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Dogs are not called our “best friends” for nothing. Apart from being our loving companions and protectors down the ages, many have impressive skills and talents. We’re all familiar with assistance dogs, like seeing eye dogs for those with visual impairments, but they are often specially bred and undergo years of training to learn their […]

A new 3D printed “metamaterial” that apparently has levels of strength for weight that appear to supersede those in nature and most of the manufacturing world has been created by a team from RMIT University, Australia. This new material could have significant implications for everything, from medical implants to aircraft to rockets. The new metamaterial […]

Futurists of the past used to imagine that breakthroughs in technology and science could create a utopian world fueled by boundless clean energy. Now, an artificial intelligence model from researchers at Princeton may have proven them right. Or at least, it’s gotten us a step closer.  Fusion – the nuclear reaction in which two or […]

A pilotless aircraft has recently taken to the skies above Antarctica in a test flight that could revolutionize the way scientific data is gathered on the world’s ice-covered continent.  Under the command of the British Antarctic Survey’s (BAS) Rothera Research Station, the Windracers ULTRA UAV is a fully autonomous plane with a 10-meter (32-feet) wingspan, […]

Issue 20 (March 2024) of CURIOUS is out now, bringing you science highlights for the month plus deep dives into intriguing topics, interviews, exclusives, diary dates, and explanations for some of Earth’s most perplexing natural phenomena and landscapes. In This Issue… Advertisement OUR COVER STORY: Does Technology Help Or Harm Grief? Find out how technology is changing […]

The California-based startup Varda Space Industries made history earlier this week after it successfully returned samples of a drug it made in orbit. After months of setbacks where the company’s in-space manufacturing capsule was held in orbit due to re-entry denial, the re-entry capsule safely touched down in the Utah desert on Wednesday, February 21. […]

It’s an idea that’s become so widespread as to be repeated as gospel – people who are good at math also tend to be good at music. Most of us know someone who fits the stereotype. Maybe it was a kid at school who got top marks in math class and could rattle off a […]

The first thing that pops into most people’s minds when they think of sharks is of big dumb fish with pointy teeth that are to be greatly feared. But as someone who spends their days studying these creatures, I know just how wrong that image is. For one thing, the diversity of sharks is astounding. […]

This week a tiny star only slightly bigger than Earth is the smallest ever discovered, a battery breakthrough could see electric cars travel 1,000 kilometers on one charge, and a 40,000-year-old glue suggests neanderthals were actually pretty smart. Finally, we question if math was discovered or invented. Subscribe to the IFLScience newsletter for all the […]

An organism’s genome is a set of DNA instructions needed for its development, function and reproduction. The genome of a present-day organism contains information from its journey on an evolutionary path that starts with the “first universal common ancestor” of all life on Earth and culminates with that organism. Encoded within itself, an organism’s genome […]

When you learn about fossils, you start seeing dates thrown about like “265 million years old” and “dating back to the Jurassic” like it’s no big deal. Fossils can be incredibly, inconceivably old, but how do they survive so long while animal bones decay in just a few years? It all comes down to the […]

In May 1945, Californian house painter Albert Stevens started his incredible run of bad luck, getting misdiagnosed with stomach cancer and being told he had six months to live. While a terrible thing to happen, his luck was going to get much worse. Across at the Manhattan Project the previous year, scientists had been getting […]

The possible benefits of omega-3 fatty acids have been studied for several health conditions, ranging from those affecting the brain like ADHD and Alzheimer’s, to dry eye disease, to arthritis. Though some have touted omega-3s in their various forms as the answer to these conditions, much of that research has had conflicting results. What are […]

Some inventions are so ubiquitous that it’s easy to forget someone had to come up with them in the first place. Take the decimal point, for example. There was a time when, if we wanted to write a number between zero and one, pretty much our only option was to use a fraction. At some […]

What scientists believe to be a Bronze Age lipstick with a deep red color – and possibly a hint of shimmer – has been discovered in Iran, suggesting that ancient Iranians may have been rouging their lips since the second millennium BCE. The lip paint was contained in a small, ornately decorated chlorite vial, which […]

Beyond the orbits of the eight planets in our Solar System, several distant objects make up the Kuiper Belt. The extent of this region has been estimated based on the discovery of such objects – but new observations are implying that it goes further out than previously thought. NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft visited the most […]

If you’re familiar with the Twitter game “flat fuck Friday”, then oh boy, do we have a treat for you. We present to you one of the flattest fellas around: the Asian giant softshell turtle (Pelochelys cantorii). And, with the help of local community knowledge, researchers have just discovered both its first-ever nesting female and […]

A post on X set the social platform ablaze recently as user @Kairo_Anatomika shared some fascinating insights into fat distribution among animals in desert environments. Beginning with the camel whose fat humps are famous, the second post in the thread delivered a sucker punch in the form of the round rear-ends of fat-tailed sheep. This […]

Sharks evolved around 450 million years ago, which means they’ve hitched a lift on planet Earth around the galaxy twice. If that’s not yet given you a fact-induced headache, it may tip you over to hear that it also means sharks were on Earth before trees, at a time when Saturn didn’t have rings yet. […]