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This week, fossilized plesiosaur vomit has revealed that they came to shore to barf up undigested shellfish remains, scientists are using a new microscope capable of high-precision imaging at temperatures just above 0°C (32°F) to look inside living Antarctic cells for the first time, and new research has found that very slow running for just 10 minutes could be enough to boost your mood and enhance your focus. Finally, Professor of Philosophy, C Thi Nguyen, explains how the concepts of “Value Capture” and “The Gap” can help us understand why modern life is so exhausting.
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The First Human Burials Have Been Excavated At Göbekli Tepe, Challenging Old Theories About The 11,500-Year-Old Site
The first intact human burials have been excavated from Göbekli Tepe, the world's oldest known megalithic temple site, and it’s shaking up what archaeologists thought they knew about the ever-elusive site. Read the full story here
Ancient Plesiosaur Vomit Reveals The Marine Reptiles Came Into Shore To Barf Up Shellfish Remains
How do paleontologists find clues about the past? Well, they look at just about everything from fossil bones and feathers to trackways and poop. There’s not much these intrepid history hunters will shy away from, and now even more has been revealed about the lives of ancient marine reptiles thanks to some sea monster vomit. Read the full story here
The Latest Planetary Health Check Shows We’ve Breached 7 Of Earth’s 9 Planetary Boundaries
Out of nine “planetary boundaries” that have been identified by scientists as necessary for life on Earth to flourish, we have now breached seven of them. These include climate change, damage to nature, land use change, water cycle disruption, overuse of fertilizers, pollution, and – for the first time – ocean acidification. Read the full story here
For The First Time, Scientists Have Looked Inside Living Antarctic Cells And Found Incredible Adaptations
For the first time, scientists can watch living Antarctic fish cells at work in real time, and it's already showing how extreme environments can force living things to adapt even at the microscopic level. Researchers at the British Antarctic Survey and the University of Cambridge have developed a new microscope capable of high-precision imaging at temperatures just above 0°C (32°F). Read the full story here
Very Slow Running May Be Enough To Boost Your Mood And Enhance Your Focus
Going for a quick jog around the block isn’t for everyone. But new research suggests you’ll still reap the benefits even if it's anything but quick. Previous research by the same group behind this new study found that even mild exercise can activate the prefrontal cortex and lead to positive outcomes. Read the full story here
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Feature of the week:
Chasing Likes And Page Views: Why Is Modern Life So Exhausting?
Your smartwatch says you’ve walked 10,000 steps. Bluesky wants you to know you have 21 new notifications, and your job just found three new metrics to measure your productivity. Feeling tired? Aren’t we all. And yet isn’t it strange how this kind of score-keeping can be so invigorating when we’re playing games? We spoke to C Thi Nguyen, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Utah and author of The Score: How To Stop Playing Someone Else's Game, to help us understand why modern life is so exhausting when, for so many, it’s largely spent sitting down. Read the full story here
More content:
Have you seen our e-magazine, CURIOUS? Issue 50, September 2026, is available now. This month, we asked, “Why Is It So Funny Watching People Fall Over?” – check it out for exclusive interviews, book excerpts, long reads, and more.
PLUS, the We Have Questions podcast – an audio version of our coveted CURIOUS e-magazine column – continues. In episode 25, we ask, “Why Do Hammerhead Sharks Have Hammer-Shaped Heads?”
The Big Questions podcast continues as we ask, “Just How Queer Is The Natural World?” Host Eleanor Higgs speaks to Josh Luke Davis, author of A Little Gay Natural History, to find out more about one of the more controversial zoological topics.
