“For most of medical history, itch and pain were considered variants of the same sensation — itch being just a mild form of pain. What Bautista and others have shown is that while the two share many cellular receptors and molecules, itch has its own biological infrastructure.” Bryan Gardiner in California Sunday Magazine: Decoding the science of why we scratch.

+ Reveal: America’s atomic vets: “We were used as guinea pigs – every one of us.”

+ Mitch Moxley in Atavist: How a Chinese billionaire’s dream of making an underwater fantasy blockbuster turned into a legendary movie fiasco: Sunk.

+ “Heath, despite himself, was delighted by the naturalness of Thwaites’s gait. He agreed to work on some prosthetic goat limbs and suggested some stretching exercises.” The New Yorker’s Josh Rothman on the man who decided to become a goat.

+ Submarine fibre, brains in jars, and coaxial cables. Just in case you were wondering, Ars Technica explains how the Internet works.