Deborah Bloomfield

On December 8, 1990, the NASA Galileo spacecraft experienced what has been dubbed a “flyby anomaly” as it flew past the Earth on its way to Jupiter and its moons. The anomaly, seen in several other spacecraft since then, remains an unexplained mystery to this day. Advertisement In missions to visit objects in the faraway […]

When you picture a computer hack, you probably think of a guy in a balaclava hunched over a computer screen displaying the code from the movie The Matrix. Or at least you do if you’re a stock photographer. Advertisement In truth, most hacks rely on an amount of social engineering, or tricking people in some […]

Scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) have observed an incredibly rare event, which could possibly hint at new physics beyond the Standard Model. Advertisement There’s nothing particle physicists like more than crashing particles together and seeing what comes out of the mess. Such experiments can help us find evidence of particles and […]

A curious show and tell is going down on Reddit right now. Over in the 13-million-strong subreddit r/interestingasfuck, people are sharing scans of their brains in which it appears part of their brains are missing. How can this be possible? It all comes down to plasticity. Advertisement For example, back in 2016, a woman known […]

Many species across the world’s habitats share the same time and space as others in the same region. These species can coexist peacefully, or sometimes run into conflicts outside of direct predator-prey relationships. Some interactions can even be accidental – such as the case of a harbor seal who ended up inside the mouth of […]

Getting shanked by an orca is the last thing you’d expect in the Peruvian desert, yet for some unknown reason, the ancient Nazca who once inhabited the area decided to decorate the landscape with an enormous geoglyph depicting a knife-wielding killer whale. Spotted using an artificial intelligence (AI) system, the armed marine mammal is one […]

While it’s always an exciting day in the IFLScience team when we stumble across the latest baby animal taking the internet by storm, it seemed as though nothing could match our obsession with Moo Deng – then came along Pesto, the most delightfully chonky baby penguin we’ve ever seen. Advertisement If you’re not already familiar, […]

People who have been hospitalized with severe COVID-19 infection can exhibit brain changes that cause the equivalent of 20 years’ worth of aging, significantly impacting their cognition. The findings of a new study, the largest of its kind in the UK to date, show how neurological complications can persist in these patients long after their […]

“Imagine dipping a toad in some brightly coloured paint, telling it a sad story, and forcing it to wear gloves two sizes too big.” That’s a description of the world’s rarest fish that appears on the Handfish Conservation Project’s website, and they really hit the nail on the head. Arguably the only thing more ridiculous […]

Around the first millennium CE, an enigmatic group of people living in southern Madagascar carved large chambers and hollows into the rock of a cliff face. For decades, the terraces and architecture at this site puzzled archaeologists as it is like nothing else found in Madagascar or elsewhere along the nearby East African coast. Who […]

Evidence has been revealed of a city existing 5,400-4,900 years ago in what is now Morocco, that its discoverers claim was the era’s largest in Africa outside of the Nile Basin. There are signs the region had extensive trading links with settlements across the Strait of Gibraltar in Iberia, and its influence may well have […]

From mysterious purple-coated rocks to formations that look a bit like a doorway, our trusty Martian robot pals have made some cool and sometimes strange findings over the years.  Advertisement Every now and then, they capture an image of a rock that looks completely out of place in the Martian landscape. This happened on September […]

Morning Glory Pool, a hot spring that quietly bubbles in Yellowstone National Park, is famous for its dazzling display of colors, starting with blue and green in its center, before bleeding into yellows and reddish oranges at its edge. As beautiful as it might look, its rainbow-like appearance is largely due to contamination from human […]

Researchers have resurrected a strange seed that was discovered in a cave in the Judean desert during the 1980s. According to radiocarbon dating, the seed was over 1,000 years old when it was found, and its DNA links it to a genus of tree that, although lost today, was mentioned in the Bible. Advertisement Named […]

In a beautiful blend of physics and human courage, freestyle motocross maestro Tom Pagès has combined motorbike riding with paragliding against the backdrop of the French Alps. The Red Bull athlete recently pulled off the stunt, called ”Ride & Fly”, near the resort of Les Portes du Soleil in Haute-Savoie, southeastern France. Advertisement He began […]

Back in elementary school, infinity made sense. It was the number you used to win arguments: “no, you suck worse, times infinity!”  Advertisement Now that we’re older, though, we’d hope to have a more nuanced and technical grasp of the concept. Unfortunately, a recent study has found that most of us… probably don’t. “Traditional cognitive […]

Beware the creatures of the deep. While most people worry about the big scary things in the ocean such as sharks and orcas, if you’re an isopod living down there it’s the pink, fluffy-looking animals you’ve got to be wary of, as a new video that even surprised researchers shows. Advertisement On the latest EV […]

Do people in supposed “blue zones” really have an above-average chance of living over 100 years? Despite the idea’s popularity, new Ig Nobel award-winning research has kind of killed it (pun most certainly intended). It seems past research into extreme old-age demographics has been riddled with fundamental flaws that have produced distorted conclusions. Advertisement The […]

Bring on Friday! Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) is now speeding towards its closest encounter with the Sun – possibly its one and only encounter with our star. On September 27, the comet will fly a distance of 58.6 million kilometers (36.4 million miles) from the Sun; that is roughly the same as the orbit of […]

If you’re thinking of going down the unconventional route for this year’s Halloween costume, we’ve got just the inspiration for you: a brand-new species of chimaera, better known as a ghost shark or spookfish. Advertisement Scientists discovered the new species, which goes by the scientific name Harriotta avia – avia meaning “grandmother” in Latin, in […]