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IFLScience’s e-magazine CURIOUS Issue 3 is out now, bringing you more science highlights for the month ahead plus deep dives into intriguing topics, diary dates for events not to miss, and explanations for some of Earth’s most perplexing natural phenomena and landscapes. CURIOUS is the perfect read if you’re after a more relaxed form of […]

A virtual autopsy on a uniquely preserved body of a Renaissance-era aristocratic child has revealed a glimpse into a short life that, while privileged, was far from perfect.  For most of human history, chances of making it to adulthood were, at best, basically evens. There are a lot of reasons for that (most boiling down […]

Once every thousand years or so carbon-14 production high in the atmosphere surges spectacularly creating potentially devastating radiation storms. Astronomers have theories about what could cause this, but the most comprehensive study of these events yet appears to rule all the likely ones out, leaving the cause more mysterious than ever. High energy particles hitting […]

Pregnant people exposed to certain air pollutants are significantly more likely to give birth to lighter babies, a new study has found. The pollutants are PM2.5 and PM10 (terms referring to the miniature, incredibly inhalable size of the particles) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) – and the higher the levels of pollution, the stronger the link. One time in […]

Experts say don’t get rid of those fallen leaves on your lawn this time of year, as if you remove them you will be missing out on lots of free vitamins for your soil. Leaves are full of important nutrients including nitrogen, carbon, phosphorus, and potassium. This natural fertilizer is great for your lawn and […]

A group of geologists investigating early Earth have killed two birds with (literally) one stone. Studying rocks in the Pilbara Craton in Western Australia – one of the oldest and most stable pieces of the Earth’s crust – they found the earliest evidence of a rapidly moving crust, a hallmark of plate tectonics. And that’s […]

For about half of us who kept up with our COVID-19 vaccinations over the past couple years, the jabs came with no significant side effects whatsoever. The rest of us, though, could expect to experience anything from a sore arm and head to – in albeit extremely rare cases – anaphylactic shock. Which group you […]

The cause of a puzzling sonar “blip” that has gone unidentified for 26 years has finally been solved. First noticed in 1998 by Titanic diver PH Nargeolet, the blip was seen neighboring the Titanic wreck 2,900 meters (9,514 feet) deep in the North Atlantic Ocean. First suspected to be a second shipwreck, OceanGate’s 2022 Titanic […]

The Earth’s magnetic field is not constant. The flips where it suddenly reverses direction are a crucial tool in dating geological events. Now, some researchers claim they can use even brief changes in the field’s strength to precisely date the destruction of cities, and then use these dates to test Biblical accounts. The second book […]

For the first time ever, a pair of common respiratory viruses have been observed fusing to form a hybrid virus. According to new research, influenza A and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) can combine (in human lung cells at least) to create not one but two never-before-seen hybrid viruses with the potential to evade the immune system. […]

New vocal recordings have revealed that 53 species previously thought to be non-vocal do in fact make sounds. The noisemakers include wiggly caecilians, turtles, and fish. The fact they make their own sounds shows that acoustic communication could have first emerged in a shared ancestor around 407 million years ago. As mouthy vertebrates, humans can […]

Less than 6 percent of plastic household waste in the US was recycled last year, according to Greenpeace USA. In their new report released this week, the environmental NGO even argues that plastic recycling is a “myth” used by big oil, industry groups, and major corporations – Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Nestlé, Unilever, and the like – […]

Cats may be the masters of indifference, but new research suggests that they are in fact fully aware when they are being directly addressed by their human. The fact the aloof floofs don’t always react may reflect a personal choice to ignore us rather than an inability to recognize that they are being spoken to. […]

Grassroots conservationist and programme coordinator for the Ujamaa Community Resource Team (UCRT), Dismas Partalala Ole Meitaya, joins a select and prestigious few names in the running for the 10th Tusk Award for Conservation in Africa. Indigenous communities are at the forefront of his work, which has been instrumental in securing land rights for the local […]

Swearing was long dismissed as a topic of serious research because it was assumed to be simply a sign of aggression, weak language proficiency or even low intelligence. We now have quite a lot of evidence that challenges this view, prompting us to reconsider the nature – and power – of swearing. Whether we are […]

One of the most important qualities for a young person to develop is resilience. This involves their ability to overcome adversity. Resilience is perhaps more important now than ever. Today’s young people have been facing adversity on a mass-scale, thanks to COVID and all the disruptions to their education and social, home and working lives. […]

Fuelled by climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic, the threat of pathogenic fungi is on the rise. Despite the growing risk, the world spends a minuscule amount of money on fungal disease research funding compared to bacterial, parasitic, or viral diseases. The World Health Organization (WHO) says that needs to change, publishing its first-ever list […]

The study of exoplanets, worlds which orbit stars other than our sun, is currently being transformed by the new James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). We will shortly gain our first insight into conditions on rocky, potentially Earth-like worlds beyond our solar system. One of these distant worlds might host life. But could we detect it? […]

When stars with a mass between 10 and 25 times that of the Sun go supernova, they leave behind a neutron star: an object so dense that a teaspoon of its material weighs like a mountain. Astronomers report new measurements of HESS J1731-347, a record-breaking neutron star. With an estimated mass of just 0.77 times […]