News

An ancient ornithological mystery is the subject of a new paper that looked at fossil tracks made by unknown ancient animals dating back as far as the Late Triassic. They are distinctly bird-like, which doesn’t sound too strange – until you take into account that, at 210 million years old, some of them predate the […]

NASA has revealed an incredible – and unusual – new view of Mars’s horizon, one that took three months to plan and execute, for our viewing pleasure. Astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) orbiting Earth often share mesmerizing views of Earth’s curvature, but this is what you would see if you were orbiting Mars. […]

“Earth is the cradle of humanity, but one cannot live in a cradle forever,” Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, one of the founding fathers of rocket science, once said. Since the late 1950s, humanity has taken the first shaky steps into the cosmos. This century, there have always been humans living in orbit, and we expect this will […]

A new study has shown for the first time how human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) binds to T cells. The finding could have implications for new therapies to combat this pernicious disease.  HIV remains a major global public health issue. Since its appearance in the 20th century, the disease has claimed 40.4 million lives and is […]

On Tuesday morning, biotech company Loyal announced that it had reached a key milestone in the path toward approval of its lifespan-extending drug for big dogs.  The announcement came after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Center for Veterinary Medicine confirmed that Loyal’s data (all 2,300 pages of it, according to CEO Celine Halioua) met […]

Humans have been nicking the deliciously sweet fruits of bees’ hard labour for centuries, with some types of honey touting medicinal benefits and even hallucinogenic effects – now it’s being marketed as an aphrodisiac too. But this isn’t just any honey, this is royal honey. What’s royal honey made of? Put simply, royal honey is […]

Last month, a study published in Archaeological Prospection garnered a lot of media attention (including from IFLScience) for its extraordinary claim that a mountain in Indonesia is actually the world’s oldest pyramid built by ancient humans. But reactions from archaeologists since have raised skepticism about its bold conclusions. According to the paper, the Gunung Padang […]

Our world is becoming increasingly salty and according to a new study, it’s all down to human activity. As a result of this saline shift, the chemistry of our rivers is being radically altered, impacting the quality of our water and affecting human health. The planet has a natural “salt cycle” in which geologic and […]

New Zealand’s kererū is a wonderfully round pigeon with beautiful, iridescent plumage, but it is a majestic bird with an unfortunate habit. You see, it has a tendency to get absolutely hammered. The boozy bird’s downfall is its penchant for fruit. Specifically, eating fruit and then sitting in the sun with a crop full of […]

In May 2020, in the Erg Chech region of the Sahara Desert in Algeria, scientists discovered several pieces of meteorite like no other we have found. Earth gets hit by meteorites fairly frequently, with thousands of pieces of space rock falling onto the planet every year, giving us an opportunity to study rock formation in […]

After living almost her entire life alone, Manila Zoo resident Mali the elephant, dubbed by animal welfare organizations as the “world’s saddest elephant”, has died. The cause of death was congestive heart failure, according to Manila Zoo Chief Veterinarian Heinrich Patrick Peña-Domingo. Speaking in a press briefing on Wednesday, November 29, he also noted a […]

We all love a long, hot soak in the tub to help relieve the stresses of the day. Unfortunately, it turns out the latest thing to add to that stress… might actually be the bath itself. That’s right: according to the internet (which is never wrong), taking a bath is bad for you. Can it […]

Ancient marine predators were some of the biggest animals the world’s ever seen, as well as the deadliest. While humans haven’t yet found evidence of an animal that was bigger than the extant blue whale, sea monsters of the Jurassic and Cretaceous ate prey significantly larger than krill, and we have the fossil teeth to […]

Antibiotics may represent the greatest achievement of modern medicine. Throughout the 20th century, this vital class of drug offered protection from previously lethal infections and transformed the therapeutic landscape.  However, the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria now threatens their supremacy and represents a critical healthcare challenge for the future. To understand how we can possibly fight […]

A Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft landed smoothly on an icy runway in a remote part of Antarctica earlier this month, earning the title of the largest plane to ever land on the airstrip near the Norwegian research station Troll. Commissioned by the Norwegian Polar Institute, the giant aircraft set off on its voyage from Cape […]

There are a lot of terrifying things you can find in space, from mysterious massive voids 250 to 330 million light-years across, to tiny droplets of water in your space suit which could very easily drown you. But the moniker of the “most terrifying space photo” is generally given to a photo of astronaut Bruce […]

This article first appeared in Issue 14 of our free digital magazine CURIOUS. Big or small, herbivorous or carnivorous, and whether they died of old age, disease, or predation, do we know what a lifespan looked like for dinosaurs? Advertisement We asked Professor Paul Barrett, head of fossil vertebrates at London’s Natural History Museum, and he […]

To whomever it was who first looked at a piece of bread and thought, “hell, let’s cook it again, see what happens,” we salute you. Toast is great: you can slather it with butter and jam, cover it in beans, dip it in eggs, or even make it into its own sandwich, all the while […]

Once upon a time, around 300,000 years ago, numerous human species roamed the Earth. They often crossed paths, intermingled, competed, and almost undoubtedly clashed. Ultimately, just one species prevailed: Homo sapiens.  Aside from the odd nuclear threat and global pandemic, this single species has been doing a pretty good job at remaining the planet’s apex […]

Delve into the comments of a video of a ginger cat acting a little (or very) silly, and you’re likely to find mentions of “orange cat behavior”, or one solitary orange cat brain cell being shared between them all. Although many of these comments are purely in jest, believe it or not, scientists have actually […]