Looks to me like nautil.us is aiming at a general readership that is interested in science. Many articles like this gloss over the numbers in favor of narrative

Looks to me like nautil.us is aiming at a general readership that is interested in science. Many articles like this gloss over the numbers in favor of narrative and anecdotes, because that's what's interesting to general readership. The provides plenty of opportunity to delve deeper by seeking out the source material, as you have done. There's many people, myself included who you could send the original paper and I'd give it a glance and probably leave it. Not because I'm stupid or uneducated, but because I don't even know if its a paper that says something new or relevant to the field or has something to offer me as a person. An article like this makes it much more likely that people will engage the research by giving me some initial sense.