Pocket’s Top Stories of July 2023

All those daily activities we’d rather avoid — taking the stairs, cleaning the house etc. — have a big metabolic payoff. Non-exercise activity thermogenesis can help manage weight and boost health.

Long before thermometers, nature left its own temperature records. A climate scientist explains how ongoing global warming compares with ancient temperatures.

A new book, The Measure of Our Age, explores the growing problem of our graying nation.

The “father of the atomic bomb” has long been misunderstood. Will the new film finally get J. Robert Oppenheimer right?

They all have a 50-50 chance of inheriting a cruel genetic mutation — which means disappearing into dementia in middle age. This is the story of what it’s like to live with those odds.

The most powerful countries have benefited from large work forces for decades. What happens when they retire?

In 1973, the film theorist Laura Mulvey used concepts from psychoanalysis to forge a feminist polemic and a lasting shorthand for gender dynamics onscreen.

Maybe it’s a commercial jingle, a TikTok song, or a new summer bop. Here’s how to trick your brain into hitting pause.

Air-conditioning and swimming pools are sustaining my community. I worry about the day when they won’t be enough.

No corner of the planet is free from minuscule fragments of plastic packaging, textiles or utensils. We ask scientists what this means for our health – and what we should do to protect it.

Interoception—the inner sense linking our bodies and minds—can confuse as much as it can reveal.

The pandemic relief was the biggest bailout in history, and it opened the door to wide-scale fraud the likes of which no one had ever seen — more than three years later, we still don't know how much damage was done.

No one can remember.

Teaching an old dog new tricks.

Did the “creative class” learn anything from buying into a product that was obviously destined to flop?

Hoarding can be distressing and dangerous. But it’s not just a matter of ‘too much stuff’ – it’s a complex condition that requires careful, targeted help.

Interviews and e-mails with expedition leaders and employees reveal how OceanGate ignored desperate warnings from inside and outside the company. “It’s a lemon,” one wrote.

Just make more of them.

Michael Levin is uncovering the incredible, latent abilities of living things.

The best things in life are free.

Check out the stories that Pocket readers saved most last month.