IFLScience - We Have Questions

What Do Other Worlds Smell Like?

IFLScience visited the Space: Could Life Exist Beyond Earth exhibition at the Natural History Museum, London, recently and we were curious to come across opportunities to take in the scents of asteroid Bennu, Mars, and even Saturn’s moon Titan. We understand that space smells, in an abstract way, we’ve even covered it before, but being able to get an actual whiff sparked many questions. Who created these smells, based on what, and how?  

Enter Marina Barcenilla, astrobiologist and fragrance designer – and now major exhibition contributor – with her own artisan perfumery AromAtom, where she uses chemistry to create the smells of cosmic environments from the surfaces of planets to distant nebulae. So, we asked Barcenilla: How does one become a perfumer for the stars? 

How Can Swimming For 37 Hours Help Tackle Ocean Plastic?

In 2022, a new world record was set in the waters off Grand Cayman in the western Caribbean Sea. I, a once avid collector of the Guinness World Records annual album, was most excited by the prospect, but ask environmentalist Oly Rush about it, and he’d sooner talk to you about plastic. 

You see, this wasn’t just any swim. This was a 36-hour-and-59-minute test of endurance to raise awareness of one of the greatest plights currently threatening marine species. The Grand Swim, as it would become known in a subsequent documentary about the grueling achievement, details what led Rush and Project Planet Earth to embark on such a perilous adventure. We, however, needed more deets on what wildlife you faceplant along the way. 

You can listen to this episode and subscribe to the podcast on all your favorite podcast apps: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Podbean, Amazon Music, and more. 

This interview first appeared in Issue 37 of our digital magazine CURIOUS.

How Did Frogs Become A Pregnancy Test For Humans?

People were finding out they were pregnant via frogs until the 1960s.

We all know that many of the tools in human life have been inspired by nature’s creations, but how often do you stop and really think about where these products come from? A new gallery at the Natural History Museum (NHM) in London is encouraging visitors to think more about their impact on the planet, as well as showcasing the inspiring work that demonstrates that however doom and gloom the news might be, hope is not lost.

Among its many intriguing displays, we stumbled upon something curious: a frog pregnancy test. We had questions and needed to know more about this item, and we were surprised to find these frogs had a lot to say about women’s access to healthcare in the not-so-distant past. Here’s what we learned from Dr Isabel Davis, Research Leader in Collections and Culture at the NHM.

This interview first appeared in Issue 36 of our digital magazine CURIOUS.

Can Sheep Livers Predict The Future?

Is it possible to predict the future by slicing open a farm animal and peering inside its liver? Scientists of the 21st century would surely be skeptical about approaching this question, but for the curious minds of ancient times, it was a tried and tested method for looking ahead and foreseeing what the gods had in store for you, your family, or your world.

 

Known today as liver divination, this mysterious art was mastered by the ancient Assyrians and Babylonians, two mighty civilizations that flourished in Mesopotamia and carved their names into the bedrock of history. 

 

We spoke to Dr Selena Wisnom, author of The Library of Ancient Wisdom: Mesopotamia and the Making of History, who believes liver divination is a surprisingly insightful window into this world and the emergence of science. After all, it did manage to predict the election of Trump…

 

Burying Scientists Alive in the Snow

Polar Bears International (PBI) is serious about protecting bears, and in the pursuit of reliable data have gone to some extremes in the past. From burying scientists alive out in the snow to novel collar-camera setups that have enabled them to predict when polar bear moms and their new cubs are going to emerge from their dens.

In an era of “drill, baby, drill,” now is a tougher time for polar bears than ever before. An essential step towards getting them the protection they require centers around demystifying their denning habits and what young bears need to survive, so we caught up with Dr Louise Archer, PBI’s Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Toronto Scarborough, to find out what she’s been working on with a team in Svalbard, Norway.

Can Transplants Change Your Personality?

There’s a strange phenomenon reported among some recipients of organ transplants whereby people report altered memories, tastes, and personality changes. A particularly curious example included a woman who, having never much liked chicken nuggets, found herself compelled to eat them after receiving an organ from a man who had nuggets on his person when he died.

Similarly perplexing changes in taste have also been reported among the recipients of bone marrow transplants, from loving gherkins to switching from white to red wine. This is something the UK-based stem cell charity Anthony Nolan knows a thing or two about. We spoke to their senior medical officer Dr Tania Dexter to find out more about what these transplants entail, how they've changed people, and why we think it happens.

This interview previously featured in the March 2025 issue of CURIOUS, IFLScience's e-magazine. Check out the full issue to explore: Can We Really Trust Our Memories? Is Robotic Surgery The Future? And The Floating Mountains Of Zhangjiajie.

https://www.iflscience.com/can-we-really-trust-our-memories-find-out-more-in-issue-32-of-curious-out-now-78264

Do Humans Have Pheromones?

Humans smell, there’s no denying it, but are some of those smells sending out chemical signals we aren’t consciously aware of? Are we, like ants, giving off pheromones? 

 

We spoke to Dr Tristram Wyatt, Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Biology at the University of Oxford, to find out.

 

Why Are Yawns Contagious?

It’s perhaps one of the greatest injustices of human bodily functions that the yawn has become so stigmatized in social settings. Crack one out and you’ll likely receive accusations of being bored or rude. It seems ironic, really, because the science of yawning tells us that, if anything, it’s a sign you’re trying harder to pay attention.

That’s what we discovered when we sat down with Dr Andrew Gallup, Teaching Professor of Behavioral Biology at Johns Hopkins University and a bit of an expert in yawning. We wanted to find out why this open-mouthed action seems to be so incredibly catching, and discovered along the way that there’s a hell of a lot going on when we yawn.