And it’s not just running — you can get these feelings of bliss and well-being from other kinds of physical activity too. Research psychologist Kelly McGonigal explains how we can get it and why it exists.
Did you know that meerkats stay close to home, even as adults, so they can inherit territory when Mom dies? Or that North American red squirrel mothers gift real estate to their kids (complete with stockpiles of food)? Evolutionary biologist Barbara Natterson-Horowitz and writer Kathryn Bowers make the case for why parents — animals and humans — should remain involved in the lives of their full-grown offspring.
These weird-looking, isolated aquatic creatures probably won’t star in a Pixar film anytime soon, but by studying them, we can learn about our planet’s past and its future, says evolutionary biologist and ichthyologist Prosanta Chakrabarty.
A team of geologists has been exploring the caves beneath the table mountains of Venezuela, where new lifeforms may have been quietly developing for millions of years. Journalist Lars Abromeit describes the expedition into the unknown.
“Words over time have a way of just oozing around,” says linguist John McWhorter. He traces the evolution of five words that have spent millennia drifting from one meaning into another.
Science writer Sonia Shah explains why it’s really not your fault you’re attracted to that terrible person.
