Deborah Bloomfield

Xkcd webcomic writer and science communicator Randall Munroe has written two books on what he calls “absurd hypothetical questions”. Among the unusual questions explored in his first What If? book was this: “From what height would you need to drop a steak for it to be cooked when it hit the ground?”. Munroe gave a […]

The Salem Witch Trials were a regrettable time in America’s history, and in the 329 years that have followed, all of those accused have since been exonerated. As for what led people in 1693 to think that a group of mostly women were bewitched, some have suggested a fungus may have played a role. Rye […]

The largest creatures to ever walk the Earth were the giant sauropods such as Brontosaurus, Patagotitan,  and, of course, Diplodocus of the non-supersonic tails. All of them reached their enormous sizes on a diet of leaves and other vegetable matter. However, a study of the teeth of the earliest dinosaurs shows these (probably) gentle giants […]

Asteroid Ryugu is one of the most famous Near-Earth Objects. It was visited by the Japanese probe Hayabusa-2 a few years ago and the spacecraft collected samples from its surface and below it. Analysis of this material has revealed incredible insights about Ryugu and the latest research continues this trend. It found an important connection […]

Scientists have found a bold link between a lack of sex drive and an increase in the risk of death from all causes among men living in Japan. Before you go jumping to conclusions, there’s a lot to unpack from the study and some limitations to consider. Nevertheless, it hints that there may be an […]

Proving once again that nobody in the ancient world got blinged up quite like the Egyptians, an archeological dig in the Eighteenth Dynasty necropolis of Tell El-Amarna has turned up a treasure trove of ornate gold jewelry. Hidden for the last 3.500 years, the collection originally belonged to a young woman from the city of […]

Ahh the axolotl (Ambystoma mexicanum), undoubtedly one of nature’s weirdest offerings. Famous for their ability, or rather inability, to grow up, they never undergo metamorphosis and stay in their larval juvenile stage even as adults in a strange biological phenomenon called neoteny.  Wild axolotls are critically endangered and only found in a few waterways above […]

Elon Musk used to call himself a free speech absolutist but since making that over-hyped claim, he’s been backtracking, adding more and more exceptions to what free speech means to him. From banning comedians making parodies of him on Twitter to banning newly-verified accounts that parodied companies. And remember that this came after he tweeted […]

Dozens of people in Australia have suffered from hallucinations, confusion, and delirium after eating baby spinach that appears to have been contaminated. At least 47 people in New South Wales (NSW) have reported symptoms after eating spinach and at least 17 of these have needed medical attention, according to an announcement from NSW Health. Along with […]

“You’re the only one I’ve loved, that I love now, and I vow to love, in my past, present, and future,” a groom professes to his bride as the bellows of a dying baby moose and a murderous grizzly bear echo across the lake. This demonstration that nature stops for nobody was captured by wedding […]

This week, researchers investigate the psychedelic experiences of DMT users, a PhD thesis claims to have decoded a 2,500-year-old mystery, and we explain how nuclear fusion is going to change the world. First-Ever Fossilized Cockroach Sperm Found Preserved In 30 Million-Year-Old Amber A new cockroach species has been found encased in amber – and it’s […]

Ah, steamed-up glass. Something that is simply infuriating to everyone – the windshield steaming up leaving us a complete hazard on the road, the complete inability to wear a face mask and glasses, useless windows for a good portion of the year – has never changed since the development of glasses, no matter how hard […]

Season 2 of IFLScience’s podcast The Big Questions has come to an end and we couldn’t be prouder of the fascinating scientific mysteries tackled, from what goes on in our brain when we drink alcohol to the very literal end of the universe. Hosts Dr Alfredo Carpineti and Rachael Funnel were joined by international guest […]

ChatGPT is the latest and most impressive artificially intelligent chatbot yet. It was released two weeks ago, and in just five days hit a million users. It’s being used so much that its servers have reached capacity several times. OpenAI, the company that developed it, is already being discussed as a potential Google slayer. Why […]

Most of science involves careful hypotheses, followed by rigorous experiments to test those hypotheses, after which something is learned. But sometimes it’s more about dipping your finger in suspicious substances you found around your lab and tasting it (hence saccharine) or accidentally splitting the atom and not realizing it for half a decade. Enrico Fermi, […]

Last night, cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin were supposed to exit the International Space Station (ISS) and perform a spacewalk. Those plans were scuppered by a leak in the Soyuz spacecraft, which took the two and NASA’s Frank Rubio to space back in September. Since this is also the vehicle that will take them […]

Scientists claim to have created a new type of battery that does not lose capacity after charging cycles, according to new research. The positive electrode material could pave the way for new electric car batteries that don’t suffer one of the greatest problems such cars currently face, which is a constantly diminishing lifespan and subsequently, […]

Across the Mongolian wilderness, hundreds of ancient decorated megaliths dot the landscape, sporadically poking out of the earth like matchsticks stuck in the sand. Their existence for thousands of years is still brimming with mystery since it’s unclear who built these strange stone monuments, let alone why, but archaeologists have offered up a few tantalizing theories […]

For obvious reasons, the metal most associated with the Bronze Age does tend to be, well, bronze. But that’s certainly not the only thing our ancestors were rocking all those thousands of years ago – and a new discovery out of Wiltshire, England, has reminded archaeologists that when it comes to bling, some things never […]

All life on Earth depends on liquid water, and astrobiologists think that may be universal. That makes the discovery of water on other planets a priority, and two new discoveries are thought to have it in an abundance that makes the Earth look dry. Lurking in the same system is a suspected planet that could […]