Wholesome Direct 2025 - everything announced at this year's cosy indie showcase Big hops! Discount shops! Spooky pups! More! Image credit: Eurogamer Feature by Matt Wales News Reporter Published on June 7, 2025 If you're the sort who just can't seem to resist the soothing rhythms of turnip planting and interior design, you've come to the right place. This year's Wholesome Direct - which marks the fifth anniversary of the showcase - has now aired, unleashing a fresh wave of cosy games to stick on your wishlists. We've got vending machine management, adorable puppies on spooking adventures, cheese-based puzzling, geckos, goats, seasonal cemetery exploration, and a whole lot more. So if that sounds like it might help sate your idyllic yearning, read on for all the big announcements from Wholesome Direct 2025. And for more indies, you can check out our round-up of this year's Day of the Devs showcase elsewhere. Leaf Blower Co. Leaf Blower Co. trailer.Watch on YouTube Ever wished your PowerWash Simulator had a little less splosh and a little more whoosh? That seems to be the starting point for developer Lift Games' Leaf Blower Co., a game about making the untidy tidy come rain, snow, or shine, one mechanised gust at a time. It's got a story mode plus a variety to locations waiting to be blown debris-free, and if that appeals, a demo's available now on Steam ahead of its release later this year. Instants Instants trailer.Watch on YouTube Instants is a creativity themed puzzler about the intoxicating pleasures of obsessive scrapbooking. It sees players attempting to sort images into chronological order and then assembling them into a scrapbook to reveal a "heartwarming" story inspired by the way family history can be passed down using pictures. It's developed by Endflame and launches today on PC (via Steam and Epic), and Switch. Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar trailer.Watch on YouTube Stardew Valley might be the face of farming sims these days, but the grandaddy of the genre - Story of Season (formerly Harvest Moon) - never went away, and another entry in the venerable series is looming. Grand Bazaar is actually a remake of 2011 DS game Harvest Moon: Grand Bazaar, and it's got pretty much everything you'd expect from these kind of things - including turnips to fondle, animals to rear, and locals to dazzle with your impressive root vegetable collection. The main twist is you'll be selling all this yourself by setting up shop in the titular bazar. And if that sounds like something you'd enjoy, it launches for Switch, Switch 2, and Steam on 27th August. Gourdlets Together Gourdlets Together trailer.Watch on YouTube Perhaps you're already a fan of last year's Gourdlets or perhaps you're completely new to its vegetable-themed low-stakes thrills. Either way, there'll soon be a new way to play, thanks to developer AuntyGames' Gourdlets Together. Essentially, it takes the laid-back village-building vibes of the original, slings in a bit of a fishing focus - where earnings can be spent on upgrades or accessories to decorate your island home - then lets you do it while hanging out with friends online. Gourdlets Together launches on PC later this year. Luma Island Luma Island trailer.Watch on YouTube Don't think we're done with the farming sims yet - not by a long shot! Luma Island launched last year, offering an attractive mix of crop whispering, profession-specific activities, creature collecting, exploration, and puzzle-y dungeoneering. And come 20th June, it'll be getting just a little be more swashbuckling, thanks to its free Pirates update, introducing a new profession, new Lumas, new outfits, and a pirate cove filled with mini-games, temples, traps, and treasures. It'll also bring a range of different difficulty modes to suit players of all tastes. Is This Seat Taken? Is This Seat Taken? trailer.Watch on YouTube Think you're a dab hand at the old 'awkward family gathering' seating plan challenge? Well then, this might just be the game for you. In Poti Poti Studio's "cosy, silly, and relatable" logic puzzler Is This Seat Taken?, the goal is to satisfy the demands of a particularly fussy group of chair occupiers to find the perfect spot that'll keep everyone happy - be they on the bus, at the park, or in the office. It's coming to Steam, Switch, iOS, and Android this August, and a Steam demo's out now. MakeRoom MakeRoom trailer.Watch on YouTube Here's one for the aesthetic tinkerers and furnishing fetishists out there. MakeRoom, from developer Kenney, sees players decorating a series of miniature dioramas - from cosy indoor retreats to camper vans and even forests - to fulfil the requests of adorable NPCs. You might, for instance, be tasked with creating the perfect room for cats, or a suitably moody hideout for a vampire. Then it's simply a matter of hanging drapes, plopping down plants, and even crafting furniture to bring these spaces to life and satisfy your clients' whims. It all sounds very much like Animal Crossing's weirdly compelling Happy Home Paradise expansion, so if it's more of that sort of thing you want, MakeRoom comes to Steam on 7th August. Ambroise Niflette & the Gleaned Bell Ambroise Niflette & the Gleaned Bell trailer.Watch on YouTube The apple bell - whatever an apple bell is - has been stolen, but luckily for apple bell lovers everywhere, renowned detective Ambroise Niflette is on the case. Over the course of Topotes Studio's investigatory adventure, Ambroise - and players - will roam the village of Touvoir, interrogating its inhabitants and searching for secrets, all while using a notebook of steadily amassing leads to reveal contradictions and unmask the culprit. It all sounds perfectly lovely, but the real draw is the delightful art style, which is heavily inspired by miniatures and stop motion. Ambroise Niflette & the Gleaned Bell is eventually set to launch on Steam, but first there's a Kickstarter, which is underway now. Let's Build a Dungeon Let's Build a Dungeon trailer.Watch on YouTube First there was Let's Build a Zoo, and now comes Let's Build a Dungeon. But while developer Springloaded kept its focus pretty tight for its debut release, Let's Build a Dungeon goes broad; not only is it a playable RPG creator where you can rustle up your own worlds and quests, it's also claiming to be an entire games industry sim too, where you'll need to manage all the malarky around releasing your game - from attracting funding right through to making a profit at the other end of the process. But if all that sounds too stressful, Springloaded has confirmed - as part of its latest showing - there'll be a cosy sandbox Build Mode too. There's still no release date for Let's Build a Dungeon yet, but it's heading to Steam (there's a demo here), Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. Squeakross: Home Squeak Home Squeakross: Home Squeak Home trailer.Watch on YouTube What do you get if you cross adorable mice with classic grid-filling puzzler Picross? Well, this thing, obviously. Squeakross: Home Squeak Home is the work of developer Alblune, and it adds its own twist to the familiar logic-testing formula by introducing a home decorating element. The idea is each puzzle corresponds to an unlockable bit of decor - including furniture, accessories, and stickers - so you'll slowly amass new furnishings and trimmings as you give your brain a work out. Is there an in-game lore reason why puzzles equals furniture? Who knows! We'll soon find out, though, given Squeakross launches for Switch and PC (via Steam and itch.io) today. Monument Valley 3 Monument Valley 3 trailer.Watch on YouTube Ustwo Games' perspective shifting puzzle series Monument Valley has been a big old hit, amassing tens of millions of downloads since its iOS debut back in 2014 - so it wasn't a huge surprise when a third entry showed up on mobile last year. Initially, however, it was locked behind a Netflix subscription, but Monument Valley 3 - which we quite liked despite it offering little meaningful evolution for the series - is finally spreading its wings later this year. As announced during today's Wholesome Direct, it's coming to Steam, Switch, PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on 22nd July. Big Hops Big Hops trailer.Watch on YouTube If you immediately thought bunnies, you're wrong. Big Hops is, in fact, a frog-themed action platformer, in which players attempt to help the titular Hop find his way home. Each world he visits on his adventure promises its own self-contained story - involving everything from mountain cultists to desert ne'erdowells - all interspersed with plenty of agile platform action. You can grapple across gaps, hoist levers, rotate wheels, even pick locks - all using your tongue - and it's accompanied by some veggie-based gameplay that lets players introduce the likes of climbable vines and mushroom-based bounce pads into levels. Big Hops is currently raising funds via Kickstarter and a Steam demo's out now. Little Kitty, Big City Little Kitty, Big City trailer.Watch on YouTube Here's quicky for you. Little Kitty, Big City - the feline-focused open-world adventure from Double Dagger Studio - is getting a little bigger. That's thanks to a free content update coming to all platforms this "summer", promising new story content, a new neighbourhood to explore, and new oddball characters to befriend. That's alongside a new cat customisation feature for you creative sorts out there. Vending Dokan!: Kozy Kiosk Vending Dokan!: Kozy Kiosk trailer.Watch on YouTube What's in a name? Well, pretty much everything in this case. Aftabi Games' Vending Dokan!: Kozy Kiosk is, just as it sounds, a cosy, laidback game about managing your own vending machine empire. You'll choose where your machines go and what they sell, and hire staff to ensure they stay stocked, clean, and in working order. There's a heavy customisation element too, as you're free to decorate the areas surrounding your vending machines in order to attract new customers. Kozy Kiosk is officially referred to as an "idle simulation", and can be played both actively and passively. And if that appeals, it launches for Steam today. Winter Burrow Winter Burrow trailer.Watch on YouTube Developer Pine Creek Games' "woodland survival game" Winter Burrow was unveiled during December's Wholesome Direct, but it's back to announce it's now coming to Switch. If you missed its original reveal, Winter Burrow casts you as a mouse who's attempting to fix up their burrow and turn it into a toasty retreat from the cold. That requires exploring the snow-covered world outside, gathering resources, crafting tools, building things, making friends, baking pies, and more. Winter Burrow launches next year and will be available for Steam, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Switch. Tales of the Shire: A Lord of the Rings Game Tales of the Shire trailer.Watch on YouTube After multiple delays, cosy hobbit life sim Tales of the Shire is almost upon us, and developer Wētā Workshop is readying for its arrival with a brand-new trailer. It's been described as a game about "finding joy in the small moments", and features all the usual life sim activities - fishing, cooking, gathering, decorating, merrymaking - with a bit of a Lord of the Rings twist. So yes, you CAN decorate your hobbit's hole. Tales of the Shire launches for Switch, PlayStation, Xbox, and PC on 29th July. Haunted Paws Haunted Paws trailer.Watch on YouTube If your interests lie at the intersection of spooky mansions and adorable pups, prepare to have your day made. In developer LazyFlock's supernatural adventure Haunted Paws, players - either solo or with a friend - control two brave (and customisable!) puppies as they explore a creepy old house in search of their human, who's been kidnapped by sinister forces. It promises puzzles, lighthearted spookiness, and even a few emotional bits. There's no release date for Haunted Paws yet, but it's coming to Steam. The Guardian of Nature The Guardian of Nature trailer.Watch on YouTube This wholesome, hand-drawn puzzle adventure from Inlusio Interactive is all about the interconnectedness of nature, and sees players embarking on a botanical journey as the lovably be-hatted Henry. Not only does Henry know his stuff about the natural world, he's also able to change his size, meaning players can explore both above and below ground as they solve puzzles to assist nature. The Guardian of Nature launches into Steam early access today, and it's coming to Switch, Xbox, iOS, and Android too. Everdeep Aurora Everdeep Aurora trailer.Watch on YouTube If you've ever thought Dig Dug would be improved if its protagonist was a cat, Everdeep Aurora might be the game for you. It follows the apocalyptic adventures of a kitten named Shell as she explores subterranean depths in search of her mother. You'll obliterate blocks, do some platforming, play mini-games, and converse with peculiar characters as you investigate the dark secrets buried below, all without a hint of combat. Its limited-colour pixel art looks wonderful, and it's coming to Steam and Switch on 10th July. Seasonala Cemetery Seasonala Cemetery trailer.Watch on YouTube From the creators of A Mortician's Tale, the "meditative" Seasonala Cemetery is a "peaceful but poignant reflection on life and death". It's set in an expansive, living cemetery that changes dynamically based on your system's time and date. The summer, for instance, might see the world bustling with vibrant life, while the winter brings quiet and snow. You can interact with NPCs and animals, rummage through nature, learn the history of the nearby city through its gravestones, or simply relax to its ambient sounds. Seasonala Cemetery is out today on Steam and itch.io, and is completely free. Camper Van: Make it Home Camper Van: Make it Home trailer.Watch on YouTube One of (bizarrely) several camper-van-themed games currently in the works, developer Malpata Studio's Make it Home is a pretty self-explanatory thing. You've got a camper van to make your own as it journey across beautiful, idyllic landscapes. Part of your goal is to solve organisational puzzles, but there's laidback interior design too. Camper Van: Make it Home is available today, alongside a demo, on Steam. Lynked: Banner of the Spark Lynked: Banner of the Spark trailer.Watch on YouTube FuzzyBot's Lynked: Banner of the Spark is a cheerily colourful action-RPG, that's part sci-fi roguelike, part relaxed life sim. At its most peaceful, you'll farm, fish, gather materials, and build your base with help from your robot pals, but that's all in service of its more frenetic hack-and-slash action. When you're ready for some proper adventure, you can brave the wilds, battle evil robot forces with a large arsenal of weapons, and search for helpful bots to bring back home. Lynked is already available on Steam, but it's coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X/S too. Omelet You Cook Omelet You Cook trailer.Watch on YouTube In this chaotic cooking roguelike from SchuBox Games, you're tasked with creating the perfect omelettes to satisfy your customers' increasingly peculiar demands. That involves combining ingredients as they fly by on a conveyor belt, from the relatively mundane to the rather more dubious, in the hope of earning enough money to increase your provisions, add useful relics to your pantry, and, hopefully, please the fearsome Principal Clucker. It all looks wonderfully ridiculous, and it launches on Steam today. Milano's Odd Job Collection Milano's Odd Job Collection trailer.Watch on YouTube Milano's Odd Job Collection (known as Milano no Arubaito Collection in Japan) is coming to the west for the very first time. It follows the adventures of 11-year-old Milano as she's left to her own devices over the summer. Free to do as she pleases, she embarks on a range of odd job - from pizza delivery to milking flying cows - in order to make money and have fun. Milano's Odd Job Collection, from developer Westone, is coming to Switch, PlayStation, Xbox, and PC later this year. Fireseide Feelings Fireseide Feelings trailer.Watch on YouTube If you've got something to get off your chest, what better place to do it than by a roaring fire in a cosy forest glade? Fireside Feelings is described as a "mental wellness experience" promoting empathy, connection, and positivity between players. Situated cosily in your customisable camp, you're able to answer questions on a range of topics, taking part in conversations between people "separated in space and time". Conversations aren't live, and there's no direct interaction with others, but the goal, according to developer Team Empreintes, is to "share experiences, express your emotions, and be a part of a caring community". It launches today on Steam. All Will Rise All Will Rise trailer.Watch on YouTube Well here's something you don't see every day. All Will Rise is a "narrative courtroom deck-builder", in which you and your team take a corrupt billionaire to court, accusing them of a river's murder. That involves accumulating cards and using them to engage in conversation battles, attempting to charm, intimidate and manipulate those you meet around the vibrant city of Muziris. "Obey a dead river god's summons - or defy them," developer Speculative Agency explains. "Pass information to violent ecoterrorists - or maintain your pacifist ideals. Convince a corporate stooge to testify for you - or blackmail him with sensitive information. Your choices will determine the [city's] fate." All Will Rise is currently crowdfunding, but it's aiming to launch on Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, and Steam. Gecko Gods Gecko Gods trailer.Watch on YouTube It's hard to go wrong with a gecko, which immediately gives developer Inresin's Gecko Gods a bit of an advantage. What we've got here is a "serene lizard-sized puzzle-platformer" set on a beautiful archipelago, in which its tiny protagonist clambers across forgotten ruins, solving puzzles as they go. There are secrets of a lost civilisation to uncover, hidden paths, and more, all of which you'll be able to explore for yourself when Gecko Gods launches for Switch, PS5, and Steam later this year. But if you're an impatient sort, a Steam demo is available now. One Move Away One Move Away trailer.Watch on YouTube If you quite fancied the idea of Unpacking, but thought it had far too much 'taking stuff out of things' for its own good, you might enjoy Ramage Games' One Move Away, which is basically the inverse experience. Here, you play as three different characters, starting with a young girl in the 1980s, gradually learning more about them as you pack their belongings away ready for another chapter in their intertwining lives. All this plays out in first-person across 20 levels, and if that takes your fancy, a Steam demo's out now ahead of a full launch on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. Heidi's Legacy: Mountains Calling Heidi's Legacy trailer.Watch on YouTube As you've probably already guessed, Heidi's Legacy: Mountains Calling takes inspiration from the classic children's stories. Which is why it's something of a surprise to learn its protagonist is called Adèle. Regardless, this is a game of grumpy old men, goat management, and alpine wandering, where you'll explore the beautiful countryside with your bleating pals, foraging for herbs, mushrooms, and more in a bid to help the nearby village. You can unlock abilities that open up more of the world, and chat to the locals in branching conversations'll that impact their lives. And as for those goats, they can provide milk, cheese, and wool. "Will you embrace slow living," asks developer Humble Reeds, "or push for bolder change?". Heidi's Legacy is coming to PC "soon". Hotel Galatic Hotel Galatic trailer.Watch on YouTube In Hotel Galactic, you're responsible for the running of a modular hotel on a strange cosmic island, which you'll customise and optimise in order to provide guests with the perfect stay. There are resources to manage, a workforce to build, and more, as you cater to the demands of your ever-growing colony, all with assistance from your ghostly Grandpa Gustav. There's a bit more to it than that, though, and the whole thing's framed by a tale of love and vengeance that's conveyed through some lovely anime-inspired art and animation. Hotel Galactic launches into Steam early access on 24th July, with consoles to follow, and a demo's available now. Out and About Out and About trailer.Watch on YouTube If it's serene forest meandering you're after, then look no further than Yaldi Games' Out and About. It's a "cosy foraging adventure" focused on exploring nature and identifying real-life plants and fungi. You'll cook recipes, make herbal remedies, and help rebuild your community after a devastating storm, all while hopefully learning a bit of botanical knowledge you can take out into the real-world. Out and About looks to be aiming for a 2025 release on PC, with a console launch to follow. And if it's piqued your curiosity, you can test out a Steam demo now. Discounty Discounty trailer.Watch on YouTube Forget the farm life; how about managing your own discount supermarket in a small harbour town? That's the premise of Discounty from Crinkle Cut Games, which sees you designing and organising your shop, managing stock levels, working the checkout, and striking trade deals. You'll make friends, navigate local drama, and expand your empire, but that doesn't mean you have to play nice. After all, can you really become filthy rich without making a few lifelong enemies along the way? Discounty launches for Switch, PlayStation, Xbox, and PC on 21st August and, yup, a demo's available now on Steam. Islanders: New Shores Islanders: New Shores trailer.Watch on YouTube We're big fans of developer GrizzlyGames' minimalist city builder Islanders around these parts, so news publisher Coatsink was developing a sequel earlier this year came as a pleasant surprise. It is, if you're unfamiliar, a game about attempting to squeeze as much onto a procedurally generated island as possible, maximising building synergies and minimising penalties to get the highest score. New Shores sounds like a gentle finessing of the formula, rather than a radical reinvention - it's got a sandbox mode as well as a high score mode now, alongside new power-ups called "boons" - but that's okay. The big news is it now has a release date and is coming to Switch, PlayStation, Xbox, and Steam on 10th July. Collector's Cove Collector's Cove trailer.Watch on YouTube VoodooDuck's Collector's Cove might be yet another farming game, but it does at least have a unique twist. For starters, your farm is on a boat endlessly sailing the oceans AND it's powered by an adorable sea monster who you'll need to forge a bond with. As you set out on a tranquil adventure across the water, you'll farm, fish, craft, and personalise your surroundings, sometimes stopping off at passing islands to catalogue their unique flora. Collector's Cove doesn't have a release date yet, but it's coming to PC and a Steam demo's available now. Town to City Town to City trailer.Watch on YouTube Fans of minimalist railway game Station to Station might want to pay attention here. Town to City is developer Galaxy Grove's follow-up to that earlier puzzler, sporting a similar voxel art aesthetic and vibe. This time around, you're charged with building quaint picturesque towns by placing shops, houses, amenities, decorations, and more - all in a bid to please your residents and encourage more to move in. Eventually, you'll have multiple towns under your care, helping the whole region grow and thrive. Town to City doesn't have a release date yet, but you can play a demo on Steam. Fishbowl Fishbowl trailer.Watch on YouTube And finally for the big, non-montage reveals, it's Fishbowl, a coming-of-age tale told over the course of a month. Developer imissmyfriends.studio describes it as a "warm and cozy story about living in isolation, nurturing friendships and understanding grief", and it's all focused on 21-year-old video editor Alo as she works from home while mourning her grandmother. As the days tick by, you'll video call loved ones, work to assemble videos, do care tasks, and solve puzzles to unpack your grandmother's belongings - recovering childhood memories as you do. There's no release date for Fishbowl yet, but it's coming to PS5 and Steam.

Most of what you need to know about the Nintendo Switch 2 is right there in the name: this is the direct sequel to the Switch. It’s bigger, more powerful, more refined, and builds on a strong foundation. If you liked the first Switch, you’re almost certainly going to like the Switch 2. But whether it’s worth upgrading immediately is going to depend a lot on your current gaming library and how much you’re willing to spend for a small library of first party titles.  The Hardware From an ergonomic perspective, the Switch 2 is a definite upgrade over the original with a nicer looking, rounded off cradle, a bigger screen, and new magnetically attached Joy-cons that are a breeze to connect and remove. Also a really underrated new feature is the more flexible kickstand, which lets you play the Switch 2 from multiple angles if you’re into that sort of thing. While it didn’t really get much coverage in previews, I was also pleasantly surprised by a sturdier cover for game cards that will better lock them into place. That’s not hugely important, but it does show how much thought Nintendo put into the system to address almost every criticism of the original Switch, which was a pretty great portable to begin with. Furthermore, the sound quality of the Switch 2 in portable mode is surprisingly better than the old model. Oddly enough though, as good as the sound is, the HDR implementation is surprisingly underwhelming in this initial batch of games. That’s really not a huge deal, but it’s odd that Nintendo even pushed it at all given how barely noticeable it is right now. Maybe future games (or a future Switch 2 refresh) will improve on it. My only real gripe about the Switch 2 is that it’s maybe too big. I’m a six-foot and two inches, 270 pound professional wrestler in my spare time, and this thing is almost too big for my hands. It starts to feel a little heavy after an hour of playtime. At least the battery life is rock solid, however, which has always been a strong point of Nintendo portables, though the console does run noticeably warmer than its predecessor.  Set Up and the Switch 2 Experience Getting started with the Switch 2 is simple, although not without a bit of the typical Nintendo weirdness. By logging into my Wi-Fi and My Nintendo account, I transferred everything from my original Switch to the Switch 2 in a little over 10 minutes. All I had to do was plug in both consoles and move them within a few feet of each other. The one downside of this is that the Switch 2 then immediately decided to start downloading a few dozen of the most recent games I’ve played. That’s good in theory, but since the Switch 2 only comes with 256GB of internal storage, I didn’t want all those old games on my new console. If there’s an easier way than going through the game library and canceling all of those individual downloads, I couldn’t find it. Still, this made clear just how much space is going to be an issue with the new console. After downloading updates and just a handful of my older titles, I was down to only 175GB of space. When some launch titles are already clocking in at 60 gigs, it’s clear that a MicroSD Express card is going to be a necessity for a lot of gamers. Given the price of those, I do wish the Switch 2 had a port for older SD cards that could play original Switch games, or allowed for a hard drive in docked mode. Maybe that’s something we’ll see in an update down the line. Anyway, once I had downloaded what I wanted and canceled everything else, it was time to dive into the Switch 2 dashboard… which actually looks a lot like the original Switch’s. All of the icons are rounder, just like the cradle and system itself. The eShop doesn’t slow down anymore, and everything else is pretty much where it was on the first Switch. If you ever upgraded from an Xbox One to an Xbox Series X, it’s a similar type of negligible change.   What’s New with the Switch 2 Unlike some past Nintendo consoles like the Wii, the Switch 2 doesn’t have any major new gimmicks, but there are a couple of interesting new features. The upgraded Joy-Cons can now be used like computer mice. There’s also GameChat, a new way to communicate with other players during gameplay through video and audio. Join our mailing list Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox! Honestly, I didn’t spend a lot of time with either of these features. They work as advertised, they’re just not exactly revolutionary, especially given that Microsoft and Sony have allowed this type of communication while gaming for years. There’s definitely promise to these ideas down the line, but they’re not exactly day one system sellers. It’s probably 50-50 whether we see games that take advantage of these features, or if developers just ignore them entirely. Switch 2 Games, Old and New The Switch 2 is launching with an impressive collection of more than two dozen games. Many like Street Fighter 6, Hogwarts Legacy, and Hitman are ports of games that have been available elsewhere for awhile now. I picked up Mario Kart World, Bravely Default HD, and Cyberpunk 2077. I’ll have fuller thoughts on Mario Kart World in a few days, but for now I’ll say it’s a very fun game that doesn’t necessarily do a whole lot to show off its console’s power. The other two games are excellent ports of older titles, with Cyberpunk 2077 in particular offering some enjoyable new control options thanks to the upgraded Joy-Cons. What’s especially impressive at launch are the upgrades to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. Available for $10 each, or as part of an annual Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack membership. These almost look like brand new games with higher resolution and frame rates that now put them on par with a lot of the best looking games on Xbox or PlayStation.  Even in handheld mode, the Zelda titles look noticeably better than on the original Switch. The free upgrades I checked out in New Super Mario Bros. U, Super Mario Odyssey, and Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury don’t go quite that far in terms of improvements, but the games definitely do perform better. It was actually kind of rough going back to Switch games like Splatoon 3 and Xenoblade Chronicles X that don’t have enhancements of any kind, and still having to deal with their little graphical hiccups on the Switch 2. But I didn’t notice any issues with backwards compatibility. Original Switch games seem to play flawlessly on the new console. Another reason to check out the Switch 2 is GameCube games for Expansion Pack members. I played a few minutes each of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, F-Zero GX, and SoulCalibur II and I’m pleased to report that they all performed admirably. Whatever emulator Nintendo is using doesn’t make these games look like full-on remasters, but they do look very sharp on a 4K TV, and I’m excited to see what other classic titles get added in the future. Is the Switch 2 Worth Buying? Whether you should pick up a Switch 2 right now (if you can even find one) really depends. If you always wanted a Switch but for some reason never got one, a Switch 2 is an absolute no brainer. It’s going to be the best way to experience some Switch classics like Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey. If you haven’t had any other way to play great games like Cyberpunk 2077, Yakuza 0, or Hogwarts Legacy, then yes, the Switch 2 is an excellent purchase, and it’s cheaper than either a PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X.But if you’ve played your original Switch to death and have any other current gen console, a solid gaming PC, or a Steam Deck, the Switch 2 is a dicier proposition. Some great looking games like Donkey Kong Bananza, Metroid Prime 4, and Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment are on the horizon, and I have no doubt the Switch 2 will be worth the purchase over time, but $450 and up is a lot to ask for what the console offers at the moment.

Taurine supplements have been considered promising for delaying ageing, but that may not be the caseShutterstock / Eugeniusz Dudzinski The amino acid taurine was once thought to decline with age, and animal research suggested that taurine supplements could delay ageing. But a new study shows that the decline doesn’t happen consistently. In fact, taurine levels tend to increase in people over time, suggesting that low levels of the nutrient aren’t a driver of ageing. Previous research has shown that taurine concentrations decline in men as they age and that people with higher taurine levels at 60 years old tend to have better health outcomes. This, along with evidence that taurine supplements extend lifespan in mice and monkeys, suggested that low taurine contributes to ageing.Advertisement The trouble is that taurine fluctuates in response to other factors too, such as illness, stress and diet – therefore, declines in this key amino acid may not be due to ageing. Maria Emilia Fernandez at the National Institute on Aging in Maryland and her colleagues analysed taurine levels in 742 people between 26 and 100 years old. The participants, about half of whom were women, didn’t have underlying health conditions and provided three to five blood samples between January 2006 and October 2018. On average, taurine levels were almost 27 per cent higher in women at 100 years old than at 26 years old and rose about 6 per cent in men between the ages of 30 and 97. Similar results were seen in 32 monkeys that underwent three to seven blood draws between 3 and 32 years of age. Between 5 and 30 years of age, taurine levels rose 72 per cent in female monkeys and 27 per cent in male monkeys, on average. Together, these findings indicate that taurine levels are not a reliable indication of ageing. What’s more, taurine levels also varied widely between people and even within individuals over time, suggesting that other environmental factors influence them, says Fernandez. Get the most essential health and fitness news in your inbox every Saturday. Sign up to newsletter However, some people may still benefit from taurine supplementation, says Fernandez, pointing to studies that show it helps regulate blood sugar in people with type 2 diabetes or obesity. But whether it can delay ageing in otherwise healthy people is an open question. Vijay Yadav at Rutgers University in New Jersey says he and his colleagues are currently conducting a clinical trial of taurine supplementation in middle-aged adults. “We hope to finish the trial by the end of 2025,” he says. “Hopefully it will generate sufficiently rigorous data to show whether or not taurine supplementation delays the pace of ageing in humans or increases health and fitness.” Journal reference:Science DOI: 10.1126/science.adl2116 Article amended on 5 June 2025We corrected Vijay Yadav's affiliationTopics:

Nature, Published online: 04 June 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-01456-7In mice, a lack of maternal iron impairs an iron-dependent enzyme that activates the male sex-determining gene, causing some XY embryos to develop ovaries.

Launch week is finally here, and though I would love to be bringing you a proper review of the Nintendo Switch 2 right now, I still don’t have one at the time of writing. In its wisdom, Nintendo has decided not to send review units out until the day before release, so as you read this I will be standing impatiently by the door like a dog anxiously awaiting its owner.I have played the console, though, for a whole day at Nintendo’s offices, so I can give you some first impressions. Hardware-wise, it is the upgrade of my dreams: sturdier JoyCons, a beautiful screen, the graphical muscle to make games look as good as I want them to in 2025 (though still not comparable to the high-end PlayStation 5 Pro or a modern gaming PC). I like the understated pops of colour on the controllers, the refined menu with its soothing chimes and blips. Game sharing, online functionality and other basic stuff is frictionless now. I love that Nintendo Switch Online is so reasonably priced, at £18 a year, as opposed to about the same per month for comparable gaming services, and it gives me access to a treasure trove of Nintendo games from decades past.But here’s the key word in that paragraph: it’s an upgrade. After eight years, an upgrade feels rather belated. I was hoping for something actually new, and aside from the fact that you can now use those controllers as mice by turning them sideways and moving them around on a desk or on your lap, there isn’t much new in the Switch 2. Absorbed in Mario Kart World, the main launch title, it was easy to forget I was even playing a new console. I do wonder – as I did in January – whether many less gaming-literate families who own a Switch will see a reason to upgrade, given the £400 asking price.Brilliant … Mario Kart World. Photograph: NintendoSpeaking of Mario Kart World, though: it’s brilliant. Totally splendid. It will deservedly sell squillions. Alongside the classic competitive grand prix and time trial races, the headline feature is an open, driveable world that you can explore all you like, as any character, picking up characters and costumes and collectibles, and getting into elimination-style races that span the full continent. All the courses are part of one huge map, and they flow right into one another.Your kart transforms helpfully into a boat when you hit water, and I found an island with a really tricky challenge where I had to ride seaplanes up towards a skyscraper in the city, driving over their wings from one to the other. Anyone could lose hours driving aimlessly around the colourful collection of mountains, jungles and winding motorways here. There’s even a space-station themed course that cleverly echoes the original Donkey Kong arcade game, delivering a nostalgia hit as delightful as Super Mario Odyssey’s climactic New Donk City festival.Pushing Buttons correspondent Keith Stuart also had a great time with another launch game, Konami’s Survival Kids, which is a bit like Overcooked except all the players are working together to survive on a desert island. (Be reassured, if you generally find survival games hard work: it’s very much fun over peril.)However: I would steer clear of the Nintendo Switch Welcome Tour, an almost belligerently un-fun interactive tour of the console’s new features … that costs £7.99. Your tiny avatar walks around a gigantic recreation of a Switch 2 console, looking for invisible plaques that point out its different components. There are displays with uninteresting technical information about, say, the quality of the console’s HD rumble. One of the interactive museum displays shows a ball bounding across the screen and asks you to guess how many frames per second it is travelling at. As someone who aggressively does not care about fine technical detail, I was terrible at this. It’s like being on the least interesting school trip of your life.And it felt felt remarkably un-Nintendo, so dry and devoid of personality that it made me a little worried. Nintendo Labo, by contrast, was a super-fun and accessible way of showing off the original Switch’s technical features. I had assumed that Welcome Tour would be made by the same team, but evidently not.I couldn’t wait to get back to Mario Kart World, which, once again, is fantastic. I’m excited to spend the rest of the week playing it for a proper review. And if you’ve pre-ordered a Switch 2, you’ll have it in your hands in the next 24 hours. For those holding off: we’ll have plenty more Switch 2 info and opinions in the next few weeks to help you make a decision.What to playArms akimbo … to a T is funny and weird. Illustration: Annapurna interactive/SteamLast week I played through to a T, the beautifully strange, unexpectedly thoughtful new game from Katamari Damacy creator Keita Takahashi. It is about a young teenager who is forever stuck in a T-pose, arms akimbo. As you might imagine, this makes life rather difficult for them, and they must rely on their fluffy little dog to help them through life. It’s a kid-friendly game about accepting who you are – I played it with my sons – but it is also extremely funny and weird, and features a song about a giraffe who loves to make sandwiches. I love a game where you don’t know what to expect, and I bet that if I asked every single reader of this newsletter to guess how it ends, not one of you would be anywhere close.Available on: PS5, Xbox, PC Estimated playtime: What to readTake chances … Remy Siu (left) and Nhi Do accept the Peabody award for 1000xRESIST. Photograph: Charley Gallay/Getty images 1000xRESIST, last year’s critical darling sci-fi game about the immigrant experience and the cost of political resistance, won a Peabody award this week. From the creators’ acceptance speech: “I want to say to the games industry, resource those on the margins and seek difference. Take chances again and again. This art form is barely unearthed. It’s too early to define it. Fund the indescribable.” Keith Stuart wrote about the largely lost age of midnight launch parties – for the Switch 2 launch, only Smyths Toys is hosting midnight releases. Did you ever go to one of these events? Write in and tell me if so – I remember feeling intensely embarrassed queuing for a Wii on Edinburgh’s Princes Street as a teenager. The developers of OpenAI are very proud that their latest artificial “intelligence” model can play Pokémon Red. It’s terrible at it, and has so far taken more than 80 hours to obtain three gym badges. I’m trying not to think about the environmental cost of proving AI is terrible at video games. When Imran Khan had a stroke last year, he lost the ability to play games. I found this essay about the role that Kaizo Mario (super-difficult hacked Mario levels) played in his recovery extremely moving. skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Pushing ButtonsFree weekly newsletterKeza MacDonald's weekly look at the world of gamingPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionWhat to clickQuestion BlockSoothing … Unpacking. Illustration: Humble Games/SteamReader Gemma asks:“At this moment I am cuddling my three-month-old as he naps on the sofa while I’m playing Blue Prince. It might be the best postnatal game: it has very little background sound or music; can be paused any time; is very chill with zero jeopardy; but also has a fascinating storyline and incredible puzzles. I also find myself narrating the letters and talking out loud for the maths puzzles. (Do three-month-olds understand algebra?) Your article [about Nintendo at naptime] made me feel less guilty, so thank you. Any other updated tips for similar games that you’ve discovered in the last eight years for postnatal gaming?”In the small-baby years I played two types of games: five-hour ones that I could complete in a couple of evenings, or endless Stardew Valley/Animal Crossing-type games where you could just drop in and zone out for as long as you needed, and it didn’t matter whether you were “achieving” anything. I couldn’t play anything with a linear plot because my brain was often mush and I’d simply forget what had happened an hour ago. It’s different for everyone, though – my friend Sarah was obsessed with Grand Theft Auto when her baby was wee.I became hooked on a couple of exploitative phone games that I won’t recommend – don’t go near those in a vulnerable brain-state, you’ll end up spending hours and £££ on virtual gems to buy dopamine with. Something like Unpacking or A Little to the Left might be soothing for a puzzle-brain like yours (and they’re short). I’ll throw this out there to other gamer mums: what did you play in the early months of parenthood?If you’ve got a question for Question Block – or anything else to say about the newsletter – email us on pushingbuttons@theguardian.com.

Nacelle Unveils Wave 2 of Biker Mice From Mars Action Figures  Nacelle is expanding its NacelleVerse with a new wave of Biker Mice from Mars 1/12 scale figures, now featuring iconic villains and fresh heroes. The lineup includes Charley, Carbine, Lawrence Limburger, Doctor Karbunkle (with Fred the Mutant) and Greasepit. Each action figure will be packed with eccentric accessories and interchangeable parts. Following strong fan demand, production was fast-tracked to bring more characters and long-awaited villains to shelves. The beloved animated series is also being revived by Nacelle alongside Maximum Effort’s Ryan Reynolds.  Check out the full lineup here  Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick Reunite Onscreen for The Best You Can  Kevin Bacon puts his dancing shoes back on for Michael J. Weithorn’s new film The Best You Can, which premieres at the Tribeca Film Festival on June 7. This new Bacon feature, however, is far from a musical, and it will be the first time in over 20 years that Bacon and his wife Kyra Sedgwick reunite on the screen.  The new film will follow Stan (Bacon), who is home security guard, and Cynthia (Sedgwick), a doctor who forms an unlikely bond with Stan after her home gets invaded. Their friendship is formed entirely over text following their initial encounter.  Of course, working with actors who are married in real-life can throw off the illusion of an unexpected connection that Weithorn is trying to achieve. His solution? Weithorn tells Entertainment Weekly that he asked Bacon and Sedgwick to avoid rehearsing together; he also decided to put Sedgwick in a wig (brilliant) to hopefully make her appearance foreign to Bacon, and set the scene for the two meeting for the first time– and not that they’ve been married for like 36 years.  “For Weithorn, the experience opened him up to the idea of writing a film where texting is one of the primary modes of communication between his protagonists, reflecting its prevalence in day-to-day life. ‘With new people we find that, especially someone who’s a potential friend or someone you might be dating, sometimes it’ll be very awkward and you’re trying to struggle to figure out what they meant or why they didn’t text back,’ he notes. ‘All of the politics and the nuances of texting, it’s more often than not a little clunky.’” Read more at Entertainment Weekly  Nouvelle Vague Could Be France’s First Best International Film Winner at the Oscars in Over 30 Years   It’s been over 30 years since France has received a statuette for best international film, and in 2026, it might just be an American filmmaker to make that change.  Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague recently premiered at Cannes, and has since been acquired by Netflix. Despite speculation, the film is eligible to be selected by France’s Oscar committee since it was shot mostly in French. Furthermore, Linklater employed a local artistic and production team, which heavily factors into the selection committee’s decision, given the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences requires the creative control of the film be mostly in the hands of the country’s citizens. The only opposing force would be the film’s current release date, which falls after AMPAS Sept. 30 deadline.  If you’re thinking: I think I’ve seen this film before– you’re not alone. France was just inches away from scoring best international film at the 2025 Oscars with Emilia Pérez, which Netflix also acquired; it only cost them $12 million, and was one of the most controversial films of the year. One almost certain deterrent from it winning best international film was a brewing controversy over lead actress’ Karla Sofia Gascon’s offensive tweets just in time for award season.  Still, following its Cannes premiere, though it did not win any prizes at the festival, critics have been abuzz with glowing reviews for Nouvelle Vague. The premiere even visibly moved Quentin Tarantino, who then led a burst of enthusiastic applause and a long standing-ovation from the audience.  Join our mailing list Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox! “It would certainly be ironic — and hard to swallow for some — to finally see an American filmmaker score France’s first international feature film Oscar after more than 30 years (the last one dates back to 1993 with Regis Wargnier with ‘Indochine’).’” Read more at Variety  Warner Bros. Delays Animal Friends Release  Reviving a beloved ’90s classic about animated space mice is not the only thing Ryan Reynolds has been up to– he’s also set to star in an upcoming live-action hybrid movie directed by Peter Atencio, Animal Friends.  The film was set to premiere in theaters on Oct. 10, but that date has since been moved to May 1, 2026. Alongside Reynolds will be Aubrey Plaza, Jason Momoa, Dan Levy and TikTok star/rising pop-princess, Addison Rae.  “The road trip adventure feature is now set to hit theaters May 1, 2026, after previously having been scheduled for Oct. 10, 2025. Peter Atencio directs the film from a script by Kevin Burrows and Matt Mider.”  Read more at The Hollywood Reporter

Coolers News Noctua's Next Big Thing: Liquid Cooling and Thermosiphons | Technical Deep-DiveJune 2, 2025Last Updated: 2025-06-02Noctua's Computex 2025 showcase includes engineering and design information on their new Thermosiphon cooler and CPU liquid coolerThe HighlightsNoctua shows off its upcoming AIO liquid coolerThe company also shows off its new NF-A12 G2 fanNoctua also discusses its Antec Flux Pro Noctua Edition PC caseTable of ContentsAutoTOC Grab a GN15 Large Anti-Static Modmat to celebrate our 15th Anniversary and for a high-quality PC building work surface. The Modmat features useful PC building diagrams and is anti-static conductive. Purchases directly fund our work! (or consider a direct donation or a Patreon contribution!)IntroWe visited Noctua’s booth at Computex, where the company showed off its upcoming liquid cooler, which is set to launch in Q1 2026. Once again, we have to give Noctua an award for least RGB LED BS we’ve seen at a trade show as we couldn’t find any in their booth.Editor's note: This was originally published on May 20, 2025 as a video. This content has been adapted to written format for this article and is unchanged from the original publication.CreditsHostSteve BurkeCamera, Video EditingMike GaglioneVitalii MakhnovetsWriting, Web EditingJimmy ThangThe company showed off its AIO liquid cooler prototype, which consisted of 3D printed pieces that are intended to go into the pump block to reduce some of the most annoying aspects of liquid coolers with pumps as opposed to thermosiphons. The fan that goes on top of the pump block is an existing Noctua fan that they’ve reshaped the frame for. And it’s optional to mount on top and it projects the air out towards the memory and VRM components. We also looked at the company’s thermosiphon, which was briefly shown at Computex last year. It is a 2-phase thermosiphon, which means that it does a phase change. This makes it comparable to a heat-pipe in a way. We also got to see a bunch of different types of cold plate designs.We also got another look at the Noctua x Antec Flux Pro case, which we previously covered at Antec’s booth.G2 FansNoctua showed off its 120mm G2 fan, which also appears in the shroud top of the Antec Flux Pro case. A couple things have changed about the fan, which include the RPM offset being a little different.Grab a GN Soldering & Project Mat for a high-quality work surface with extreme heat resistance. These purchases directly fund our operation, including our build-out of the hemi-anechoic chamber for our acoustic testing! (or consider a direct donation or a Patreon contribution!)When we reviewed the NH-D15 G2, the RPM offset between the 2 fans was about 25, but the fans we saw at Computex are about plus or minus 50.  Noctua provided some first-party data and stated that on a 120x49mm water cooler radiator comparing the G2 fan versus the company’s NF-A12x25 fan under a 200W heat-loud, the G2 fan performed roughly 3 degrees cooler, which is really good.    Paired with an air cooler, there was about a 1 degree difference between the 2 fans, which is a lot for an air cooler. Noctua Liquid CoolerFor its liquid cooler, Noctua is working with Asetek, using the company’s Gen 8 V2 platform.  Asetek has been around for a long time and they’re one of the biggest suppliers. In the old days, they worked with Corsair, NZXT, and basically everyone’s stuff.The landscape has diversified a bit. Apaltek has gotten really big as a supplier. For as much s*** we’ve given Asetek over the years, in our experience, they’ve had fewer widespread failures of gunk buildup compared to competing solutions. Noctua MouseWe don’t cover mice, but Noctua also showed off a mouse with a small fan built into it. Noctua's Jakob Dellinger Interview Visit our Patreon page to contribute a few dollars toward this website's operation (or consider a direct donation or buying something from our GN Store!) Additionally, when you purchase through links to retailers on our site, we may earn a small affiliate commission.We wrapped up our Noctua coverage by interviewing Noctua’s Jakob Dellinger. Make sure to watch our Computex video where we do a deeper dive into the company’s upcoming liquid cooler, how a thermosiphon works, and more.

Co-lead author Ravneet Sidhu examines an ancient human tooth at the McMaster Ancient DNA Centre. (Image Credit: McMaster University)NewsletterSign up for our email newsletter for the latest science newsA new study in Science suggests that changes in a gene in Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes plague, could’ve added to the length of two plague pandemics, including the pandemic that started with the “Black Death.” “Ours is one of the first research studies to directly examine changes in an ancient pathogen, one we still see today, in an attempt to understand what drives the virulence, persistence, and eventual extinction of pandemics,” said Hendrik Poinar, a study author and the director of the McMaster Ancient DNA Centre, according to a press release.The study suggests that less virulent plague bacteria could’ve caused longer plague pandemics — thanks to the fact that infected rodents lived (and spread plague) for longer periods of time before dying from their infections. Read More: Scientists Reveal the Black Death’s Origin StoryThe Three Plague PandemicsThe bacterium Y. pestis infects rodents and humans alike and has caused three main plague pandemics in humans, all of which continued for centuries after their initial outbreaks. The first began in the 500s; the second began in the 1300s; and the third started in the 1800s (and still continues in certain areas in Asia, Africa, and the Americas today). Although all three pandemics were devastating at their outset, the second pandemic was by far the most severe. The Black Death, its initial outburst, killed around 30 to 50 percent of the population of Europe between 1347 and 1352 and — to this day — represents the deadliest disease wave in recorded history.To learn more about how these plague pandemics changed over time, scientists at McMaster University in Canada and the Institut Pasteur in France turned to a Y. pestis virulence gene known as pla. This gene is repeated many times throughout the Y. pestis genome, and it allows the bacterium to spread undetected throughout the bodies of infected individuals. A Gene and the PlagueTo investigate this gene, the scientists studied historical strains of Y. pestis from human remains and found that the number of repetitions of pla decreased over the course of the first and second plague pandemics. Then, the scientists tested Y. pestis bacteria from the third pandemic, infecting mice with three strains that had reduced repetitions of pla. “These three samples enabled us to analyze the biological impact of these pla gene deletions,” said Javier Pizarro-Cerdá, another study author and the director of the Yersinia Research Unit at the Institut Pasteur, according to the release.The results revealed that pla depletion decreases the virulence and increases the length of plague infections in mice. According to the study authors, these changes could have caused rodents to live longer in the later stages of the first and second pandemics, allowing them to spread their infections for a longer period. “It’s important to remember that plague was an epidemic of rats, which were the drivers of epidemics and pandemics. Humans were accidental victims. ” Poinar added in another press release.The Continued Threat of Y. PestisThough the pla depletion occurred around 100 years after the first and second pandemics began, the scientists stress that both changes were random and unrelated.“Our research sheds light on an interesting pattern in the evolutionary history of the plague. However, it is important to note that the majority of strains which continue to circulate today in Africa, the Americas, and Asia are highly virulent strains,” said Ravneet Sidhu, another study author and a Ph.D. student at the McMaster Ancient DNA Centre.Though still a threat to current populations, Y. pestis infections are much more manageable now as a result of modern diagnostics and treatments.“Today, the plague is a rare disease, but one that remains a public health concern and serves as a model for gaining a broad understanding of how pandemics emerge and become extinct. This example illustrates the balance of virulence a pathogen can adopt in order to spread effectively,” Pizarro-Cerdá said in the press release.Article SourcesOur writers at Discovermagazine.com use peer-reviewed studies and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. Review the sources used below for this article:Science. Sam Walters is a journalist covering archaeology, paleontology, ecology, and evolution for Discover, along with an assortment of other topics. Before joining the Discover team as an assistant editor in 2022, Sam studied journalism at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.1 free article leftWant More? Get unlimited access for as low as $1.99/monthSubscribeAlready a subscriber?Register or Log In1 free articleSubscribeWant more?Keep reading for as low as $1.99!SubscribeAlready a subscriber?Register or Log In

Best of the rest Research roundup: 7 stories we almost missed Also: drumming chimpanzees, picking styles of two jazz greats, and an ancient underground city's soundscape Jennifer Ouellette – May 31, 2025 5:37 pm | 4 Time lapse photos show a new ping-pong-playing robot performing a top spin. Credit: David Nguyen, Kendrick Cancio and Sangbae Kim Time lapse photos show a new ping-pong-playing robot performing a top spin. Credit: David Nguyen, Kendrick Cancio and Sangbae Kim Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only   Learn more It's a regrettable reality that there is never time to cover all the interesting scientific stories we come across each month. In the past, we've featured year-end roundups of cool science stories we (almost) missed. This year, we're experimenting with a monthly collection. May's list includes a nifty experiment to make a predicted effect of special relativity visible; a ping-pong playing robot that can return hits with 88 percent accuracy; and the discovery of the rare genetic mutation that makes orange cats orange, among other highlights. Special relativity made visible Credit: TU Wien Perhaps the most well-known feature of Albert Einstein's special theory of relativity is time dilation and length contraction. In 1959, two physicists predicted another feature of relativistic motion: an object moving near the speed of light should also appear to be rotated. It's not been possible to demonstrate this experimentally, however—until now. Physicists at the Vienna University of Technology figured out how to reproduce this rotational effect in the lab using laser pulses and precision cameras, according to a paper published in the journal Communications Physics. They found their inspiration in art, specifically an earlier collaboration with an artist named Enar de Dios Rodriguez, who collaborated with VUT and the University of Vienna on a project involving ultra-fast photography and slow light. For this latest research, they used objects shaped like a cube and a sphere and moved them around the lab while zapping them with ultrashort laser pulses, recording the flashes with a high-speed camera. Getting the timing just right effectively yields similar results to a light speed of 2 m/s. After photographing the objects many times using this method, the team then combined the still images into a single image. The results: the cube looked twisted and the sphere's North Pole was in a different location—a demonstration of the rotational effect predicted back in 1959. DOI: Communications Physics, 2025. 10.1038/s42005-025-02003-6  (About DOIs). Drumming chimpanzees A chimpanzee feeling the rhythm. Credit: Current Biology/Eleuteri et al., 2025. Chimpanzees are known to "drum" on the roots of trees as a means of communication, often combining that action with what are known as "pant-hoot" vocalizations (see above video). Scientists have found that the chimps' drumming exhibits key elements of musical rhythm much like humans, according to  a paper published in the journal Current Biology—specifically non-random timing and isochrony. And chimps from different geographical regions have different drumming rhythms. Back in 2022, the same team observed that individual chimps had unique styles of "buttress drumming," which served as a kind of communication, letting others in the same group know their identity, location, and activity. This time around they wanted to know if this was also true of chimps living in different groups and whether their drumming was rhythmic in nature. So they collected video footage of the drumming behavior among 11 chimpanzee communities across six populations in East Africa (Uganda) and West Africa (Ivory Coast), amounting to 371 drumming bouts. Their analysis of the drum patterns confirmed their hypothesis. The western chimps drummed in regularly spaced hits, used faster tempos, and started drumming earlier during their pant-hoot vocalizations. Eastern chimps would alternate between shorter and longer spaced hits. Since this kind of rhythmic percussion is one of the earliest evolved forms of human musical expression and is ubiquitous across cultures, findings such as this could shed light on how our love of rhythm evolved. DOI: Current Biology, 2025. 10.1016/j.cub.2025.04.019  (About DOIs). Distinctive styles of two jazz greats Jazz lovers likely need no introduction to Joe Pass and Wes Montgomery, 20th century guitarists who influenced generations of jazz musicians with their innovative techniques. Montgomery, for instance, didn't use a pick, preferring to pluck the strings with his thumb—a method he developed because he practiced at night after working all day as a machinist and didn't want to wake his children or neighbors. Pass developed his own range of picking techniques, including fingerpicking, hybrid picking, and "flat picking." Chirag Gokani and Preston Wilson, both with Applied Research Laboratories and the University of Texas, Austin, greatly admired both Pass and Montgomery and decided to explore the underlying the acoustics of their distinctive playing, modeling the interactions of the thumb, fingers, and pick with a guitar string. They described their research during a meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in New Orleans, LA. Among their findings: Montgomery achieved his warm tone by playing closer to the bridge and mostly plucking at the string. Pass's rich tone arose from a combination of using a pick and playing closer to the guitar neck. There were also differences in how much a thumb, finger, and pick slip off the string:  use of the thumb (Montgomery) produced more of a "pluck" compared to the pick (Pass), which produced more of a "strike." Gokani and Wilson think their model could be used to synthesize digital guitars with a more realistic sound, as well as helping guitarists better emulate Pass and Montgomery. Sounds of an ancient underground city Credit: Sezin Nas Turkey is home to the underground city Derinkuyu, originally carved out inside soft volcanic rock around the 8th century BCE. It was later expanded to include four main ventilation channels (and some 50,000 smaller shafts) serving seven levels, which could be closed off from the inside with a large rolling stone. The city could hold up to 20,000 people and it  was connected to another underground city, Kaymakli, via tunnels. Derinkuyu helped protect Arab Muslims during the Arab-Byzantine wars, served as a refuge from the Ottomans in the 14th century, and as a haven for Armenians escaping persecution in the early 20th century, among other functions. The tunnels were rediscovered in the 1960s and about half of the city has been open to visitors since 2016. The site is naturally of great archaeological interest, but there has been little to no research on the acoustics of the site, particularly the ventilation channels—one of Derinkuyu's most unique features, according to Sezin Nas, an architectural acoustician at Istanbul Galata University in Turkey.  She gave a talk at a meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in New Orleans, LA, about her work on the site's acoustic environment. Nas analyzed a church, a living area, and a kitchen, measuring sound sources and reverberation patterns, among other factors, to create a 3D virtual soundscape. The hope is that a better understanding of this aspect of Derinkuyu could improve the design of future underground urban spaces—as well as one day using her virtual soundscape to enable visitors to experience the sounds of the city themselves. MIT's latest ping-pong robot Robots playing ping-pong have been a thing since the 1980s, of particular interest to scientists because it requires the robot to combine the slow, precise ability to grasp and pick up objects with dynamic, adaptable locomotion. Such robots need high-speed machine vision, fast motors and actuators, precise control, and the ability to make accurate predictions in real time, not to mention being able to develop a game strategy. More recent designs use AI techniques to allow the robots to "learn" from prior data to improve their performance. MIT researchers have built their own version of a ping-pong playing robot, incorporating a lightweight design and the ability to precisely return shots. They built on prior work developing the Humanoid, a small bipedal two-armed robot—specifically, modifying the Humanoid's arm by adding an extra degree of freedom to the wrist so the robot could control a ping-pong paddle. They tested their robot by mounting it on a ping-pong table and lobbing 150 balls at it from the other side of the table, capturing the action with high-speed cameras. The new bot can execute three different swing types (loop, drive, and chip) and during the trial runs it returned the ball with impressive accuracy across all three types: 88.4 percent, 89.2 percent, and 87.5 percent, respectively. Subsequent tweaks to theirrystem brought the robot's strike speed up to 19 meters per second (about 42 MPH), close to the 12 to 25 meters per second of advanced human players. The addition of control algorithms gave the robot the ability to aim. The robot still has limited mobility and reach because it has to be fixed to the ping-pong table but the MIT researchers plan to rig it to a gantry or wheeled platform in the future to address that shortcoming. Why orange cats are orange Credit: Astropulse/CC BY-SA 3.0 Cat lovers know orange cats are special for more than their unique coloring, but that's the quality that has intrigued scientists for almost a century. Sure, lots of animals have orange, ginger, or yellow hues, like tigers, orangutans, and golden retrievers. But in domestic cats that color is specifically linked to sex. Almost all orange cats are male. Scientists have now identified the genetic mutation responsible and it appears to be unique to cats, according to a paper published in the journal Current Biology. Prior work had narrowed down the region on the X chromosome most likely to contain the relevant mutation. The scientists knew that females usually have just one copy of the mutation and in that case have tortoiseshell (partially orange) coloring, although in rare cases, a female cat will be orange if both X chromosomes have the mutation. Over the last five to ten years, there has been an explosion in genome resources (including complete sequenced genomes) for cats which greatly aided the team's research, along with taking additional DNA samples from cats at spay and neuter clinics. From an initial pool of 51 candidate variants, the scientists narrowed it down to three genes, only one of which was likely to play any role in gene regulation: Arhgap36. It wasn't known to play any role in pigment cells in humans, mice, or non-orange cats. But orange cats are special; their mutation (sex-linked orange) turns on Arhgap36 expression in pigment cells (and only pigment cells), thereby interfering with the molecular pathway that controls coat color in other orange-shaded mammals. The scientists suggest that this is an example of how genes can acquire new functions, thereby enabling species to better adapt and evolve. DOI: Current Biology, 2025. 10.1016/j.cub.2025.03.075  (About DOIs). Not a Roman "massacre" after all Credit: Martin Smith In 1936, archaeologists excavating the Iron Age hill fort Maiden Castle in the UK unearthed dozens of human skeletons, all showing signs of lethal injuries to the head and upper body—likely inflicted with weaponry. At the time, this was interpreted as evidence of a pitched battle between the Britons of the local Durotriges tribe and invading Romans. The Romans slaughtered the native inhabitants, thereby bringing a sudden violent end to the Iron Age. At least that's the popular narrative that has prevailed ever since in countless popular articles, books, and documentaries. But a paper published in the Oxford Journal of Archaeology calls that narrative into question. Archaeologists at Bournemouth University have re-analyzed those burials, incorporating radiocarbon dating into their efforts. They concluded that those individuals didn't die in a single brutal battle. Rather, it was Britons killing other Britons over multiple generations between the first century BCE and the first century CE—most likely in periodic localized outbursts of violence in the lead-up to the Roman conquest of Britain. It's possible there are still many human remains waiting to be discovered at the site, which could shed further light on what happened at Maiden Castle. DOI: Oxford Journal of Archaeology, 2025. 10.1111/ojoa.12324  (About DOIs). Jennifer Ouellette Senior Writer Jennifer Ouellette Senior Writer Jennifer is a senior writer at Ars Technica with a particular focus on where science meets culture, covering everything from physics and related interdisciplinary topics to her favorite films and TV series. Jennifer lives in Baltimore with her spouse, physicist Sean M. Carroll, and their two cats, Ariel and Caliban. 4 Comments

Nature, Published online: 30 May 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-01653-4Mutation in an enzyme leads to resistance to chronic and acute pain, according to research in mice.