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The family of Henrietta Lacks has launched a new lawsuit against two multi-billion-dollar pharmaceutical companies for using her genetic material without her consent.  Advertisement The living relatives of Lacks are suing Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation and Novartis Gene Therapies, Inc., as well as Viatris, Inc. and its subsidiary Mylan Pharmaceuticals, in the US District Court for […]

In the latest step in the fight against mosquito-borne disease, scientists have sent in the drones. Field trials have seen uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) flying over Fiji, dropping hundreds of mosquitoes infected with bacteria that stop them from spreading diseases like dengue among the human population. Advertisement Dengue is a viral disease that is spread […]

Attached to the International Space Station (ISS) is a state-of-the-art particle detector, tasked with searching for antimatter and dark matter, and performing precise measurements of the composition of cosmic rays. Advertisement The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS-02) has collected over 239,017,100,611 cosmic events in the decade it has been mounted to the ISS. Within this data […]

As the Earth warms, it could cross several so-called tipping points that would turn the effects of climate change from disastrous to catastrophic for most of the planet. Naturally, many scientists have put a lot of effort into trying to find out how close we are to these points, but a new study claims we […]

A beast that weighed in at around 3.5 tonnes once stomped across the grasslands of Eurasia, known as the Elasmotherium. It’s been coined the Siberian unicorn for the frankly outrageous horn atop its head, unsurprising as an ancient ancestor of the rhinoceros. Advertisement What is surprising is that this near-mythical beast may have walked the […]

There are multiple ways astronomers aim to look for aliens. One of them is to look for evidence of advanced technology. This takes a lot of forms, but one proposal that has been suggested many times is to find evidence of vast solar panel arrays on planets or around a star. New research argues that […]

The Egyptology world has had its feathers ruffled by a contentious new study that claims that a 4,500-year-old pyramid was built using jaw-droppingly sophisticated technology, including a spectacular “hydraulic elevator”. According to the authors, the mind-blowing system enabled enormous building blocks to be floated from the floor to the pyramid’s summit via a central shaft, […]

UNESCO has added 24 new and two expanded sites to its World Heritage List, ranging from areas with some of the earliest evidence of modern human behavior to regions rich in natural beauty and biodiversity. Keep reading to find out more about some of our favorites… Badain Jaran Desert – Towers of Sand and Lakes […]

Death Valley National Park, the hottest place on the planet, experienced its warmest month ever on record in July, reaching a sweltering 42.5°C (108.5°F) average 24-hour temperature. This beats the previous record of 42.3°C (108.1°F), set in 2018, the National Park Service (NPS) announced last week. Advertisement The record-breaking month also saw an average high […]

Do you enjoy tasks that make you think really hard? Be honest – you probably don’t. You might do them anyway, but we’d bet it’s not always a pleasant experience. A new meta-analysis has looked at many published studies and found that these feelings are not all in your head: exerting mental effort really can […]

Few natural phenomena catch our attention like volcanic eruptions. There is something staggeringly awe-inspiring about this primordial geological event. However, there is still much we do not know about them, especially when it comes to the behavior of magma before it emerges from the Earth. Advertisement In recent years, scientists have turned to so-called “crystal […]

Leaving streetlights on all night has an unexpected effect on the trees around them, causing them to sacrifice growth for better defense against insects. Advertisement Street lighting has many benefits, but there is a price to pay for the loss of darkness. It certainly interferes with our view of the stars, and animals are suffering. […]

An incoming rush of gold and copper mines in British Columbia could threaten to undermine some of the last wild salmon rivers left in the world, as well as the Indigenous peoples who have used the waterways for centuries.  Advertisement Dozens of mining companies are seeking permission from the government of British Columbia to develop […]

When thinking about the multitude of ways in which you could get murked by the creatures of the ocean, the first things that come to mind might be a shark attack, a jellyfish sting, or maybe even a blue-ringed octopus bite. But can you be betrayed by your own immune system instead? Advertisement “If I’m […]

There are 294,000 tags for #cheesepull on Instagram. Suffice to say, we as a species are hooked. Since we first started curdling cheese from animal milk, our methodology has come a long way from hard lumps of chalky cheddar to the oozy, gooey goodness that populates our explore feeds. So, why does melted cheese taste […]

Nothing makes the IFLScience team happier than an unusually colored lobster. From Banana to Bowie, these colorful rare crustaceans give us an extraordinary insight into both the colors its possible for a lobster to be, and the genetic mutations that cause these rare color morphs to happen. The latest lobster to join the gang is […]

One of the deadliest skin infections may have met its match as an exciting new family of compounds have shown unprecedented efficacy in clearing a fatal infection in mice. They target the gram-positive bacteria behind a flesh-eating disease known as necrotizing fasciitis that can be fatal in a matter of days. Advertisement Gram-positive bacteria are […]

With the Paris 2024 Olympics in full swing, people have a number of questions about sports you only really see every four years or so.  Advertisement While fencing has people asking why on Earth the competitors are attached to metal cables, people have been sharing old footage of an unusual boat race. While the racers […]

Japan has confirmed it has killed its first fin whale in over a decade. A male fin whale, measuring 19.6 meters (64 feet) long and weighing 55 tonnes, was recently caught off the coast of Iwate Prefecture by the whaling company Kyodo Senpaku, according to OceanCare. Advertisement The catch comes after a controversial decision in […]

The world’s climate is in crisis, and it is important to monitor potential tipping points: critical thresholds that, when breached, can lead to snowballing and potentially irreversible changes. As part of an attempt to understand how the ocean melts Antarctica’s ice shelves, researchers sent a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) called Ran underneath the Dotson ice […]