Deborah Bloomfield

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 […]

While mapping the seafloor in the Pacific’s depths, researchers stumbled across a never-before-seen underwater mountain twice as high as the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building. The colossal seamount was discovered using a multibeam echosounder onboard the Schmidt Ocean Institute’s exploration and research vessel Falkor (too) during a recent expedition off the coast of Guatemala […]

Think fungi can’t be carnivorous? Think again. Arthrobotrys oligospora is a worm-eating species of fungus that has been found to be capable of sensing, trapping, and consuming very small animals. Now, new research has illuminated some of the molecular changes that enable its predatory lifestyle. First discovered in 1850, Arthrobotrys oligospora isn’t the only worm-eating fungus […]

JWST has gazed deep into the heart of our Milky Way galaxy and spotted some never-before-seen features that astronomers are yet to fully understand. The image shows Sagittarius C, a star-forming region located around 300 light-years from the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, Sagittarius A*. This is relatively close to […]

Known for their protruding brows and stocky build, Neanderthals are often portrayed as a primitive prototype of the modern human. Yet as our understanding of our extinct relative deepens, the image of the Neanderthal has evolved from that of an archaic ape to a surprisingly sophisticated hominid. What did Neanderthals look like? Fossil remains reveal […]

Earth’s rotational axis is on the move. According to a recent study, the North and South Poles shifted almost 80 centimeters (31.5 inches) over 17 years between 1993 and 2010. One of the reasons for this, the researchers suggest, could be irrigation. Cyclical polar drift is a well-known phenomenon. But the poles can also shift […]

Crocodiles have been around for millions of years, and whilst they’re often thought of as being relatively unchanged since their origin, two new studies have revealed that they in fact have a rich and diverse evolutionary history. Origin story In one of the studies, researchers were able to trace back the origin of Crocodylomorpha – […]

In Western societies, we are used to the idea that a typical family unit consists of two parents and their children. This is the nuclear family model which has predominated family standards since the 1950s. However, new research shows that this pressure on two parents may be out of sync with our evolutionary history. According […]

When we say the words “science experiment”, it probably conjures up images of bubbling flasks of brightly colored chemicals, or shooting laser beams, or basically anything from the opening sequence of Dexter’s Laboratory. It probably doesn’t make you think of a bunch of people sitting in a room watching a video of someone shaking a box. […]