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Opening shot: distant stars are visible against an ink black background. In the foreground, something bright: a planet, a spacecraft, both. Cue the music, epic crescendo, unsettling tones, the action is about to begin. The title appears, you know it is already the best space movie ever made. What name popped into your head? Maybe […]

The giant steel dome that encloses the ruins of the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine has suffered “significant structural damage” after a drone strike in February and is no longer fit for purpose, according to an update from the UN’s nuclear watchdog. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or […]

Christmas Day marks the birth of a wise man who revealed eternal truths to humanity and reshaped the course of history: Isaac Newton. Well… sort of. Had he been born elsewhere in Europe, rather than in England, his birthday would have fallen on January 4. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please […]

A decade consists of 10 years, a decagon has 10 sides, and a decathlon comprises 10 sporting disciplines – so surely December should be the 10th month of the year. That it sits in 12th position is a quirk of Roman timekeeping and the combined fault of various emperors and popes. The exact origins of […]

One of the longest trackways created by a single dinosaur shows it completing a full loop. Drones have been used to map all 95 meters (315 feet) of the footprints, which show some intriguing behavior, but don’t tell us what made the sauropod change its mind on where it was going. At West Gold Hill, […]

Create an IFLScience account to get all the biggest science news delivered straight to your inbox every Wednesday and Saturday. Nitrous Oxide: Inhaling “Laughing Gas” Could Be Surprisingly Effective For Treating Severe Depression Nitrous oxide (N2O), also known as laughing gas, could be a game-changing treatment option for severe depression, according to a new meta-analysis. […]

If you are anything like us you probably memorized the order of the planets in the Solar System back in school, and the older among you may still feel compelled to include Pluto even though it was downgraded a whole 19 years ago. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in […]

Scientists investigated what they call “The Grandmother Hypothesis” when it comes to washing your skin, finding that people tend to miss several key areas, and their microbiome is less healthy as a result. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content. The team from […]

Almost 2,000 years ago, a mathematician and engineer created machines that so impressed the public that his instructions have survived to this day. The details of Hero of Alexandria’s life are sufficiently vague that there is debate about his name, and the century he lived in, so accounts of his works need to be taken […]

Anatomists will tell you that every corpse tells a story, and the same is true of fossils. Long dead, animals can reveal strange clues as the passage of time compresses them into an imprint of a life. It means that sometimes you find stuff that just doesn’t make sense. Case in point, a new species […]

A giant blanket of radiation fog has smothered California’s Central Valley for several days and is expected to linger for days more. But fear not, the fog has nothing to do with nuclear meltdowns or the splitting of atoms. What is radiation fog? Radiation fog is a perfectly normal type of fog that’s most common […]

In less than two weeks, interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS will be the closest it will ever get to Earth, just 269 million kilometers (167 million miles) away, or 1.8 astronoical units (the Earth-Sun distance). As the cosmic encounter rushes towards us, there will be a lot more opportunities to observe this incredible object. Still, some new, exciting, […]

Neanderthals in France may have been strutting around in leather clothes with matching handbags more than 100,000 years ago. OK, that’s a bit of a claim, but the discovery of a bone tool used for flaying animal carcasses does suggest that these extinct hominins were adept at skinning prey and using their hides to make […]

Take a look at any overhead power lines in the US and you’ll perhaps see a number of big yellow, orange, red, or white balls gripping the wires. Some people have speculated that they are weights for the lines, weather sensors, or even surveillance systems. However, none of these guesses are correct.  The rest of […]

Have you ever found a mermaid’s purse? These leathery pouches that wash up on the beach are actually the egg sacs baby sharks develop in, a process we usually only get to see from the outside. For cinematographer and shark researcher Richard Fitzpatrick, that wasn’t quite enough. The rest of this article is behind a […]

Of the more 6,000 planets that have so far been discovered, most are deeply unsuited to life – at least life of the forms we are familiar with or can plausibly imagine. A substantial minority look like they might be able to support something limited, a planet of bacteria or slime molds. A handful hold […]

We hope you enjoyed the Supermoon last night. The last full Moon of the year was quite splendid from our location, and it’s just one of the lovely things that will be visible in the sky this month. The next big thing is happening just this weekend. Not all of you will be early risers, […]

Imagine you were able to stand on the surface of Mars, Venus, or even Titan without the need for protective gear. Now, imagine you were speaking. Do you think you’d sound the same as on Earth? The answer is no. Sound is a mechanical wave, which means that it doesn’t travel through a pure vacuum, […]

The giraffe with the wonky neck sounds like a whimsical children’s book, but the story of Gemina is very much the real deal.  On July 16, 1986, a giraffe was born at the San Diego Wild Animal Park. By age 1, she had traveled across the state to the Santa Barbara Zoo, where she would […]

Evolution really popped off the day it made a seal. The playfulness of a dog with the attitude of a fat happy cat who occasionally gets dolphinesque zoomies. What’s not to love? Seal finger, that’s what. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content. […]