The human body is a mind-bogglingly amazing thing… most of the time. Like any piece of kit, it has a few glitches: there’s that area in the middle-distance that our eyes just blank on, leaving our brains to try to fill it in with a best guess; our backs, and ankles, which were never fit […]
The Political Repercussions Of Detecting Alien Intelligence May Not Go As You’d Think
Since the inception of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) program, a question has been at the forefront: what happens if we do find a signal from an alien intelligence? Preliminary protocols have been put in place but discussions still rage on exactly how this discovery would impact humans. In 2020, a paper by Kenneth […]
Why Senegal’s Hot Pink Lake Has Lost Its Rosy Color This Summer
Lake Retba has lost its vibrant pink hue this wet season. Before and after satellite images from NASA Earth Observatory show how the waters of the rosy lake have turned a more typical blue-green following a downpour of torrential rain. The lake can be found in Senegal, West Africa. It owes its coloration to single-celled […]
Jupiter’s Moon Io Has Molten Rock That Tops Temperatures Of 1,000 °C
Despite the presence of a spacecraft on the spot, some investigations of Jupiter’s moons are still best done from Earth. The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) has been used to study the NaCl (table salt) and KCl gases in the atmosphere of Io, the innermost of Jupiter’s four big moons. The temperature of the gases, […]
Viral Video Star Dumpy The Tree Frog Is Not A Giant After All
We’re sorry to burst your giant frog-sized bubble, but the viral video of Dumpy the Australian White’s tree frog has been edited. Created and posted by Lucas Peterson, the video of Dumpy chowing down on some banana, peel and all, racked up 5 million views on TikTok in a single day, as it appeared to […]
Shrine With Never-Before-Seen Ritual Discovered In Egyptian Temple
Archaeologists have discovered a shrine in a temple in Egypt that describes a ritual never seen before. It comes from the religious complex of the ancient seaport of Berenike, a city that dates back to the third century BCE. The complex itself is a lot more modern having been built over 700 years later, during […]
433 People Win A Lottery Jackpot – Impossible? Probability And Psychology Suggest It’s More Likely Than You’d Think
More than a few eyebrows were raised at the weekend when it was reported a staggering 433 people won the jackpot of a government-backed lottery in the Philippines – sharing in 236 million pesos (about A$6.2 million). Perhaps unsurprisingly, this has led to calls for an enquiry into how this seemingly “near-impossible” outcome could have […]
Why So Many Medieval Manuscripts Feature Doodles – And What They Reveal
To “doodle” means to draw or scrawl aimlessly, and the history of the word goes back to the early 20th century. Scribbling haphazard words, squiggly lines and mini-drawings, however, is a much older practice and its presence in books tells us a lot about how people engaged with literature in the past. Although you wouldn’t […]
President Biden Pardons All Federal Convictions For Simple Cannabis Possession
US President Joe Biden has announced a pardon for all individuals previously convicted of simple cannabis possession under federal law. While this doesn’t amount to legalization or decriminalization of cannabis in the US, the measure is likely to result in the expungement of around 6,500 criminal records. “Sending people to prison for possessing marijuana has […]
TWIS: Gnarly Footage Of Orcas Snacking On A Great White, A New Theory Of Consciousness Gives You An Existential Crisis, And Much More This Week
This week, the first-ever footage of the lethal (to great white sharks) hunting behaviors of Orca pods, SpinLaunch slingshots NASA tech into the sky, and we ask if Kelly Clarkson had a point when she sang “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”. Watch World-First Footage Of Orcas Making A Snack Out Of Great White […]
A Serious Fire Has Damaged Easter Island’s Sacred Moai Statues
A fire has damaged some of the sacred carved stone figures on Easter Island. As the extent of the damage is still being tallied, there is word that the fire might have been started deliberately. The “serious fire” sprung around the Rano Raraku volcano and engulfed up to 100 hectares (247 acres) of the Rapa […]
People With Calendar Synesthesia Can Literally See Time
How far away is 2050? No, this isn’t a math test – we mean it literally. Could you reach out and touch 2050, or would you have to walk there? Is it in front of you, or around a few corners? Or is this all just gibberish? For maybe one person in 50, though, it […]
Nuclear “Armageddon” Risk At Its Highest Since 1962, According To Biden
United States President Joe Biden has stated that the current risk of nuclear “Armageddon” is the highest it’s been since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. This, he believes, is due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s open discussion of the use of tactical nuclear weapons. It also follows Putin’s accusations […]
IFLScience The Big Questions: How Does Imagination Work?
Every second of every day, whether we’re actively aware of it or not, we’re using our imagination: from what we might have for dinner to life on other worlds. But how can our brains conjure up stuff that we are not looking at or even images of things that don’t exist? Our host Dr Alfredo […]
Video Shows What It’s Like To Experience A Nuclear Bomb Explosion In VR
A video showing what it would be like to stand near a nuclear bomb detonation has been widely shared on Twitter and Reddit, and it doesn’t look too pretty. The virtual reality (VR) simulation shows the point of view of someone on a beach when the bomb hits offshore, devastating the beach and surrounding vegetation […]
Boom In Mysterious Cancer Cases Sparks Investigation In Small Alabama Town
An unusual spate of cancer cases around a small town in Alabama has sparked an investigation by a team of geologists, medical experts, and sociologists. Through their dogged work with the local community, the researchers believe they may have found a culprit: environmental contamination of the water and soil. The issue first came to light […]
Incredible Details Of Europa’s Icy Surface Revealed In Highest Resolution View Ever
Last week, NASA’s Juno completed its flyby of Europa providing the closest view of this celestial object in two decades. The second moon of Jupiter hides a deep ocean beneath its icy exterior and is one of the best candidates for life beyond our planet. Now NASA has released the highest resolution image of Europa […]
JWST and Hubble’s Combined Power Reveals Secrets And Surprises Of A Pair Of Galaxies
By combining data from the two titans of space telescopes, Hubble and JWST, astronomers have created an incredible image of two galaxies over 700 million light-years away that reveals secrets we wouldn’t have seen by using just one. If you see a pair of galaxies in space there’s a good chance they’re interacting, but […]
WHO Issues Global Alert After Child Deaths Linked To Cough Medicine
The World Health Organization (WHO) has issued a global alert over cough syrups made in India thought to be linked to the deaths of 66 children in The Gambia. The alert, which was published on their website, outlined four medicines – Promethazine Oral Solution, Kofexmalin Baby Cough Syrup, Makoff Baby Cough Syrup, and Magrip N […]
Nord Stream Pipeline Methane Leak May Be Biggest Ever Seen By Satellite
While questions about last week’s Nordstream gas pipeline leak continue to be unanswered, satellite images are starting to show the environmental impact of the incident. Now, the European Space Agency (ESA) has shared before-and-after satellite images of the affected portion of sea near the Danish Island of Bornholm. On September 24, images taken by Sentinel-1 […]
