News

Archaeological evidence of shark attack victims is extremely rare, so when the story of a 3,000-year-old Japanese victim was published in 2021, it caught people’s attention. At the time, the victim was thought to be the oldest recorded case of a shark attack victim, but soon after the study was published, other researchers identified what […]

The world record for the widest female tongue has just been broken for the first time in 10 years. No need to adjust your display settings – you read that just right. Advertisement The proud owner of the gargantuan glossa is Texan Brittany Lacayo. Her tongue measures 7.9 centimeters (3.11 inches) at its widest point. […]

There are many sites across the world that have been called “gates of hell”. Some of these strange subterranean places were believed to be actual doorways to the underworld, while others have earned their name due to their impressive geology, volcanic activity, sheer inaccessibility, or other features. Here are some examples of famous so-called gates […]

Jellyfish-like spurts of electricity recently lit up the sky over Puerto Rico in a rare natural event scarcely ever caught on camera. Known as “gigantic jets” or “giant sprites”, the electrical discharges are similar to so-called “red sprites” – although they are even more intense and rise upwards into the atmosphere, rather than zapping down […]

As the Sun spits out more and bigger storms, videos of flares emerging from its surface help us see its power. Watching these, it usually looks like they peter out a few solar diameters away, but the truth is very different. Although the particles that accompany smaller flares can fall back as the powerful solar […]

Interest in cosmetics, supplements, and diet plans that seek to stay the inevitable hand of time has arguably never been greater – but if you’re planning to try and slow down the aging process, it’s useful to know what baseline you’re starting from. There’s a tool that promises to help you do just that, providing […]

This week on Break It Down: two new victims discovered at the site of Pompeii tell a vivid story, Stonehenge’s altar stone reveals a surprising point of origin, plans to terraform Mars with “glitter”, ancient environments exposed in a kilometer-long Earth sausage, we may know where the dinosaur-killing asteroid came from, and a brief history […]

A “giant mercury bomb” is ticking in the Arctic. As the world warms with climate change, mercury that’s been stored in the permafrost for thousands of years threatens to be set free into the environment, potentially wreaking havoc on wildlife and human life.  Advertisement In a new study, scientists measured how much mercury could potentially […]

Sweden has confirmed its first case of the clade I strain of mpox, the first case to be diagnosed outside of Africa. The news comes after the World Health Organization (WHO) announced on Wednesday that the situation has been deemed a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). Advertisement According to a statement from the […]

Ever think of a bug getting old? No? Us neither – but it turns out that when it comes to invertebrates, there are some surprisingly long lifespans on the records. When perusing the insect collections at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, there was one that really caught our eye: a beetle that can […]

A colossal solar storm that erupted in April last year completely obliterated part of the Earth’s magnetic field, morphing the planet’s magnetosphere and causing it to grow “wings”. As a result of this spectacular rare event, a two-way highway between the Sun and Earth temporarily opened up, sending charged particles in both directions and sparking […]

What if there was a megatsunami and nobody noticed? It almost happened last year, when a rockslide occurred halfway up Greenland’s east coast. The wave produced was initially 200 meters (650 feet) high, yet they got very little coverage – we must confess, IFLScience missed it as well. In our defense, no one was hurt […]

A physicist has suggested a pretty “out there” idea, attempting to explain a double mystery of where all the antimatter went, and why the universe’s expansion is accelerating. Advertisement Antimatter is made up of antiparticles, and every particle is thought to have an antimatter companion with the opposite charge. For example, an electron has a […]

NASA’s planetary defense telescope Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) has sent back its final image, ending 10 years of searching for and monitoring potential threats to Earth. Advertisement NEOWISE began its mission as plain old WISE in December 2009, when it was launched to scan the entire sky in infrared. It completed this […]

Some species in the animal world are known for their sleeping habits. From sloths snoozing in the trees to octopuses dreaming, what these animals get up to at bedtime is a source of fascination. Sharks, however, probably don’t feature very highly on the list of interesting sleepers – but they have just made a pretty […]

Astronomers have announced new evidence on a bit of a controversial topic in the field: the number of bright galaxies that existed in the early universe, specifically within the first 600 million years following the Big Bang. Hubble had shown that the number was higher than expected but ground observations disagreed with this assessment. Now, […]

Humans have drilled a record-breaking 1,268 meters (4,160 feet) into Earth’s mantle, gifting scientists with an extraordinary glimpse into the planet’s deep geology – and possibly the origins of life. The drill hole was made in a volcanically active region of the mid-Atlantic ridge located along the floor of the Atlantic Ocean. Advertisement The mantle […]

From the edges of the Arctic to the hottest deserts, humans have eked out survival – flourished, even – in pretty much every corner of the globe. Mapping out exactly how that happened, however, is an ambition that has long evaded researchers – particularly those studying the history of human dispersals across the Pacific Ocean. […]

The minerals left behind when the Chicxulub Crater was created, ending the Cretaceous Era and the dinosaurs’ reign, indicate it was an asteroid, not a comet. However, the same analysis indicates it came from the outer Solar System, rather than the main asteroid belt, knowledge that is useful, if disheartening, in trying to prevent the […]

A patient with ALS has been given his voice back thanks to a revolutionary brain-computer interface (BCI) that can decode his intended speech with about 97 percent accuracy – and with its inbuilt AI technology, it reads that speech aloud in his actual voice. Advertisement Casey Harrell, a 45-year-old man with ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, […]