Deborah Bloomfield

On May 30, there were more people in orbit around our planet than there have ever been before. Hailing from five different countries, the 17 astronauts, cosmonauts, and taikonauts, were split between the International Space Station and Tiangong, the Chinese space station. The previous record was set when the privately funded Inspiration4 crew blasted into […]

As much as their bizarre medical ideas and feudal lifestyles may make us forget it, our medieval ancestors were really not much different from us. They used the same turns of phrase as we do; they chilled out in deck chairs and chowed down on an absurd amount of chicken – and according to a new discovery out […]

IFLScience’s podcast The Big Questions is back this month with a brand new season, even more “Big Questions”, and top experts dropping by to tackle them! Join our hosts Dr Alfredo Carpineti, Rachael Funnell, and Eleanor Higgs as we kick off season 3 on June 9 with a deep dive into whether Jurassic Park could […]

The question of the habitability of planets in the cosmos is a tricky one. Based on the one example we have, which is Earth, you want the planet to be neither too close nor too far away from its star. This is commonly known as the Goldilocks zone. New work shows that it is not […]

This article first appeared in Issue 8 of our free digital magazine CURIOUS.  It’s no secret that the oceans are home to some of the most alien-like life on the planet, but did you know that astrobiologists actually use octopuses as a model for what intelligence might look like on other planets? The reason why […]

This article first appeared in Issue 8 of our free digital magazine CURIOUS. In 1971, the Soviets were searching for oil fields in the heart of Turkmenistan’s Karakum Desert, which was part of the Soviet Union at the time. After thinking they’d struck liquid gold, they mounted a rigging station including a sizable and heavy drill. […]

In May 1871, a gang of “toughs” set about smashing an unusual target: a collection of model dinosaurs destined to be part of a new museum in Central Park, New York. The gang smashed the models with sledgehammers, then carted away the pieces – and any designs or molds to make more were destroyed. Someone […]

Smashing rocks and rubbing sticks are the two most basic techniques to make fire, yet it is unclear which human species first mastered these incendiary procedures. To try and solve the riddle, researchers have analyzed the cognitive processes required for each method, determining that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens probably invented different modes of ignition. Exactly […]

In the southwestern Indian Ocean, the volcanic island of Anjouan is home to a strange geological mystery. On the island, residents and geologists keep finding a type of rock that shouldn’t be there. The island formed on an ocean basin, when tectonic plates shifted away from each other and magma moved up and cooled to […]

Rollercoasters are a great divider. Some people crave the rush, while for others it’s a hard pass on doing a dress rehearsal of dying in a high-speed crash. Competition between theme parks has seen designs for rides go bigger, higher, and faster, but is there a limit to how big a rollercoaster can be before […]

The strange appearance and counter-rotation of the nearby galaxy M64 can be explained by a recent merger with a small galaxy similar in mass to the Sun’s near neighbor the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). The Milky Way is expected to consume the SMC eventually so this may offer a view of our distant future. M64 […]

There’s a strange story that often does the rounds on internet forums and podcasts, which speaks of a giant 15-meter (50-foot) snake that lurks in the depths of Central Africa, prone to lurch out of the jungle and strike passing helicopters if it feels threatened. Like many tales of cryptozoology, it’s almost certainly nonsense, but […]

Two residents of Texas have died following a possible outbreak of fungal meningitis, the state’s Department of State Health Services (DSHS) has said in an update. According to the department, the state is investigating 155 people with possible links to the source of the outbreak, with eight patients considered to have probable meningitis, and another […]

Exploding rocks could ruin your campfire if you don’t choose wisely when getting set up. Placing firewood in a ring of rocks can be a good way to lessen the risk of starting a wildfire, as well as acting as a barrier for wind that might blow out the early embers, but you need to […]

A urologist has said that men should sit down to pee, following the results of a 13-country survey which found that a lot of men never do that. On May 16, data analytics firm YouGov released the results of an important survey, breaking down by country what percentage of men pee standing up or sitting. […]

Bones from Dinosaur Cove, Australia, prove the presence of flying reptiles at the location 107 million years ago. The importance of this find lies in the fact that at the time the Cove lay inside the Antarctic Circle, meaning the Sun did not rise for weeks on end. This certainly tells us something important about […]

Regardless of how comfortable you are with math, you’ve probably heard of Pythagoras – or at the very least, the Pythagorean Theorem that bears his name.  But if that’s all you know about the ancient Greek philosopher, you’re missing out. Firstly, because Pythagoras was not, in fact, the first guy to come up with a2 […]

Pick your way along the rocky beaches that line many seashores in the UK and, before too long, you’ll most likely come across a hag stone. Often made of flint, these rocks can easily be recognized by their naturally occurring holes. There’s a scientific explanation for how the holes come to be – but that’s […]

A new immunotherapy developed in Israel has been announced to be around 90 percent effective at putting patients with multiple myeloma into complete remission, offering hope for people with a currently incurable disease.  The innovative therapy is already used in other cancers where possible. It involves reprogramming the patient’s immune cells to recognize and attack […]

Picturing Antarctica is sure to conjure up images of penguins (not polar bears), and a pristine wilderness full of snowy mountains and floating white icebergs. However, not all icebergs are just one color, as these colorful striped icebergs reveal. To start with, icebergs are made of snow and glacier ice, which is very compressed snow […]