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In 1964, The CIA Attached Microphones To Cats And Tried To Train Them To Eavesdrop On Their Enemies. It Didn't Quite Go To PlanAn illustration of a cat looking through a pair of binoculars. In 1964, The CIA Attached Microphones To Cats And Tried To Train Them To Eavesdrop On Their Enemies. It Didn't Quite Go To PlanAn illustration of a cat looking through a pair of binoculars.
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In 1964, The CIA Attached Microphones To Cats And Tried To Train Them To Eavesdrop On Their Enemies. It Didn't Quite Go To Plan

Can you train an animal to be a spy, and more to the point, should you? Holly Large investigates

clock-icon15 hours ago

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Have You Seen Claims Humans Didn’t Come From Africa? Here’s Why They’re WrongA evolutionary tree of humans using reconstructions of their skulls.
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Have You Seen Claims Humans Didn’t Come From Africa? Here’s Why They’re Wrong

clock-icon14 hours ago

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Saturn Will Show Off Its Famous Rings This Weekend. It’s The Best Time To See The Planet All YearA beautiful image of Saturn showing off the rings
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Saturn Will Show Off Its Famous Rings This Weekend. It’s The Best Time To See The Planet All Year

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Meet The Author: Dr Seven M. Rasmussen Explores The Search For Alien Life In Her New Book “Cloudy With A Chance Of Starships”

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A Fear Of Spiders Might Make Sense. But How Do People Develop A Phobia For Beards, Clowns Or Balloons?

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If You Want To Discover A Missing Black Hole In Our Galaxy, This Is Your Chance

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Trending

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A City On The Moon Would Last 100 Years At Best In Most Generous Scenario Of Water Availabilitya cartoon of a lunar city
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A City On The Moon Would Last 100 Years At Best In Most Generous Scenario Of Water Availability

And that’s before considering all the other requirements to sustain a human population!

clock-iconSeptember 14, 2026
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The Gen Z “Sex Recession” Is Real, Says New Survey. As Modern Life Inflates The Price Tag On Dating, Is Safety Falling By The Wayside?three cartoon condoms doing cute poses
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The Gen Z “Sex Recession” Is Real, Says New Survey. As Modern Life Inflates The Price Tag On Dating, Is Safety Falling By The Wayside?

Only 35 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds surveyed reported using condoms, and a third had never been tested for STIs.

clock-iconSeptember 23, 2026
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Meet Gary and Shaggy, The First Known Domestic Cats With Rare Marfan Syndrometwo ginger and white cats sitting on a table, the one on the left is a shorthair and the one on the right a longhair. They have both had their eyes removed.
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Meet Gary and Shaggy, The First Known Domestic Cats With Rare Marfan Syndrome

The brothers made waves in the world of feline genetics.

clock-icon4 days ago
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Wild African Elephants Found To Self-Medicate And Feed Their Calves Immunization SmoothiesAn elephant injured by a snare drags a log, possibly for its medicinal products. It was rescued by the East African Wildlife Society
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Wild African Elephants Found To Self-Medicate And Feed Their Calves Immunization Smoothies

Those famous memories come in useful when a member of the herd is sick.

clock-iconSeptember 26, 2026
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Latest

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The Oldest Non-Polar Ice In The World Has Been Frozen For At Least 128,000 Years, Long Before The Ice Age EndedFlags up a tibet china mountain
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The Oldest Non-Polar Ice In The World Has Been Frozen For At Least 128,000 Years, Long Before The Ice Age Ended

And it has an important story to tell.

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Gorgeous Time-Lapse Satellite Photos Record A Volcano Erupting For The First Time In Nearly 500 Years And Spilling Lava Across The LandscapeThe satellite image shows the two volcanoes elevated against the surrounding landscape. It is represented as a colour grade of dark tones to lighter oranges, depending on the surface being observed. The lightest areas are of the lava, which can bee seen flowing down from the middle of the image towards the bottom right and also to the top right where it is forming a pool.
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Gorgeous Time-Lapse Satellite Photos Record A Volcano Erupting For The First Time In Nearly 500 Years And Spilling Lava Across The Landscape

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Astronauts Just Set A New Record: The Fastest-Ever Trip To The ISS By An American SpacecraftThe rocket is in mid-air just above hte launch platform
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Astronauts Just Set A New Record: The Fastest-Ever Trip To The ISS By An American Spacecraft

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The Supercharged El Niño Is Having An Unusual Impact On Wildlife Across The WorldUnderwater view of scalloped hammerhead sharks swimming in the waters off Darwin Island, Galapagos Islands, Ecuador.
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The Supercharged El Niño Is Having An Unusual Impact On Wildlife Across The World

clock-iconYesterday
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Scientists Have Found A Weird Physical Sign That Someone Is Interested In You RomanticallyA man and a woman drinking hot drinks, on a date.
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Scientists Have Found A Weird Physical Sign That Someone Is Interested In You Romantically

clock-icon4 days ago
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An Old Paper Really Did Suggest A Mathematical "Doomsday" On 13 November 2026, But There's No Need To WorryThe date "November 13" on wood blocks, outside.
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An Old Paper Really Did Suggest A Mathematical "Doomsday" On 13 November 2026, But There's No Need To Worry

clock-icon5 days ago

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The Strange Idea That Language And Art Emerged Long Before Human Consciousness, Which Only Appeared In 2000 BCEThe ruins of Ancient Greece, at sunset.
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The Strange Idea That Language And Art Emerged Long Before Human Consciousness, Which Only Appeared In 2000 BCE

clock-iconSeptember 26, 2026
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First Human Burials Have Been Excavated At Göbekli Tepe, We’ve Breached 7 Of Earth’s 9 Planetary Boundaries, And Much More This WeekCreate an account to get TWIS delivered straight to your inbox.
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First Human Burials Have Been Excavated At Göbekli Tepe, We’ve Breached 7 Of Earth’s 9 Planetary Boundaries, And Much More This Week

clock-iconSeptember 26, 2026
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Health and Medicine

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A Human Gene Stolen By A Poxvirus Is Displaying Never-Before-Seen BehaviorA transmission electron microscopic image of three poxviruses.
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A Human Gene Stolen By A Poxvirus Is Displaying Never-Before-Seen Behavior

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Smelly Belly Buttons Could Suggest Whether People Have Parkinson’s DiseaseWoman cleaning her belly button with cotton swab , Cropped image, close up.
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Smelly Belly Buttons Could Suggest Whether People Have Parkinson’s Disease

clock-icon3 days ago

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Scientists Studied A Teenager With One Of The Rarest Memory Abilities Humans Can Have. Here’s What They Foundphoto album scrapbook with images, flowers, and washi tape
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Scientists Studied A Teenager With One Of The Rarest Memory Abilities Humans Can Have. Here’s What They Found

clock-icon5 days ago
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As RFK Jr. Opens Inquiry On Disputed Health Effects Of Cellphone Radiation, What Does Science Tell Us About Radiofrequency Emissions?tall cell tower emerging from a forest with mountains in the background
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As RFK Jr. Opens Inquiry On Disputed Health Effects Of Cellphone Radiation, What Does Science Tell Us About Radiofrequency Emissions?

clock-iconSeptember 25, 2026
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Nature

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Fossil Long Hailed As The "World’s Oldest Reptile" Turns Out Isn’t Actually Reptilian At AllThe species Westlothiana lizziae was considered the original lizard based on an external examination of the rocks that contain it, but X-rays reveal something different
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Fossil Long Hailed As The "World’s Oldest Reptile" Turns Out Isn’t Actually Reptilian At All

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Shark Spotted Prowling The Streets Of New Jersey During Nor’easter Floodingdorsal fin of great white shark, Carcharodon carcharias, False Bay, South Africa, Atlantic Ocean
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Shark Spotted Prowling The Streets Of New Jersey During Nor’easter Flooding

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Interactive Globe Shows Where You'd End Up If You Dug Straight Through The EarthThe ThroughEarth Shows Where You'd End Up If You Dug Straight Through The Earth
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Interactive Globe Shows Where You'd End Up If You Dug Straight Through The Earth

clock-icon2 days ago
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The World’s Smallest Crocodile Lives In A Cave, With Orange Skin So Thin You Can See Its Skeleton – Life In “AFRICA: Earth’s Wild Home”orange crocodile next to a grey-brown crocodile
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The World’s Smallest Crocodile Lives In A Cave, With Orange Skin So Thin You Can See Its Skeleton – Life In “AFRICA: Earth’s Wild Home”

clock-icon2 days ago
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Space and Physics

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JWST Teaches Us More About ‘Extreme Debris Disks’ – Young Planetary Systems Where Mars-Sized And Moon-Sized Worlds Collideartist impression show the collisions between two worlds amons a lot of debris
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JWST Teaches Us More About ‘Extreme Debris Disks’ – Young Planetary Systems Where Mars-Sized And Moon-Sized Worlds Collide

clock-icon2 days ago

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Neutron Star Collisions Might Be The Source Of Mysterious Cosmic X-Ray Flashesa bright dot among others is seen in this image
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Neutron Star Collisions Might Be The Source Of Mysterious Cosmic X-Ray Flashes

clock-icon2 days ago

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First Full Ultraviolet View Of Northern Lights Marks Early Success For European-Chinese MissionA square blue image, with a little over half of Earth taking up most of the image. Earth looks like how we see the Moon when it is waxing or waning at just over a half-Moon. Because this is an ultraviolet image, Earth does not appear in its usual colours, but is light blue with a white ring. This ring is about a third of the size of the face of Earth that we see, and is quite swirly, like clouds or dye being mixed with water. The background of the image is dark blue, with some tiny white dots: these are stars.
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First Full Ultraviolet View Of Northern Lights Marks Early Success For European-Chinese Mission

clock-icon2 days ago

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Gas Spotted Swirling Around Baby Exoplanet In First Image Of Its KindTwo images: one shows a protoplanetary disk with a gap and a cavity, and an inset zooming on the gap shows a planet with a wiggle. that's the swirling gas.
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Gas Spotted Swirling Around Baby Exoplanet In First Image Of Its Kind

clock-icon2 days ago
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Technology

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Researchers Let Grok And ChatGPT Drive A Real Car, And The Good News Is Nobody DiedA phone loaded with ChatGPT, held by a hand in a car.
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Researchers Let Grok And ChatGPT Drive A Real Car, And The Good News Is Nobody Died

clock-icon5 days ago

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Anthropic Says Its AI Has Discovered A CRISPR-Like Enzyme System – But The Company Isn't Yet Certain How It WorksAI identifies CRISPR-like enzyme system
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Anthropic Says Its AI Has Discovered A CRISPR-Like Enzyme System – But The Company Isn't Yet Certain How It Works

clock-iconSeptember 25, 2026

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How Useful Is A Quantum Computer? Now We Have A Benchmark To Assess Just Thata golden plate is showed with several group of delicate fiber optics going into it
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How Useful Is A Quantum Computer? Now We Have A Benchmark To Assess Just That

clock-iconSeptember 25, 2026

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iLands: The New Dystopian AI Farm That Is Filling Everyone's Inboxes With SpamAn email pitching a story for IFLScience via email.
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iLands: The New Dystopian AI Farm That Is Filling Everyone's Inboxes With Spam

clock-iconSeptember 17, 2026
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Culture and Society

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The Disaster At Pompeii, And The Writings Of Pliny, May Help Us Pinpoint When Other Ancient Catastrophes Took PlacePlaster casts of victims at Pompeii.
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The Disaster At Pompeii, And The Writings Of Pliny, May Help Us Pinpoint When Other Ancient Catastrophes Took Place

clock-icon2 days ago

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Monk Starts 12 Years Of Isolation At A Buddhist Temple: What Can Severe Isolation Do To The Human Mind?Snow falls on Enryaku-ji, the head temple of Tendai, located on Mount Hiei in otsu near Kyoto, Japan.
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Monk Starts 12 Years Of Isolation At A Buddhist Temple: What Can Severe Isolation Do To The Human Mind?

clock-icon3 days ago

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Does Your Blood Type Determine Personality? In Japan, An Old Theory Still Influences Life And LovePeople walking in front of a huge LED monitor screen at Shibuya Station in Tokyo, Japan.
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Does Your Blood Type Determine Personality? In Japan, An Old Theory Still Influences Life And Love

clock-icon4 days ago

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Creepy Study Challenged People To See Into Another Room Through An Out-Of-Body Experience. They Failed, But Then Something Really Weird Happenedillustration of someone leaving their body, a door is opening in the corner
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Creepy Study Challenged People To See Into Another Room Through An Out-Of-Body Experience. They Failed, But Then Something Really Weird Happened

clock-icon4 days ago
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Company and Product Insights

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How To Get More IFLScience: Add Us As A “Preferred Source" On GoogleA logo of IFLScience with a hand pointing towards it
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How To Get More IFLScience: Add Us As A “Preferred Source" On Google

clock-iconSeptember 3, 2025

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Unlocking The Future Together: Why IFLScience Is Launching A Membership Modelcollage of images related to science with "iflscience is evolving" written in the centre
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Unlocking The Future Together: Why IFLScience Is Launching A Membership Model

clock-iconJanuary 20, 2025
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Opening The Vault: Uncovering A World Of Strange And Intriguing ScienceAn image of the vault doors opening with a screenshot of the IFLScience Vault article.
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Opening The Vault: Uncovering A World Of Strange And Intriguing Science

clock-iconJanuary 20, 2025
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Features

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Smelly Belly Buttons Could Indicate Parkinson’s Disease, Monk Starts 12 Years Of Isolation At A Buddhist Temple, And Much More This WeekAll the biggest science news stories of the week.
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Smelly Belly Buttons Could Indicate Parkinson’s Disease, Monk Starts 12 Years Of Isolation At A Buddhist Temple, And Much More This Week

All the biggest science news stories of the week.

clock-icon16 hours ago

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A 1998 Study Asked A Man To Read A Number During An “Out-Of-Body Experience”. In A Freaky Turn Of Events, He Saw Something Else Entirelya man is lying on a bed looks like his ghost is leaving his body
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A 1998 Study Asked A Man To Read A Number During An “Out-Of-Body Experience”. In A Freaky Turn Of Events, He Saw Something Else Entirely

TL;DR don't plan secret visits from your husband when there's sleep lab research going on.

clock-iconYesterday
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Multimedia

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How We Remember: The Neuroscience of Memory Explainedblue brain image on a black background to the right of yellow text that reads How Does Memory Work?
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How We Remember: The Neuroscience of Memory Explained

clock-iconMay 1, 2026
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AI Consciousness Explained: Science vs Philosophya robot
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AI Consciousness Explained: Science vs Philosophy

clock-iconApril 24, 2026

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Unethical Experiments That Shook The WorldThe Tuskegee syphilis study
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Unethical Experiments That Shook The World

clock-iconApril 17, 2026