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Articles by Katie Spalding
Ghost Hunters Are Embracing AI In Surprising Ways, And It’s Changing The Face Of Paranormal Investigation
In early 2026, Peggy Hodgson was vindicated. At least, that’s what various paranormal enthusiasts were claiming. Her story, originally told 50 years earlier, was a famous one: her house, she swore, was haunted by a poltergeist, capable of moving furniture, knocking on the walls, and even possessing her young daughters. That fame, however, quickly turned to infamy.
What Counts As An Ultra-Processed Food? It's A Surprisingly Tricky Question – And It May Not Even Be The Right One To Ask
At least, according to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. And in January 2025, during his Senate confirmation hearing to be appointed head of the US Department of Health and Human Services, he said as much: “chemically processed foods […] are truly making us sick,” he argued.
The US Has Produced Twice As Many Serial Killers As The Rest Of The World Combined. What's Behind This Terrifying Statistic?
What’s the most quintessentially American pastime? Baseball? Football? Competitive hotdog eating? No? How about serial murder? It’s not a dig. The US leads the world in number of known serial killers, and it’s not even close: out of 5,757 cases worldwide, an astonishing 3,803 came from the “land of the free”. That’s almost two out of every three serial killers – twice as many as the entire rest of the world combined. So, uh. What the hell is going on?
Are You In Love Or Limerence? The Psychological Disorder Where A Crush Turns Into Obsession
Most of us, at some point in our lives, have had a crush. And for most of us, let’s face it, it probably sucked: wanting someone you couldn’t have, or maybe couldn’t even work up the courage to talk to; thinking about them all the time; wishing, just wishing, that they would realize how perfect you were for each other. It’s upsetting. It’s distressing. Sometimes it’s literally painful.
Has The World Already Dropped Below Replacement Fertility Rate? New Analysis Suggests We're Having Fewer Babies Than Ever – Even In The Places We Least Expected
But lately, a few studies and models have started surfacing in support of the idea that, fairly soon, the human population really is going to drop precipitously, maybe even halving within just a few decades. Now, a new working paper from economists Jesús Fernández-Villaverde at the University of Pennsylvania and Patrick Norrick at Northwestern University is going further. The world population isn’t about to start reversing, they argue – it already has.
Delightfully Pointless Problem Of Who Should Go First On Games Night Solved With Custom 60-Sided Dice
It’s games night. You sit at the table with your friends and rivals, ready to start a night of play. There’s just one question: who goes first? Typically, you’d roll for it, right? Everyone rolls a die, and whoever gets the highest number is first. In the event of a tie, you roll again. It’s easy – but to a mathematician, it’s annoying. After all, theoretically, this rolling and re-rolling could go on forever. Surely there’s a better way? “[My friend] said, ‘Hey Eric, you study math.
For The First Time Ever, A Personalized mRNA Cancer Vaccine Has Cleared Phase 3 Trials – And With Flying Colors
It took a long time – and a deadly global pandemic – for mRNA vaccines to go from promising research curio to routine preventative medicine. Now, six years after proving its mettle to the tune of some 2.5 million lives saved, the same technology is taking on a more formidable foe: skin cancer. And, rather thrillingly, it might be winning.
T-Maxxing And A "High-T" US Military – Everywhere You Look, Men Are Being Sold Testosterone And "It's Very Frightening"
What you'll discover in this article From "manosphere" influencers discussing looksmaxxing to the US Secretary of Defense instating hormone checks for soldiers over 30, testosterone has been all over the news lately. Pushing men to fear low testosterone and needlessly supplement it risks serious side effects, said Consultant Urological Surgeon Maria Satchi to IFLScience. The idea that testosterone is simply a masculinizing hormone "we now know in effect is not the case," Satchi explained.
Overdiagnosed? Over-Treated? Completely Made Up? What Experts Think About ADHD, And The Moral Panic Sweeping The Nation
What you'll discover in this article ADHD diagnoses are increasing, but that's due mostly to changes in definitions and better recognition of mild cases. ADHD is a highly misunderstood condition, even by doctors. Reporting about ADHD rates often confuses two separate concepts of "prevalence", giving misleading results. IFLScience spoke to two experts who explained that underdiagnosis may be a more pressing problem than overdiagnosis. ADHD is, it seems, having a moment.
Lake Mead Nears All-Time Low. California Gives Up Billions Of Gallons Of Water To Help It Survive
The US Bureau of Reclamation will pay California's water district agency $65 million to leave 326,000 gallons of water in the reservoir. Dr. Katie Spalding Katie has a PhD in maths, specializing in the intersection of dynamical systems and number theory. She reports on topics from maths and history to society and animals. Freelance Writer Katie has a PhD in maths, specializing in the intersection of dynamical systems and number theory.
One Simple Idea Has Quietly Saved Millions Of Lives Over The Last 70 Years
John Van Nostrand Dorr was already a household name when he changed the world. A protégé since he was just 16 of one Thomas Edison, and founder and namesake of the Dorr Foundation for almost a decade, Dorr’s name was a mainstay of chemical engineering journals and patent offices the world over. But it was nothing so academic or technical that truly secured his legacy.
"Fungal Storms" Are Increasing Across The USA, Bringing A Potentially Fatal Infection
Between tornadoes, haboobs, and that one time it rained meat in Kentucky, the US enjoys – or, at least, experiences – some truly scary weather phenomena. Increasingly, though, there’s a new kind of storm sweeping the nation, particularly in the Southwest – and they’re bringing illnesses and infection that few doctors know how to identify. Valley fever – or, to use its formal name, coccidioidomycosis – is a disease whose prevalence has shot up over the past few decades.
Back In 2021, Scientists Added A Human "Fat Gene" Into A Potato. What Happened Next Surprised Everybody
Each year, hundreds of thousands of people die of famine across the planet, and with the effects of climate change spiraling, that number is pretty much guaranteed to climb. But in 2021, a team of intercontinental researchers had a wacky idea for how to mitigate it all. Plants, they realized, would be key. The world needs crops to feed its ever-growing population; it needs trees and grasses to capture and absorb carbon, to reduce temperatures and pollution, enrich the soil, and more.
The Most Successful Entities On Earth Might Not Technically Be Alive. They Exist In A Strange Biological Twilight Zone
Even as our planet undergoes this latest mass extinction event, it’s hard to argue it’s some kind of barren wasteland. Objectively, there are countless lifeforms around us. It’s just that many of them – so many, in fact, as to round out to 100 percent of them – are too small to be seen with the naked eye.
With "SpudCell", Scientists Have Made The Most Sophisticated Attempt At Creating An Artificial Lifeform Yet
Lightning flashes. Thunder rolls. A shadowy scientist laughs maniacally. On the table: his experiment – a success that flies directly in the face of god and nature. “It’s alive,” he cries at the sky. “It’s alive!” The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content. Well, okay – maybe that’s a bit of an overstatement.
Hundreds Of Leaked Internal Emails Show RFK Jr’s War On The CDC And Vaccines
Robert F Kennedy, Jr has been hitting the headlines pretty regularly since being sworn in as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) back in February 2025. That’s thanks, in a large part, to his longstanding personal war on vaccine science – and the ongoing legal battles between him and multiple US health and medical organizations that have sought to curb some of his more radical changes to national health policy. The rest of this article is behind a paywall.
The Unexpected Reason Why Vikings Swiftly Abandoned Their Settlements In Greenland
If there’s one thing we can say for sure about Vikings, it’s that they got around. In their adventures away from their Scandinavian homeland, they made it down to Spain and across the ocean to Canada – they even made it over to the Middle East. And then – in places like Greenland, at least – they left. And for a long time, nobody really knew why. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.
The World's Rarest Marine Mammal Just Achieved Digital Immortality
It's one of those bittersweet breakthroughs, for sure. Dr. Katie Spalding Katie has a PhD in maths, specializing in the intersection of dynamical systems and number theory. She reports on topics from maths and history to society and animals. Freelance Writer Katie has a PhD in maths, specializing in the intersection of dynamical systems and number theory.
Mathematicians Have A Strategy To Win Wordle 99% Of The Time – And You Can Do It Too
A new study shows that the answer is CHA_S. Dr. Katie Spalding Katie has a PhD in maths, specializing in the intersection of dynamical systems and number theory. She reports on topics from maths and history to society and animals. Freelance Writer Katie has a PhD in maths, specializing in the intersection of dynamical systems and number theory.
The HPV Vaccine Reduces Risk Of Fatal Cervical Cancer Before 30 To Effectively Zero
Between 2020 and 2024, not a single vaccinated young woman in their early 20s died of cervical cancer in England. Dr. Katie Spalding Katie has a PhD in maths, specializing in the intersection of dynamical systems and number theory. She reports on topics from maths and history to society and animals. Freelance Writer Katie has a PhD in maths, specializing in the intersection of dynamical systems and number theory.
New Hair Loss Drug Is Being Touted As Biggest Breakthrough In Decades – And It Might Be The Real Deal
Results to dye for! (Too much? Hir-suit yourself.) Dr. Katie Spalding Katie has a PhD in maths, specializing in the intersection of dynamical systems and number theory. She reports on topics from maths and history to society and animals. Freelance Writer Katie has a PhD in maths, specializing in the intersection of dynamical systems and number theory.
World First Trial To "Reprogram" Broken Cells In Glaucoma Begins In Humans – But Is It Just Hype?
It's like “hitting a tiny bull’s eye with a bazooka,” one expert wrote. Dr. Katie Spalding Katie has a PhD in maths, specializing in the intersection of dynamical systems and number theory. She reports on topics from maths and history to society and animals. Freelance Writer Katie has a PhD in maths, specializing in the intersection of dynamical systems and number theory.
The Ocean’s Mysterious Blue Holes Are Massive, Incredibly Deep, And Hiding Secrets We Barely Know Anything About
It’s often said that we know more about the surface of the Moon or Mars than we do our own oceans, and at first that seems unbelievable. After all, we live here – all we have to do is look around, and there it is: big, blue, plastic-filled, and increasingly hot and acidic. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content. But then you hear about things like blue holes, and you realize just how bananas everything about the ocean really is.
Seen Reports That The Global Population Is Set To Halve By 2064? Here's The Real Story
In 1968, a book hit the shelves that predicted nothing less than a full-on apocalypse. Called The Population Bomb, it advocated aggressive population control measures: guaranteed abortion rights; abundant contraception; comprehensive sex education; the whole nine yards. Anything less, authors Paul and Anne Ehrlich warned, would result in global famines and environmental damage on a scale humanity simply couldn’t survive. The rest of this article is behind a paywall.
Closer Look At Medieval "Lovers" Grave Reveals Earliest Same-Sex Double Burial In Poland
Oh my god… they were coffinmates. Dr. Katie Spalding Katie has a PhD in maths, specializing in the intersection of dynamical systems and number theory. She reports on topics from maths and history to society and animals. Freelance Writer Katie has a PhD in maths, specializing in the intersection of dynamical systems and number theory.
Cheaters Never Prosper? Why The Prisoner's Dilemma Is Not As Simple As You Think
The plan should have worked. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content. That was all Bob could think as he sat in his cell. The plan should have worked, and it didn’t, and now he and his partner-in-crime Alice were being kept in separate rooms, unable to see or communicate with each other as the cops interrogated them about the robbery. Of course, he knew they didn’t have enough evidence to lock them both up.
Scientists Just Found 12,000 Tiny Fossils That Expand Our Understanding Of The Origins Of Complex Life
For historians, diaries are invaluable resources – they can tell us not only about a person’s life in a different time, but how those times themselves evolved. For geologists, the equivalent is a core: thin cylinders of sediment and rock, often hundreds of meters long, taken directly from the earth that provide a physical record of millions – or even billions – of years of its evolution. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.
The Most Expensive River In The World Is A Gemstone Hunter's Paradise
China is a big place – and the farther west you go, the bigger it gets.
"Science Is Always Evolving": Earth's Earliest "Animals" Revealed To Be Something Completely Different By Stunning Fossil Reanalysis
Once upon a time – more precisely, about 540 million years ago, in the pre-Cambrian era known as the Ediacaran – in a corner of what is now the very edge of Brazil, on the border with Bolivia, tiny organisms were wriggling about in the dirt. They didn’t have brains, or stomachs, or skeletons; they would barely be big enough to see with the naked eye, if only any naked eyes had yet evolved to see them. The rest of this article is behind a paywall.
We Finally Know Who To Blame For Mysterious "Corkscrew" Killings Of Hundreds Of Baby Seals
A grisly murder mystery from the shores of eastern Canada has finally gotten a solution – and the perpetrators were right under our noses. According to a new paper, it was the gray seals all along. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content. To be fair, though, so were the victims.
How To Work Out The Day Of The Week For Any Date, Past Or Future
Pop quiz! What day of the week was it nine days ago? How about 16? How about exactly a month ago? The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content. There are seven days in a week, for some reason, so none of those questions should be too taxing if you know your seven times table – but what if we were to ask you this: what day of the week was it on July 17, 1973? How about December 1, 1816? Or January 8, 2262?
Why Don't Humans Have A Mating Season? Actually, Wait – Do We Have A Mating Season??
It must be exhausting being an animal in the mating season. If you’re a deer, you have to grow a couple of bones faster than literally any other tissue in the animal kingdom – not to mention all the neon glowing urine you’ve gotta spray out all over the place. If you’re a cat, you yowl and waul all night, begging anybody in the vicinity to schtup you. If you’re a male elephant, you basically lose your entire damn mind and start leaking tar out of your face.
Why Are There Seven Days In A Week? Turns Out, There Often Haven't Been
Some units of time transcend culture. Most people throughout time have had a concept of a “year” that is roughly 365 days, for example, because the period really presents itself for the taking: it's the amount of time it takes for a complete run of seasons, or for the sun to return to the same place in the sky relative to the stars around it. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.
Cleopatra Lived Closer In Time To The Artemis II Launch Than To The Construction Of The Pyramids
For Cleopatra, the pyramids at Giza were already ancient tourist attractions. Dr. Katie Spalding Katie has a PhD in maths, specializing in the intersection of dynamical systems and number theory. She reports on topics from maths and history to society and animals. Freelance Writer Katie has a PhD in maths, specializing in the intersection of dynamical systems and number theory.
Lake Kivu: The Lake That Might Explode At Any Point
Goma, on the eastern border of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is a bustling city of around 1.2 million people – most of them children. It sits on the banks of one of Africa’s Great Lakes, and the views are stunning; in the background, a looming misty mountain tops off the scenery with dramatic beauty. It’s always warm there. There are elephants. It should be nice. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.
Is There A Lake In Africa That Turns Animals To Stone? The Truth Is Even More Grim
Back in 2013, a set of images from photographer Nick Brandt set the internet a-chatter. In stark black and white, they showed birds and bats seemingly turned to stone where they stood, a vast lake behind their eternally preserved bodies. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content. What could have happened to these animals? Why did they die so close to water, and in such a ghastly, almost mythological way?
Want To Live At The Ends Of The Earth? This Is Where You Need To Go
The world is, as has been known since antiquity and re-proven over and over, decidedly not flat. But what if it was? The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content. No, we’re not about to dramatically reveal we’ve been shilling for the reptilians all along – it’s just a thought experiment. If the Earth were really shaped like a map … where would the edges be?
In 1986, Something At Lake Nyos Killed 1,800 People In One Night. It Took Months To Figure Out What
August 21, 1986, was not a remarkable day for villagers living near Lake Nyos, in northern Cameroon. They woke up; they tended their crops and livestock; they held their loved ones, their children, close; they went to bed. And then, they died. All of them. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.
Why Don't We See Our Own Noses All The Time?
It is, quite literally, as plain on the nose on your face. So why can’t we see it? Dr. Katie Spalding Katie has a PhD in maths, specializing in the intersection of dynamical systems and number theory. She reports on topics from maths and history to society and animals. Freelance Writer Katie has a PhD in maths, specializing in the intersection of dynamical systems and number theory.
Vindication! Bees Are Smart And Can Do Math After All, New Study Insists
There’s bee-n a lot of buzz around this topic. Dr. Katie Spalding Katie has a PhD in maths, specializing in the intersection of dynamical systems and number theory. She reports on topics from maths and history to society and animals. Freelance Writer Katie has a PhD in maths, specializing in the intersection of dynamical systems and number theory.
Areni-1 Is The Oldest Shoe Of Its Kind Ever Found – And It Pretty Much Shouldn't Exist
Diana Zardaryan couldn’t have known, back in 2008, when she walked in through the split in the towering cliffs that led to the Areni-1 cave in southeastern Armenia, that she was about to make history. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content. “I knew that organic artifacts are very rarely found during excavations,” she later told journalists covering her story.
Massive New Database Of The Hardest Math Problems Is Now Open To Everyone – Including AI Programs
Have you ever wondered whether mathletes can go pro? Since 1959, the answer has been “yes” – with the height of achievement and prestige being at the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO). Every year, more than 100 countries from around the world send in their best and brightest pre-university-level mathematicians to battle it out, mente-a-mente, against six of the hardest problems cooked up by other competing bodies. The rest of this article is behind a paywall.
Could all of math be reduced to a single operation? This theoretical physicist says yes, and he's found it
It's not often a math paper goes viral, but a new preprint from a theoretical physicist at Poland's Jagiellonian University has well and truly bucked the trend. Why? Because it seems to reduce all of math down to a single operation – no addition, subtraction, square roots, cos, sin, or tan required.
What’s The Oldest Lake In The USA? The Answer Used To Be Simple – Then Geologists Noticed Something That Made It Complicated
The Great Lakes of the Northeastern US and Canada may be the largest in the continent, and they’re almost certainly the most famous – but compared to some of their smaller cousins, they’re mere babies. Some lakes out there are 10 or more times the age of, say, the 10,000-year-old Lakes Michigan or Huron, defying the odds – and the very laws of geology – to hang on for literally millions of years. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.
What Is The Fastest Growing Mammalian Tissue?
Deer oh deer. Dr. Katie Spalding Katie has a PhD in maths, specializing in the intersection of dynamical systems and number theory. She reports on topics from maths and history to society and animals. Freelance Writer Katie has a PhD in maths, specializing in the intersection of dynamical systems and number theory. She reports on topics from maths and history to society and animals.View full profile Katie has a PhD in maths, specializing in the intersection of dynamical systems and number theory.
Narwhal “Horns” Are More Incredible Than You Might Realize
Buck teeth is one thing, but imagine if one of your canines started growing straight out from your face, not stopping until it had fully doubled your height. That’s the reality for narwhals though: their iconic unicorn-like “horn” is in fact a tusk – or, in simple terms, a single, massively overgrown tooth. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content. Unlike your teeth, though, the narwhal tusk isn’t used for chewing.
The Fall And Rise Of Yosemite's Peregrine Falcons, Finally Back After Near-Extinction
Yosemite National Park in California is a hub of wildlife – and birds in particular love to call it home. But out of the more than 260 species of feathery critters that live there, one has had a hard go of it in recent decades: the peregrine falcon. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.
Neanderthal Kids In Germany May Have Hunted Tiny Turtles – But Probably Not To Eat
Ironically, it was the Neanderthals that would later experience a turtle wipeout. Dr. Katie Spalding Katie has a PhD in maths, specializing in the intersection of dynamical systems and number theory. She reports on topics from maths and history to society and animals. Freelance Writer Katie has a PhD in maths, specializing in the intersection of dynamical systems and number theory.
In The 19th Century, People Really Freaked Out About Buttons (And They Were Kind Of Right To)
It’s the epitome of the simple machine, in spirit if not, you know, technical definition: you press a button, and something happens. It’s how elevators are called; how we let a friend know we’re at their door; heck, it’s literally how this article is being written, letter-by-letter, right now. It’s hard to imagine a less offensive mechanism than the push button. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.
Qinngua Valley: Greenland's Only Forest, Where The Old World Meets The New
Greenland is, kind of infamously, not all that green. Legend has it that the name, along with that of the seemingly equally misnamed Iceland, was a Viking bait-and-switch: you give the nice, geothermally heated island covered in fertile volcanic soil a name that implies it’s some kind of permafrost realm, to discourage invaders, and label the desolate ice wilderness as some kind of green and pleasant land – because who really cares if you lose Greenland?
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