemists of yesteryear, with their spotty understanding of science and dogged determination to discover nuclear transmutation five centuries before the discovery of the nucleus. But can we really blame them? After all, it’s only now, after 400 years of advancements in chemistry and physics, that we’ve finally solved the […]

The cargo of a Stone Age ship that sank off the coast of Capri in the Bay of Naples has been discovered by a team of underwater archaeologists. Among the scattered freight, the researchers located a large chunk of obsidian, although the identity of the sailors remains a mystery. Obsidian is a type of volcanic […]

Humans are inquisitive by nature. It’s why we went to the Moon; it’s the reason we stuck that fish in the giant magnet that one time – heck, it’s responsible for like 90 percent of Florida Man. And, Florida Man aside, we tend to call that inquisitiveness “science”, and the people who follow it are […]

The humble trilobite may be long-extinct, but even as fossils, there’s much they can teach us about the history of our planet. In fact, ancient arthropods – including 10 newly discovered species – that lived nearly half a billion years ago could provide the missing pieces to the puzzle of where Thailand fitted in the […]

Outer space is not an environment that is very welcoming to us Earthlings. Microgravity wreaks havoc with our bones, muscles, and blood availability and distribution, and increased radiation is seen as a constant and present danger. Adding to heart and vision problems, there could be something else that might affect some of the astronauts who […]

For humanity to expand into space, we need to know how reproduction and gestation will happen in microgravity. From reproduction to birth, we do not know what is safe for parents and offspring in such conditions. But new research is slowly challenging our ignorance on the subject – a recent experiment on the International Space […]

Picture a skunk. Bit of an odd request, but go with us here. You’re probably seeing the common striped skunk: a small, furry mammal with a pattern of white stripes along its black fur. As it turns out, though, those characteristic stripes are far from universal. There’s a huge amount of variation in skunk markings […]

The story of the ozone hole’s recovery has been met with some new, less promising analysis. New research has indicated that the ozone hole has been remarkably huge and long-lived over the past four years, suggesting it might not be on track for recovery in the coming decades as previously hoped. On the other hand, […]

Despite physicists’ insistence and ease of calculation, celestial bodies are not perfect spheres (or point masses). Their surfaces could be rugged or their boundaries unclear. When it comes to stars, the one we know best is the Sun and it seems like we do not know it quite as well as we thought – different […]

Before you take a bite of your Thanksgiving turkey, have you ever wondered how big these beasts can get? Well, look no further. There is a Guinness World Record for that! Back on December 12, 1989, in merry old London, United Kingdom, there was a heaviest turkey competition. Sadly, this was also the last time […]

If you kept heading east in the USA, and followed the coast to its most eastern point, or even hopped on a boat to go to one of its territories such as Guam you still would not have made it to its most eastern point. To reach that, the quickest direction to head in is […]

When it’s time for Megasyllis nipponica to spawn, its butt swims off. Technically called a stolon, the annelid worm’s rear end sprouts eyes and swimming equipment to depart the adult body on which it developed and go in search of the opposite sex. These worms have adapted an approach to reproduction that sees them jettison […]

A Google Earth view of the planet has been shared widely over the last few days, due to the unusual angle it shows.  The image, shared by the World of Engineering, shows our home looking like some sort of water world, where the dominant lifeforms are dolphins and Kevin Costner. Advertisement ⓘ IFLScience is not responsible […]

The World Health Organization (WHO) has just announced important updates to its Mental Health Gap Action Programme (mhGAP) guidelines, which include new recommendations for the treatment and care of mental, neurological, and substance use disorders. Here’s a summary of the main points and why it’s significant. What is the mhGAP? The WHO’s mhGAP was first […]

Evolutionary psychology has come a long way in recent years when it comes to more realistic representations of women. Far from the early theories of female sexuality, which stereotyped women as primarily coy and monogamous, newer hypotheses present a broader view. Whilst this might seem like a win for both science and feminism, a new […]

Telecommunication goes back a lot further than you might expect. While the word has become synonymous with television broadcasting and phone communication, it really describes any communication system over a distance, and could include smoke signals. These simple signals were used to convey messages from “the enemy is approaching” to the fact that a whale […]