The human thirst for knowledge is the driving force behind our successful development as a species. But curiosity can also be dangerous, leading to setbacks (挫折) or even downfalls. Given curiosity’s complexity, scientists have found it hard to define.

While determining a definition has proven tricky, the general consensus is it’s some means of information gathering. Psychologists also agree curiosity is intrinsically (内在地) motivated.

Curiosity covers such a large set of behaviors that there probably isn’t any single “curiosity gene” that makes humans wonder about and explore their environment. That said, curiosity does have a genetic component. Genes and the environment interact in many complex ways to shape individuals and guide their behavior, including their curiosity.

Regardless of their genetic makeup, infants have to learn an incredible amount of information in a short time, and curiosity is one of the tools humans have found to accomplish that huge task.

Hundreds of studies show that infants prefer novelty. It’s what motivates non-human animals, human infants and probably human adults to explore and seek out new things before growing less interested in them after continued exposure.

But curiosity often comes with a cost.

In some situations, the stakes are low and failure is a healthy part of growth. For instance, many babies are perfectly capable crawlers, but they decide to try walking because there’s more to see and do when they stand upright. But this milestone comes at a small cost. A study of 12- to 19-month-olds learning how to walk documented that these children fell down a lot. Seventeen times per hour, to be exact. But walking is faster than crawling, so this motivates expert crawlers to transition to walking.

Sometimes, however, testing out a new idea can lead to disaster. For instance, the Inuit people of the Arctic regions have created incredible modes to deal with the challenges of living in northern climates, but what we forget about are the tens of thousands of people that tried and failed to make it in those challenging landscapes.

Geologists have long been fascinated by a missing piece of Earth’s history — a lost continent called Argoland. Around 155 million years ago, the 5,000-kilometer continent broke off from Western Australia and began drifting(漂移), leaving behind a basin deep below the ocean known as the Argo Abyssal Plain. But where did Argoland actually go?

The seabed structure suggests that the continent drifted northwestward and ended up Southeast Asia. But surprisingly, there is no large continent hidden beneath those islands, only small continental fragments(碎片) surrounded by ancient oceanic basins. Using this theory, geologists at Utrecht University discovered that Argoland hadn’t really disappeared but survived as a “very extended and fragmented collection” under the islands to the east of Indonesia.

Unlike other continents like Africa and South America, which broke neatly into two pieces, Argoland split into many smaller fragments that were dispersed, which made it difficult for scientists to locate and study the continent’s geological features. However, with advanced technology and the discovery, scientists can now piece them together.

Tracing the continents is vital for understanding processes like the evolution of biodiversity. It could help explain something known as the mysterious Wallace line, which is an imaginary boundary that separates mammals, birds, and even early human species in Southeast Asian islands. The boundary has puzzled scientists because of how clearly it separates the island’s wildlife. To the west of the line are placental mammals like apes and elephants. But these are almost completely absent to the east, where you can find marsupials and cockatoos — animals typically associated with Australia. Researchers have theorized that this may be because Argoland carried its own wildlife away from Australia before it crashed into Southeast Asia, which helps explain why different species are found in different nations.

The story of Argoland is not one of complete disappearance but of transformation. As the world continues to evolve, this lost continent serves as a powerful symbol of the fragility of life on this planet, and a reminder of the importance of respecting and protecting the world that we live in.

A study has found that when people burn extra calories by working out, the body starts to compensate by reducing the amount of energy spent on functions to stay alive, such as sleeping or digestion. About a quarter of the calories burnt during a workout are then budgeted for later on, meaning that overall the total number of calories burnt is less than expected. For overweight people, it is estimated that about half of calories burnt during periods of higher activity were later compensated for.

Researchers at the University of Roehampton found that the calories the body burns to keep ticking over decrease by 28 per cent during periods when daily exercise levels are consistently high. This means the more we exercise over the long-term, the less calories our bodies bum for the most rudimentary activities. The results show that only 54 per cent of the calories used by exercise or activity among people who have the highest body mass actually translated into calories burnt at the end of the day, due to their bodies reducing the energy spent on the most basic of functions. In contrast,70 percent of calories burnt during activity by those with the lowest body mass translated into more calories burnt at the end of the day.

Professor Lewis Halsey, of the department of life sciences, said: “Around the world, national guidelines tend to recommend a 500—600 calorie deficit through exercising and dieting to lose weight. However, they do not take into account the reduction of calories being burnt in the most basic of human functions as the body compensates for the calories burnt on the exercise as shown in our research, and the variation in this compensation between people with different levels of body fat.”

In this study they found no differences between men and women in the energy lost during activity. But since the research shows overweight people who exercise burn significantly fewer calories on day-to-day functions, there is a need for greater personalisation of exercise plans depending upon body mass.