News

Chickens might be the most universal animals in the world. Whether you’re keeping your feathered friends in the backyard, enjoying them as part of a Kentucky fried banquet, or simply enjoying sharing the planet with an animal that has a breed with all-black bones, chickens are both useful and fun. But how long do they […]

Batteries have allowed so many technological advances. It is likely that you are reading this on a battery-powered device. But did you know that batteries are a bit like Goldilocks? No, they do not commit housebreaking or harass a family of bears, but they certainly prefer conditions to be not too hot and not too […]

As adults, we know death is a part of life; but for children, learning about it often comes down to your first brush with loss, be that a pet or parent. Is there a better way to prepare children for grief than waiting for a death to happen? New research suggests so, proposing that all […]

In the bird-eat-bug world of Australia’s rainforests, a slightly better chance of survival is given to those who act tough or stay hidden. Alternatively, some opt to look so gross that even starving predators aren’t tempted to risk eating them. A brilliant example of this latter tactic has recently been found in the form of […]

If you’re looking for something wholesomely bonkers to learn about today, look no further than the fish doorbell. Now back for the fourth year in a row, this internet sensation might end up with you accidentally wasting your lunch break, but hopefully, you’ll feel less bad about that when you discover how you’ll be helping […]

On Monday April 8, the Great American Eclipse will grace a large strip of North America, providing sky-gawking observers with the last total solar eclipse in the contiguous US and Canada until 2044. If you’re gearing up to enjoy this spectacle, be wary that there is still one uncontrollable hurdle to overcome: cloudy weather.  Oddly […]

A man fitted with a Neuralink brain implant participated in a livestream on X (formerly known as Twitter) yesterday, using the device to play a game of chess online. In May 2023, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) controversially gave permission for Neuralink to trial the company’s device in humans, following trials in monkeys, […]

Stepping in poop, eating rotten food, standing downwind from a garbage truck: we’ve all been there, and it seems the disgusting memories stay with us with good reason. Research has shown how disgusting experiences are remembered with more details about smells, tastes, and touches compared to scary or morally questionable ones.  While unpleasant on the […]

An early amphibian has been named after the greatest living (sort of) frog: Kermit. The species, given the scientific title Kermitops gratus, preceded true frogs and is considered by the scientists who described it as a proto-amphibian important to the development of this important animal order. K. gratus was described from a fossil skull held […]

With the release of Netflix’s 3 Body Problem, based on the acclaimed novel series by Liu Cixin, we have seen many people ask what exactly the three-body problem is. So join us on a trip into physics and math that started at the very beginning of modern science and continues to vex scientists and thinkers […]

The eruption of the Toba supervolcano is thought to have been the largest in our species’ existence. Inevitably, it changed the climate of the planet for a period. Findings from Ethiopia have now led some anthropologists to think Toba could also be key to one of the great mysteries of human evolution: what caused our […]

Human composting has joined burial and cremation as one of the ways in which we can now dispose of our dead, taking a corpse and turning it into the black gold known as compost. It doesn’t require fuel, returns us to the nutrient cycle, and produces comparatively little in the way of emissions. So, is […]

Getting astronauts into space requires an incredible amount of fuel. The Saturn V rocket that launched the Apollo missions into space, for instance, carried 770,000 liters (203,400 gallons) of kerosene fuel, as well as liquid oxygen to allow combustion to take place. Scientists have dreamed of alternative methods of escaping our atmosphere, including concepts such […]

If you want to perform surgery on the brain, first you need to get access to it. That means cutting through the protective membranes that surround it and keep all that watery stuff inside where it belongs. But how do you seal the membrane back up again? Scientists think they may have a solution that […]

A 16th-century “vampire” who was buried with a stone brick in her mouth has been resurrected thanks to the work of a facial reconstruction expert. Discovered in a mass grave for plague victims, the long-dead woman may have been suspected of spreading the disease through her bloodthirst, hence the need to bung up her evil […]

Behold, the rarest fish in the world! The red handfish, Thymichthys politus, is known from just two small patches of reef off the coast of Tasmania, thought to be home to around 100 adults. Habitat degradation and climate change have threatened them with extinction, but thanks to a breeding program, they welcomed 21 hatchlings in […]

Diamonds are famous as the hardest substances in existence, a status that has recently met with some challenge. In theory, a variation in the way carbon atoms are arranged should make for something harder still, but so far no one has achieved the pressures required to make a so-called “super diamond”. That could be about […]

Galaxies grow by snagging material from intergalactic space as well as just gobbling up other galaxies. We see that happening in the universe and we know that it must have happened in the past with our own galaxy, the Milky Way. Thanks to the Gaia observatory, astronomers have now found two of the oldest mergers […]

The journal Archaeological Prospection has retracted a controversial study which claimed that humans had begun constructing a “pyramid” in Indonesia as far back as 25,000 years ago. In November 2023, the study garnered a lot of media attention (including from IFLScience) for its extraordinary claim that a mountain in Indonesia is actually the world’s oldest […]

The next few decades will see a dramatic drop in the number of children being born in most parts of the world, sparking a “staggering social change” to the planet.  The slump in fertility rates will be so profound that over three-quarters of countries will not be able to sustain their population size by 2050. […]