News

Over 3.6 million years ago, three distant human relatives went for a stroll, blissfully unaware they were making history. By sheer chance, their footsteps became imprinted in volcanic ash and lasted for millions of years, providing modern scientists with the oldest unequivocal evidence of human ancestors walking on two feet. They’re known as the Laetoli […]

What came first, the chicken or the egg? If we’re talking about eggs in general, then the latter, but a new study of an ancient single-celled organism suggests the genetic tools to “create” eggs may have been about before animals were even a thing. The study, carried out by researchers at the University of Geneva, […]

It’s been the staple of various film or TV show plots, though some might remember it more specifically as being the devious plan of Dr Evil in the first Austin Powers movie: the world is held to ransom as a megalomaniac villain threatens to trigger volcanic eruptions by detonating a nuclear weapon either on top […]

Here at IFLScience, nothing thrills us more than when a colorful crustacean graces our inbox. Banana the Lobster will always hold a special place in our hearts, and we love the blue, bicolored, and cotton candy versions just as much – but today, it’s all about the crabs. Introducing Strawberry Claws, a new-to-science species of […]

In volcanic ocean vents off the coast of Italy, researchers have discovered a new strain of cyanobacteria that could pack a particularly effective punch when it comes to capturing carbon dioxide, one of the driving forces of climate change. The cyanobacterium, or alga, is officially known as UTEX 3222, but the team behind its discovery […]

The manipulation of tools is something widespread across the animal world. While most use them to aid in feeding behaviors, some can even craft their own tools to solve complex problems. New research on elephants has shown one individual to be particularly adept at tool use, even mastering it to have a shower. The individual […]

For a few months now, the mathematical world has been abuzz. Rumors abound of a new proof, monumental in length and virtually impenetrable even to the experts – and which, if correct, has the potential to reform the entire mathematical landscape from here on out. Now, as the dust settles around the nearly 1000 pages […]

This week on Break It Down: clues inside Pompeii victims’ casts reveal they’re not who we thought they were, the frogs of Chernobyl are doing just fine, cat physics and a crime of authorship, the North Atlantic is getting saltier and saltier, good news for double jabs, and a DNA scientist who picked up the […]

The summer of 1946 saw a lot of shocking scenes. There were the atomic bomb tests that tore up the waters off the Marshall Islands, leaving parts of the region more radioactive than Chernobyl. There were the bombs themselves, great hunks of metal that would demonstrate, for the first time, what this horrific technology could […]

America’s freshwater rivers and lakes are losing their secret weapon: freshwater mussels. As an invaluable part of nature’s clean-up crew, their absence could have a nasty knock-on effect on countless bodies of water across the US and beyond.  To highlight the importance of these shelled beings, the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) recently shared […]

For the first time ever, researchers have uncovered the mummified remains of a woolly rhinoceros with a big old hump on the back of its neck. Curiously absent in all other known specimens of the Ice Age megafauna, this fatty bulge attests to the remarkable accuracy of ancient cave paintings depicting rhinos with hunched backs. […]

The formation of planets is not completely understood, but it is believed that it is not just gravity pulling matter together. Magnetism in the protoplanetary disk, too, is seen as a player in the formation of small and large bodies. Meteorite samples agree with this idea for the inner Solar System, but we had no […]

In 1975, a paper was published in the prestigious journal Physical Review Letters that was co-authored by a cat. This wasn’t a joke, at least initially, but rather a response to one of the journal’s policies and the challenges of making changes before the days of word processing technology. The tale of F.D.C. Willard, feline […]

Astronomers have lost a star. This is not carelessness, but the possible discovery of a rare stellar event in the Andromeda galaxy. A red supergiant star got brighter and brighter,as if it was about to go supernova – and then dramatically dimmed, disappearing from view from most telescopes. Researchers believe they may have caught a […]

The Chief Executive Officer of COP29, Elnur Soltanov, has appeared to discuss investment opportunities in Azerbaijan’s oil and gas operations with a man posing as an investor in a secretly recorded video.  The filming, reported by the BBC, sinks the already low expectations many people had for meaningful actions against the climate crisis to be […]

Human evolution is complex and fascinating, but it is filled with various terms and names related to past humans and hominin species that can get quite confusing. One example of this is the famous Cro-Magnon people who lived in Europe around the time of the last Ice Age (c. 40,000 to 10,000 years ago). Although […]

The “world’s first ultra-realistic robot artist” has sold a portrait of Alan Turing – the codebreaking trailblazer of modern computer science – for over $1 million. The sale marks the first work of art by a humanoid robot to be sold at auction (although, technically, the money will go into the pockets of the robot’s […]

The police department in Yemassee, South Carolina, has warned locals to keep their windows and doors secure after 43 rhesus macaques escaped from a nearby research facility. “At approximately 1pm on Wednesday November 6, 2024, the Yemassee Police Department received an alert from Alpha Genesis regarding the escape of numerous Rhesus Macaque primates from their […]

When hairy mammals feel something on their back, they’ll pull out the “wet dog shakes”. If you’ve ever been within the splash zone of a dog just getting out of the pool, you’ll likely have been on the receiving end of its efficacy. We’ve all seen it, but the neural mechanisms underpinning the behavior have […]

Many grim-looking (and smelling) balls washed up on the beaches of Sydney, Australia in October. First believed to be balls of tar, further analysis and chemical tests have revealed them to be far more disgusting than that. Last month, eight beaches in Sydney, including the famous Bondi Beach, had to be closed in order to […]