Slightly later than planned, and hence slightly longer than usual, here is my monthly list of articles you might have missed before …
Science & Medicine
Kazakhstan is a treasure trove of naturally wild and flavourful apple varieties.
Welcome the tiny ingestible origami robot which can be used for repairing wounds.

Ocean scientists have been using message in a bottle techniques for over 100 years, and they still are.
One mouse, two mouse, three mouse … Can cats count mice?
And still on felines … can a cat have an existential crisis? Spoiler: yes. [Long read]
Ear wax is very strange and mysterious stuff. [Long read]
Sexuality
OK, girls, so does the ‘G-Spot’ actually exist?
Do humans actually send out airborne aphrodisiac pheromones to attract potential mates? Erm … dunno.
Social Sciences & Business
On the social and design engineering of high heels. [Long read]
How many friends do you have? Are they really your friends?
Alain de Botton on why you will marry the wrong person. And there’s not much you can do about it!
Language
What’s it like learning to talk all over again? Learning Chinese as an adult.
Art & Literature
From mega-libraries down to nano-libraries … here’s the story of London’s smallest library.

Wow! The whole of Samuel Pepys’ Diary is now online.
History
It seems that Ice Age Europe wasn’t populated by who we thought.
The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge have discovered that one of their Ancient Egyptian coffins holds them youngest known mummified foetus.
Ancient toilets can tell us a lot about the lifestyle of their users, and it seems the flush toilet goes further back than we thought. [Long read]
The colour of monastic habits was much more fraught with controversy than one might suspect.
A plague on all your houses. New research suggests that the Black Death was even more devastating than we thought.
Ianvisits reviews the exhibition of the lost library of the Tudor magician John Dee.
Slowly coming more up to date, here’s a look at the background and organisation of the Gunpowder Plot.
An unsuspected mass grave in Durham is though to hold the remains of prisoners from the Battle of Dunbar.
Investigations into a 1661 document awarding £20 to Major Smith.
Lady Antonia Fraser on the sexy and scandalous truth about Versailles and the new BBC series about the same.
How old is that London house? Is it Georgian Or Victorian?

London was devastated during World War 2. The recently published LCC bomb damage maps reveal all. It’s a magnificent volume!
There have been lots of weird and wonderful proposals for building in London which have come to naught. Here are some, arranged by Underground station.
Food & Drink
How to tell real Parmigiano Reggiano from imposters. Science now has a way.
People
So here are two pieces about the forensic mysteries of identifying unknown bodies.
First the mystery of Saddleworth Moor: who was the man they’ve nicknamed Neil Dovestone?
And in the US, just as here in the UK, the identification of nameless bodies can take years before the mysteries are solved.
Shock, Horror, Humour
So here’s a little quiz to end with … What is London’s longest tunnel? It’s OK, I got it wrong too.
More next month.