Deborah Bloomfield

On October 14, there will be an annular solar eclipse seen widely across the Americas. The Moon is near its apogee, the most distant point in its orbit; as it moves between the Earth and the Sun it will not cover our star completely, and the so-called “ring of fire” will remain visible. However, it’s […]

Wetlands are full of surprises, but one thing you don’t typically expect them to do is go bubblegum pink overnight. That’s the scene unfolding in the Boondall Wetlands in Brisbane, Australia, where residents were surprised to find the water had mysteriously turned pink. It’s a bit late for this, Barbie marketing team. Officials did consider […]

Italian luxury brand Prada has joined Axiom Space in the development of the next lunar spacesuits. The Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit (AxEMU) is going to be donned by the next moonwalkers, ideally in late 2025 when Artemis III is supposed to get to the Moon. The NASA prototype for the Exploration Extravehicular Mobility Units (xEMU) […]

In a schematic view, an engine uses a thermodynamic change to produce work. For example, when a gas is ignited, it expands and so pushes a piston. Now, researchers have been able to develop a similar kind of engine but instead of using the relationship between temperature, pressure, and volume, the new device uses quantum […]

Japanese and Thai researcher have identified four species of luminous snails in what is only the second discovery of this kind in 80 years. Bioluminescence is actually quite rare among animals. To date, scientists have only identified around 7,000 species of animals that can glow this way, most of which are located in the world’s […]

The Red Queen hypothesis was coined by biologists to explain the relentless “evolutionary arms race” that spurs the evolution of species. When it comes to natural selection, species must constantly adapt to survive being pitted against competing organisms and adversarial enemies that are also constantly evolving. The idea was first described by Leigh Van Valen […]

In 2011 physicists at CERN made one of the great “huge if true” claims of their field, reporting that neutrinos had been observed to get from Switzerland to Italy faster than light. Although subsequently disproven, this wasn’t the first, nor the last, time these poorly understood particles were claimed to break the great cosmic speed […]

Chimps, bonobos, orangutans, and lowland gorillas can all enjoy long lives in captivity, but one great ape you’ll never see in a zoo is a mountain gorilla. Some zoos have tried to capture and contain these wild beasts, but it didn’t end well. Mountain gorillas are a subspecies of the eastern gorillas, found in high-altitude […]

Scientists believe they have identified a new basic taste that’s detectable by the tongue. Joining the ranks of sweet, savory, sour, bitter, and umami, a new study suggests the tongue might also detect ammonium chloride as a basic taste. Researchers have known for decades that the tongue responds to ammonium chloride, but new research from […]

Computer scientist and futurist Ray Kurzweil has set some very specific timelines for when humanity will achieve immortality, and artificial intelligence (AI) will reach the singularity. The good news, if his predictions prove to be accurate, is that you just need to ride out the next seven years for your chance at living forever. Kurzweil has a […]

Archaeologists have found the remains of an ancient Mexican temple that was thought to be little more than a legend. Within the city of Atlixco in central Mexico, there has long been a rumor of a lost temple, or teocalli, that was built centuries before the Spanish arrived in the early 16th century. According to […]

Glaciers are disappearing around the planet, and the questions of how scientists monitor glaciers and how these glaciers affect global sea level rise are very important for the future.  For The Big Questions, IFLScience’s podcast, we spoke to Dr Peter Davis, a physical oceanographer from the British Antarctic Survey to discuss these questions and his […]

Stone tools have been found in a dry river channel in Jordan that may mark the beginnings of humanity’s great migration out of Africa. The tools have been dated to 84,000 years ago, and coincide with a time when these channels would have been filled with water. The findings suggest people left Africa through the […]

It’s that time of year again when the team at the Comedy Wildlife Photo Awards rounds up the best and the most hilarious wildlife images of the year for your viewing pleasure. This year’s selection features an owl getting a telling-off, an otter practicing their ballet, and more than one attempt at flying gone wrong.  […]

Should COVID-19 be treated like the flu? Or is it time we started treating the flu like COVID-19? It’s a question considered by new research from New Zealand where scientists are suggesting that we’ve got things the wrong way around. Rather than downgrading the severity of COVID to that of other infectious diseases, perhaps it’s […]

Back in 2019, NASA’s New Horizons probe flew by Arrokoth, a two-lobed small object in the Kuiper Belt far beyond Neptune. Observations of the object reveal mounds on the surface of the lobes and their size, shape, and composition. They are all remarkably similar, suggesting that these were the original building blocks for this far-away […]

Scientists have observed some incredibly energetic light coming from a nearby pulsar, the highest-ever from this type of star and close to the highest-ever seen from a cosmic source. Each photon had an energy of 20 TeV which is roughly 20 times the kinetic energy of a flying mosquito – and that comes from a […]

Nothing feels quite like the shared experience of hearing live music in a room full of other people. But new research is demonstrating how that experience may go far beyond how we feel, by showing how physiological processes can sync up across audience members at a classical music concert. The study, led by Wolfgang Tschacher […]

When you are firing a spacecraft at an asteroid, touching the spacecraft down on that asteroid very briefly to collect a sample, and then returning the sample to Earth, there are a lot of opportunities for problems. Despite the difficulty of the task, NASA successfully returned a sample of asteroid Bennu to Earth in late […]