Deborah Bloomfield

The Royal Society has issued a report examining the effects of various non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) – not vaccines or medications – in reducing the spread of COVID-19, and their results are conclusive: wearing face masks, social distancing, and lockdowns “unequivocally” lowered the spread of the disease. The aim of the report was to “assess what […]

Though the legend of El Dorado fueled European ambition during the conquest of the Americas, direct evidence for a golden metropolis in the Andes has never been found. In all likelihood, that’s because El Dorado wasn’t a city at all, but instead referred to an ancient ritual involving a man covered in gold dust. However, […]

If you’ve been on TikTok in the last couple of months, it’s likely you’ll have come across a bottle-smashing video. With a simple concept racking up millions of views, you might be wondering what makes them so appealing. The answer could lie in how human brains process sound. Bottle-smashing content features an array of satisfying […]

X-ray light is used to study the cosmos at its most extreme. The hottest plasma around stars and between galaxies, the behavior of black holes, and even energetic aurorae on the gas giant planets are all topics that require X-ray observations. And from tomorrow there will be a new telescope in orbit to do just […]

The loss of sea ice in Antarctica in 2022 caused the complete failure of four out of five known emperor penguin breeding colonies. The worst hit areas were in the central and eastern Bellingshausen Sea region, where some parts witnessed a 100 percent loss of sea ice concentration. In a devastating new study produced by […]

Paper cups and straws are fast becoming the norm – gone are the days of plastic straws in pitchers, now replaced by their paper siblings. It might be a bit annoying when the rim of a paper cup or straw goes soggy, but at least it’s helping the environment, right? Two new studies suggest that […]

Back in April, a Tiktok trend about mirrors had people spooked, thinking that these silvery contraptions might have the somewhat magical ability to see behind obstructions. The reality of it was not magic but science – specifically, optics, the set of rules that we have worked out to explain how mirrors and lenses work. Based […]

Psilocybin, the psychoactive component of magic mushrooms, has shown itself to be a possible game-changer in the treatment of major depression, but there are still a lot of unanswered questions as to what it does to our brains. A new preprint, which is yet to undergo peer-review, could have some of the solutions, and it’s […]

A surprising number of new species of plants, animals, and even fossils are discovered every year. Some, like the geckos of Madagascar, are hiding in plain sight, while others spring from previously discovered species thanks to advances in genetic technology and DNA sequencing. However if you’re part of the team to discover a new species, can you name […]

There have been cases before of well-intentioned humans rescuing “dogs” from precarious situations before realizing it may not be a dog after all. Like the time people rescued a “dog” from a freezing river and it turned out to be a wolf. Or an adorable puppy dropped by a bird of prey that turned out […]

For the first time, researchers have been able to track the behavior of triplons, a quasi-particle created between entangled electrons. They are very tricky to study and they do not form in conventional magnetic material. Now, researchers have been able to detect them for the first time using real-space measurements. Quasi particles are not real […]

In the last few weeks, papers have been published and uploaded on the ArXiv claiming that they hold the smoking gun for the end of the gravitational laws as we know it. A big claim for sure, but one that the researchers feel confident to have. So why could Einstein and Newton be wrong after […]

Is there a better way to start the day than with a cup of coffee? It turns out the IFLScience staff are somewhat divided on this question, but many of us are confirmed devotees of the stuff. Whether it’s a double espresso or a long, cold iced latte, plenty of people turn to coffee to […]

Some might think that having more fingers and toes could be, well, handy – we could type faster, or more importantly, stack even more Funyuns on our fingers. So why did evolution decide to leave us with 10 fingers and 10 toes? And could we get our old ones back? Fossil evidence has shown that […]

The curious way certain materials conduct electricity, which has led to them being labeled “strange metals” may have been explained after four decades. A team of physicists have proposed an answer they say is so simple it was overlooked by people expecting something more complex. Claims of a superconductor that works at room temperature and […]

On this day, August 24, 2006, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) made a decision that was going to change the Solar System forever. Members of the IAU voted on a long-drawn proposal that defined exactly what astronomers mean by the term “planet”. And thus Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet and our Solar System […]

It’s the longest nerve in the autonomic nervous system, stretching from the brain stem all the way down through the chest, neck, and abdomen. Its approximately 160,000 fibers connect it to multiple key organ systems, and it’s responsible for regulating many of the processes that keep us alive. It’s called the vagus nerve, and right […]

Long before the first Europeans arrived in the Americas, the ancient inhabitants of the Peruvian Andes conducted mysterious rituals upon purpose-built ceremonial platforms that rumbled and roared beneath their feet. Describing one such percussive dancefloor in a new study, archaeologist Kevin Lane from the University of Buenos Aires suggests that the platform was designed to […]

On March 8, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, prompting the most expensive search in the history of aviation. A few pieces of debris washed ashore, but the main body of the airplane – along with the passengers and crew – remain missing. A new study, however, has […]

Diamonds are not just a girl’s best friend, they have long been the best friends of quantum scientists thanks to a wide range of useful properties. They make extremely good quantum sensors, by and large outdoing the competition. But diamonds are not perfect, and now a team has worked out how to give an alternative […]