Science
Measles Strikes a Florida Elementary School With Over 100 Unvaccinated Kids
Nearly 11 percent of the students aren't fully immunized, prompting concerns of broader infection.
Beth Mole, Ars Technica
Kyiv Is Using Homegrown Tech to Treat the Trauma of War
Millions of Ukrainians are suffering the mental health implications of two years of Russian bombs and shells. The country’s recovery depends on building systems to help treat the trauma.
Peter Guest
A Virus Found in Wastewater Beat Back a Woman’s ‘Zombie’ Bacteria
Viruses called phages are a promising treatment option for bacterial infections when antibiotics stop working, but they have limitations.
Emily Mullin
Smoking Alters Your Immune System for Years After You Quit
By switching genes on and off, cigarettes have a long-lasting effect on immunity, and appear to shape your immune system just as much as aging.
Celia Ford
23andMe Is Under Fire. Its Founder Remains ‘Optimistic’
23andMe’s CEO Anne Wojcicki has saved the genetics company from the brink of failure before. She sat down with WIRED to talk about where it goes from here.
Emily Mullin
NASA’s New PACE Observatory Searches for Clues to Humanity’s Future
They may be tiny, but phytoplankton and aerosols power pivotal Earth systems. Scientists are about to learn a whole lot more about them at a critical time.
Matt Simon
NASA Engineers Are Racing to Fix Voyager 1
A computer glitch has put the future of humanity’s farthest-flung space probe in doubt.
Stephen Clark, Ars Technica
Two Nations, a Horrible Accident, and the Urgent Need to Understand the Laws of Space
Welcome to the world’s foremost training ground for saving space from disasters, disputes, and—perhaps one day—colonizers named Musk.
Khari Johnson
Dr. Nergis Mavalvala Helped Detect the First Gravitational Wave. Her Work Doesn’t Stop There
The dean of MIT’s School of Science embraces skepticism and failure, and she wants the next generation of scientists to jump right in.
Swapna Krishna
Fake Caviar Invented in the 1930s Could Be the Solution to Plastic Pollution
An alternative to environmentally-harmful plastic is already within reach: seaweed.
Stephen Armstrong
Farming Prioritizes Cows and Cars—Not People
Farmers and scientists are getting better at growing more crops on less land, but they’re not focusing on plants that people eat.
Matt Reynolds
Wild Animals Should Be Paid for the Benefits They Provide Humanity
Healthy ecosystems in developing countries sequester carbon, regulate the weather, and help plants grow thousands of miles away. Wealthier countries benefit from these services—and so should pay for them to be maintained.
Stephen Armstrong
Did Climate Change Help This Skier Achieve the Impossible?
A slalom skier just achieved a remarkable result in the Alpine Ski World Cup—coming from last place to win. As mountains get warmer and conditions less predictable, expect more freak occurrences like this.
Charlie Metcalfe
Los Angeles Just Proved How Spongy a City Can Be
As relentless rains pounded LA, the city’s “sponge” infrastructure helped gather 8.6 billion gallons of water—enough to sustain over 100,000 households for a year.
Matt Simon
Tech Still Isn’t Doing Enough to Care for the Environment
Priscilla Chomba-Kinywa, CTO of Greenpeace, says technology firms must shape up—and consumers and business clients should walk away if they don’t.
Stephen Armstrong
All That Rain Is Driving Up Cases of a Deadly Fungal Disease in California
Valley fever is thriving as California swings widely between drought and flooding.
Zoya Teirstein
Ocean Temperatures Keep Shattering Records—and Stunning Scientists
Sea surface temperatures have been skyrocketing beyond expectations. That may be a bad sign for hurricane season—and the health of ocean ecosystems.
Matt Simon
These States Are Basically Begging You to Get a Heat Pump
You need a heat pump, ASAP. Now nine states are teaming up to accelerate the adoption of this climate superhero.
Matt Simon
The US Has Big Plans for Wind Energy—but an Obscure 1920s Law Is Getting in the Way
The Biden administration aims to deploy offshore wind turbines capable of generating 30 gigawatts of power by 2030. With less than a decade to go, the country remains woefully behind target.
David Jen
The Last-Ditch Effort to Stop the Mountain Valley Pipeline
The gas pipeline stretching across Virginia and West Virginia is over budget and behind schedule, with a lot of hard work left to do. Opponents hope that makes fossil fuel companies think twice about building the next one.
Katie Myers
Global Emissions Could Peak Sooner Than You Think
Global deployment of solar and wind power, plus a surge in EV sales, means emissions from fossil-fuel-derived energy will finally hit the downward slope.
Hannah Ritchie
Google’s Chess Experiments Reveal How to Boost the Power of AI
By rewarding computers that combined different approaches to solve chess puzzles, Google created an enhanced AI that could defeat its existing champion, AlphaZero.
Stephen Ornes
A Celebrated Cryptography-Breaking Algorithm Just Got an Upgrade
Two researchers have improved a well-known technique for lattice basis reduction, opening up new avenues for practical experiments in cryptography and mathematics.
Madison Goldberg
How to Guarantee the Safety of Autonomous Vehicles
As computer-driven cars and planes become more common, the key to preventing accidents, researchers show, is to know what you don’t know.
Steve Nadis
Why Is Our Solar System Flat?
It started as a big old ball of dust, so how did it end up like a giant pancake? Our resident physicist tells the true story using fake forces.
Rhett Allain
A Startup Has Unlocked a Way to Make Cheap Insulin
Houston-based rBIO has invented a new process to churn out insulin at higher yields using custom-made bacteria.
Emily Mullin
Elon Musk Says a Human Patient Has Received Neuralink’s Brain Implant
Details are scarce, but Neuralink cofounder Elon Musk says initial results are “promising.”
Emily Mullin
6 Deaf Children Can Now Hear After a Single Injection
Several gene therapies aim to restore a protein necessary for transmitting sound signals from the ear to the brain.
Emily Mullin
Scientists Will Test a Cancer-Hunting mRNA Treatment
Strand Therapeutics has figured out a way to turn the molecule on and off in certain tissues to more precisely treat tumors.
Emily Mullin
Meet the Next Generation of Doctors—and Their Surgical Robots
Don't worry, your next surgeon will definitely be a human. But just as medical students are training to use a scalpel, they're also training to use robots designed to make surgeries easier.
Neha Mukherjee
AI Is Building Highly Effective Antibodies That Humans Can’t Even Imagine
Robots, computers, and algorithms are hunting for potential new therapies in ways humans can’t—by processing huge volumes of data and building previously unimagined molecules.
Amit Katwala
This Artificial Muscle Moves Stuff on Its Own
Actuators inspired by cucumber plants could make robots move more naturally in response to their environments, or be used for devices in inhospitable places.
Max G. Levy
Get Ready for 3D-Printed Organs and a Knife That ‘Smells’ Tumors
Hospitals are evolving at warp speed, and autonomous surgical robots are just the beginning.
Joao Medeiros
They Had PTSD. A Psychedelic Called Ibogaine Helped Them Get Better
Ibogaine, a plant-based psychoactive drug, drastically reduced symptoms of depression and PTSD in veterans with traumatic brain injuries.
Emily Mullin
It's Time to Log Off
There’s a devastating amount of heavy news these days. Psychology experts say you need to know your limits—and when to put down the phone.
Thor Benson
Dr. Ann McKee Is on a Quest to Save Humanity’s Brains
The medical community's leading authority on traumatic brain injuries wants to make contact sports—which she loves—safer for everyone.
Erica Kasper
How Cinematherapy Helped Me Through a Midlife Crisis
Yes, there is a therapeutic basis for “watching movies to heal,” but only if you do it the right way. Here's how.
Tammy Rabideau
Latest
Human Scale
Who Tests If Heat-Proof Clothing Actually Works? These Poor Sweating Mannequins
Amit Katwala
Adaptation
Countries Are Building Giant ‘Sand Motors’ to Protect Their Coasts From Erosion
Jake Bittle
Incognito Mode
Cryptographers Are Getting Closer to Enabling Fully Private Internet Searches
Madison Goldberg