The unexpected joys of returning to the office: Better work-life balance and overheard conversations: As more companies require employees to return to in-person work after nearly two years of working from home, some have been surprised by the perks of going back to an office environment, the Wall Street Journal cites some employees in different industries as saying. Employees are feeling more energized by being around other people, and picking up new ideas from conversations overheard by the water cooler and face-to-face collaboration. Working from home blurred work-life boundaries, with many employees working longer hours due to not having the physical separations of time and space that they get when working in an office. “It was like, where does home end and work begin?” a Washington DC lawyer told the journal.

Julius Caesar’s favorite herb (which, btw, was an aphrodisiac) might have been the first victim of man-made climate change: Romans loved silphium so much that they used it as perfume, medicine, and put it on almost every dish. It was also quite important to iconic Roman general Julius Caesar who stashed more than half a ton in his treasury. However, the herb became extinct less than a century later in what scientists think could be the first evidence of plants disappearing due to man-made climate change, writes The Guardian. Silphium might have gone extinct due to a mix of over-harvesting and over-grazing, University of New Hampshire’s Paul Pollaro said, commenting on his research done alongside Paul Robertson. Even after the Romans realized their production was decreasing, it was too late to salvage the herb crops as they had already changed the microclimate, he added.