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Mad cow disease – or Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) – has made a rare appearance in the US, although the detection of the condition in a single cow in South Carolina does not pose any danger to people. According to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), the animal was identified and isolated before it had […]

A medical case report documents the time a man drank a big bottle of NOS Octane Booster, believing it to be an energy drink. The 54-year-old man showed up at the emergency department in Washington, Seattle, after experiencing seizures and a state of agitation. Usually the onset of seizures would require a bit of investigation, […]

The Statue of Unity is the tallest statue in the world, towering so high that the Statue of Liberty’s outstretched arm barely reaches its belly. Standing at 182 meters (597 feet) tall, the giant statue can be found gazing over the Narmada River near the town of Kevadia in Gujarat, India. It depicts Vallabhbhai Patel, […]

If you own a telescope, now might be a really good time to take a look at a famous galaxy in Ursa Major. If you don’t, but know someone who does, see if they’ll let you take a look – it’s not often you get to watch a giant star explode before your eyes and […]

An eating disorder awareness group is raising awareness of artificial intelligence (AI) image-generators and how they propagate unrealistic standards of beauty like the data on the Internet they were trained on. The Bulimia Project asked image generators Dall-E 2, Stable Diffusion, and Midjourney to create the perfect female body specifically according to social media in […]

This week, we explore the gravity anomaly at Hudson Bay, Canada, find out the estimate for the maximum number of T. rexes to ever walk the Earth, and investigate whether you can actually sniff out an oncoming downpour. Subscribe to the IFLScience newsletter for all the biggest science news delivered straight to your inbox every Wednesday […]

The flood story you may be most familiar with is probably Noah’s Ark, but it’s far from the only tale of a great flood sent by a god to destroy a civilization. There are eight basic plots in storytelling, not seven: Overcoming the monster, rags to riches, the quest, voyage and return, comedy, tragedy, rebirth […]

When can you really consider yourself to have an “adult” brain? People often claim that the brain is fully cooked at the age of 25, making us more rational but also harder to change – but in reality, things are a lot more complex. Does the brain stop developing at 25? The short answer: No. […]

A likely detection has been made of gravitational waves from a long-sought event: a black hole consuming a neutron star, and telescopes worldwide are hoping to confirm it. The signal was picked up by LIGO during an engineering run, and the circular alerting astronomers acknowledges uncertainty remains. Nevertheless, there is a better than even chance […]

While the iconic “crime scene – do not cross” tape may be a familiar sight on land, it’s a different story when it comes to water. With no way to tape off an entire lake or a slice of the vast expanse of the ocean, investigations in, under or beside the water present a unique […]

The undead don’t usually participate in clinical studies, although three supposed zombies once agreed to have their brain activity measured by researchers in Haiti. Like an episode of Scooby Doo, the investigation was launched in an attempt to uncover the identity of the spooky trio, each of whom had been recognized by locals as long-deceased […]

From the iconic Brandenburg Gate to the tranquility of the Tiergarten, modern-day Berlin is certainly not short of attractions. Germany’s capital is also peppered with clues to a tumultuous and sometimes troubled past. During one of its darkest episodes, as the Nazis rose to power and the world hurtled towards global conflict once more, Adolf […]

Keep an eye on an octopus taking a nap and you might catch their skin flashing between a sallow white tone and a vibrant color. Amazingly, scientists believe this is evidence of dreaming. While you might expect octopuses to dream happy thoughts of chasing shrimp, it appears that not all their dreams are pleasant – […]

Prehistoric Planet is back for a second season on Apple TV+ as narrator David Attenborough and producers Jon Favreau, Mike Gunton, and Tim Walker take you back in time to enjoy life as it was 66 million years ago. Our jaunt through the Cretaceous will take place as a five-day viewing event that showcases dinosaurs, […]

Blue Origin is the second private company to receive a contract to develop a lunar lander for NASA. After SpaceX, it’s Bezos’ company that will be ferrying the Artemis astronauts from Lunar orbit to the surface of the Moon and back. The goal is to have this new landing system ready and tested for Artemis […]

Fossil records suggest that ancient humans usually had straight teeth and wisdom teeth. Today, between 25-50 percent of people require some kind of orthodontic intervention. So, what happened? It appears humans having crooked teeth is a relatively recent development. Dentistry isn’t cheap, so where did it go wrong for us?  Advertisement Credit: TED-Ed Deborah BloomfieldSource […]

There’s a centuries-old myth that whoever owns the Hope Diamond will inevitably fall into misfortune. Taking a quick look at a few of its ill-fated owners, it’s easy to see how this tall tale came about.  The Hope Diamond is a 45.52-carat diamond, measuring around 25.60 millimeters by 21.78 millimeters by 12 millimeters (1 inch […]

Time shapes our lives and we can’t avoid it. We are influenced – and stressed out – by clocks and alarms, and even if we were to get rid of our tech and go back to nature we’d be at the mercy of the rotation of our planet on its axis and around the Sun. […]

The world is full of human-made wonders, and to take them all in would probably require way more free time and money than most of us have at our disposal. But if you’re OK with seeing a fast-track, kinda mockbuster version of humanity’s greatest accomplishments, you could do worse than a trip to England: sure, […]

Despite their popularity within certain fantasy games or among some new age Pagan movements today, there is much we do not know about the Druids, an ancient social class often associated with mysticism and magic. That is because we have little contemporary evidence relating to them, which has enabled subsequent generations to imagine and add […]