News

From the moment we’re born, we have this strange idea in our brains governing how we think about math. You almost certainly do it yourself: it’s the concept that smaller numbers go on the left, and larger ones on the right. It’s such a ubiquitous concept that only a handful of societies are known to […]

Whether your love of dogs has had you yearning for your very own pup or thinking of entering the field of dog trainer extraordinaire, you still need to have some essential skills to ensure your pup’s success. There are a lot of dog training programs out there, but normally they cover the basics and forgo […]

Are we alone in the universe? This is a question that has intrigued humans for centuries and inspired countless studies and works of fiction. But are we getting closer to finding this out? Now that the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is in operation, we might have taken one giant leap in being able to […]

There’s a certain type of person out there who, whenever they hear some expert come out against beating up children or point out that children’s wellbeing is important to their future development, will reply like this:  “Nonsense! The only time I ever saw my parents was when they came to smack me in the face […]

Newly-discovered medieval court documents suggest that “father of English literature” Geoffrey Chaucer likely did not commit a crime often attributed to him.  For years it has been debated what took place between Chaucer, author of The Canterbury Tales, and Cecily Chaumpaigne, the daughter of a London baker. The debate centered around medieval administrative records known […]

As the COVID-19 pandemic gears up for winter, hospitals in the UK have seen a spike in cases and COVID-related deaths in recent weeks. Tweets from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show how the spike compares to historic outbreaks and indicate that cases are climbing sharply as colder weather settles in the region. With […]

A TikTokker who discovered a strange and mysterious “sea creature” later learned from biologists that she was in fact dealing with a bog-standard whale penis. TikTokker @bootscootinaf found the strange, long, fleshy object the size of her leg in the crystal-clear waters of North Queensland, Australia.  Advertisement The clip shows the “animal part” in all […]

People who use chemical hair straighteners are at an increased risk of uterine cancer, according to a new study from researchers at the National Institutes of Health. The results are particularly concerning for Black women, the authors note, due to their higher and more long-term use of such products. “To our knowledge this is the […]

The world’s oceans are in “imminent danger” of losing the ability to support life and can only be saved by a radical reshaping of our relationship with the sea, according to the authors of a new study. Specifically, the researchers call for the implementation of a legal framework called “Earth law”, which recognizes that ecosystems […]

A video is circulating on Twitter with claims that the animal shown is 80 million years old – while this is obviously not true, let’s give them the benefit of the doubt as to how they reached this conclusion.  The video is from 2007 and was filmed at Awashima Marine Park In Japan. It’s racked up […]

A clinical psychologist has shared four signs your relationship is going to last. The couples therapist Dr Kathy Nickerson gave out the advice to her followers on TikTok. “Number one: It’s easy,” Nickerson begins the video. “It feels easy most of the time. It’s not a struggle, there’s not tonnes of drama, it’s not super […]

Mosquitos seem to have a taste for some humans but not others. Sit outside for drinks come sunset and some people will end up polka-dot-skinned while others walk away scot-free. Exactly why this happens has been a subject of debate, with blood type, genes and sweat being touted as drivers. New research suggests that the […]

Navigating your way down the cliff of a mountain can be anxiety-inducing stuff with the slightest misstep having the potential to send you tumbling. You can imagine one climber’s dismay, then, when while descending a mountain in Japan earlier this month, they crossed paths with a very angry bear. Footage that really gets your heart […]

If you drink, you’re likely familiar with the ever-growing urge to urinate while getting tipsy. Your friends may drunkenly exclaim that you’re “breaking the seal” upon your first bathroom trip – but your bladder, of course, doesn’t have an actual “seal” that’s broken by your first pee of the night. So what’s actually going on […]

Almost two decades ago, the Concorde landed for the last time and ended supersonic commercial flight. Perhaps the greatest barrier that kept the Concorde from spearheading the next generation of airliners was the sonic boom created when a plane breaks the sound barrier – it turns out residential areas aren’t happy with thunderous booms that […]

A lot of the time it seems like the general public is unaware of how scientists spend their average day. This is particularly evident when it comes to stock photographers, with some particularly hilarious results. Dr Kit Chapman of Falmouth University began a competition for the worst scientific stock photos ever last week, which went […]

A few recent viral Internet posts have claimed that the “52 hertz whale”, sometimes billed as the world’s loneliest whale, has finally found a friend. But is there any truth to it? What is the 52 hertz whale?  For those uninitiated in the tale of the 52 hertz whale, in 1989 a team from the […]

At IFLScience we love a good shipwreck, but while these fallen vessels can act like artificial reefs for a host of marine species (they went mad for Shackleton’s Endurance), new research has uncovered the negative impact they can have on the environment. A World War II (WWII) German shipwreck that has sat on the seabed […]