Science
Joy Ride
These Rats Learned to Drive—and They Love It
Driving represented an interesting way for neuroscientists to study how rodents acquire new skills, and unexpectedly, rats had an intense motivation for their driving training.
Kelly Lambert
stand and deliver
Standing Desks Are Better for Your Health—but Still Not Enough
Beth Mole, Ars Technica
Bone Marrow Donors Can Be Hard to Find. One Company Is Turning to Cadavers
San Francisco–based Ossium Health has carried out three transplants for cancer patients using stem cells from deceased donors’ bone marrow in recent months.
Emily Mullin
The Real Problem With Banning Masks at Protests
Privacy advocates worry banning masks at protests will encourage harassment, while cops’ high-tech tools render the rules unnecessary.
Ilica Mahajan
A Popular Decongestant Doesn’t Work. The FDA Is Finally Doing Something About It
Oral phenylephrine was shown to be ineffective for treating nasal congestion over a year ago. This week, the FDA took the first steps toward removing it from pharmacy shelves.
Beth Mole, Ars Technica
States’ Abortion Rights Wins May Be Short-Lived Under a Second Trump Term
More than two years after a historic Supreme Court decision ended the national right to an abortion, some states are fighting back—but the future of abortion rights remains in doubt.
Emily Mullin
Microplastics Could Be Making the Weather Worse
Microplastics cause clouds to form in places where they wouldn't otherwise, which is likely to have knock-on effects on the weather and climate.
Miriam Freedman and Heidi Busse
Invasive Species Are Threatening the Quality of New York’s Tap Water
Zebra mussels, hydrilla, and now a water flea have made their homes in New Croton Reservoir.
Lauren Dalban
How a PhD Student Discovered a Lost Mayan City From Hundreds of Miles Away
WIRED spoke with the researchers responsible for the discovery of Valeriana, a lost Maya city in the middle of the jungle of Campeche.
Anna Lagos
OceanGate Faces Federal Investigation a Year After the Titan Submersible Implosion
A US Attorney's office is investigating the company behind the doomed expedition to the wreck of the Titanic, sources tell WIRED, even as a civil suit is already underway.
Mark Harris
COP29 Begins With Climate Finance, Absent Leaders, and Trump Looming Large
The annual UN climate summit has kicked off in Baku, Azerbaijan, with lofty goals, but many global leaders missing.
Antonio Piemontese
Trump Won. What Will Happen to Electric Vehicles?
Thanks to Elon Musk’s influence, the president-elect has waffled on the future of America’s electric transition.
Aarian Marshall
Even Under Trump, California (Yes, That Hellscape) Will Keep Moving the World Forward
The state has been written off as a woke wasteland. But it's still inventing the future on a bunch of frontiers nobody's talking about. For the next four years, it will remain a golden, global example.
James Fallows
A High-Profile Geneticist Is Launching a Fusion-Power Moonshot
Silicon Valley A-listers are funding Pacific Fusion, a startup that founding CEO Eric Lander says will have a full-scale demonstration system within a decade.
Steven Levy
How to Design a Real-Life Hot Wheels Loop
You should absolutely not build this thing. But it’s still fun to think through the physics.
Rhett Allain
Meta’s Next Llama AI Models Are Training on a GPU Cluster ‘Bigger Than Anything’ Else
The race for better generative AI is also a race for more computing power. On that score, according to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Meta appears to be winning.
Paresh Dave and Will Knight
Liquid AI Is Redesigning the Neural Network
Inspired by microscopic worms, Liquid AI’s founders developed a more adaptive, less energy-hungry kind of neural network. Now the MIT spin-off is revealing several new ultraefficient models.
Will Knight
US Government Says Relying on Chinese Lithium Batteries Is Too Risky
A new document shows the Department of Homeland Security is concerned that Chinese investment in lithium batteries to power energy grids will make them a threat to US supply chain security.
Zeyi Yang
Starship’s Next Launch Could Be Just Two Weeks Away
The SpaceX rocket will launch during the late afternoon so its descent into the Indian Ocean is visible.
Eric Berger, Ars Technica
China’s New Heavy Lift Rocket Looks a Whole Lot Like SpaceX’s Starship
The Long March 9 super heavy-lift rocket made an appearance at a major airshow recently—and looks awfully familiar.
Eric Berger, Ars Technica
NASA Will Do Space in Style With the Prada Axiom Spacesuit
In Milan, the fashion house and Axiom Space have revealed how astronauts will be decked out on the lunar surface during the Artemis 3 mission in 2026.
Emilio Cozzi
SpaceX’s Dramatic Rocket Catch Brings Interplanetary Travel One Step Closer
By proving that its Super Heavy booster can return to Earth and land, SpaceX has moved closer to creating a reusable interplanetary transport system.
Marta Musso
Scientists Have Pushed the Schrödinger’s Cat Paradox to New Limits
A research team in China has held atoms in a state of quantum superposition for 23 minutes, suggesting tantalizing new possibilities in research and quantum computing.
Marta Musso
The Incredible Power of Quantum Memory
Researchers are exploring new ways that quantum computers will be able to reveal the secrets of complex quantum systems.
Lakshmi Chandrasekaran
The Quantum Geometry That Exists Outside of Space and Time
A decade after the discovery of the “amplituhedron,” physicists have excavated more of the timeless geometry underlying the standard picture of how particles move.
Charlie Wood
The Secret Electrostatic World of Insects
Invisibly to us, insects and other tiny creatures use static electricity to travel, avoid predators, collect pollen, and more. New experiments explore how evolution may have influenced this phenomenon.
Max G. Levy
The First Crispr Treatment Is Making Its Way to Patients
It’s been a year since the gene-editing treatment Casgevy was approved for sickle cell disease and a related blood disorder. It’s finally being infused into patients.
Emily Mullin
Thousands of People Are Cloning Their Dead Pets. This Is the Woman They Call First
“I try to prepare customers not to expect the same pet all over again. The new pet is not going to know who you are right off the bat.”
Camille Bromley
RFK Jr. Wants to Reshape US Health Policy. Good Luck With That
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says he’ll make big changes in the US government if Donald Trump is elected. He may find them hard to pull off, no matter what position he’s appointed to.
Emily Mullin and Matt Reynolds
A Neuralink Rival Says Its Eye Implant Restored Vision in Blind People
Science Corporation's retinal implant allowed some people who lost their central vision to read, play cards, and recognize faces.
Emily Mullin
Eight Scientists, a Billion Dollars, and the Moonshot Agency Trying to Make Britain Great Again
The Advanced Research and Invention Agency—ARIA—is the UK's answer to Darpa. But can it put the country back on the scientific map?
Matt Reynolds
The Atlas Robot Is Dead. Long Live the Atlas Robot
Before the dear old model could even power down, Boston Dynamics unleashed a stronger new Atlas robot that can move in ways us puny humans never can.
Carlton Reid
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
Scientists Are Unlocking the Secrets of Your ‘Little Brain’
The cerebellum is responsible for far more than coordinating movement. New techniques reveal that it is, in fact, a hub of sensory and emotional processing in the brain.
R Douglas Fields
Meet the Designer Behind Neuralink’s Surgical Robot
Afshin Mehin has helped design some of the most futuristic neurotech devices.
Emily Mullin
Are You Noise Sensitive? Here's How to Tell
Every person has a different idea of what makes noise “loud,” but there are some things we all can do to turn the volume down a little.
Amy Paturel
Why You Hear Voices in Your White Noise Machine
If you've ever heard music, voices, or other sounds while trying to sleep with a white noise machine running, you're not losing your mind. Here's what's going on.
Jennifer Billock
Latest
Green Energy
Researchers Give Animal Cells the Ability to Photosynthesize for the First Time
Ritsuko Kawai
Hidden Truths
How Researchers Are Using Geospatial Technology to Uncover Mexico's Clandestine Graves
Geraldine Castro
Growing Pains
This App Set Out to Fight Pesticides. After VCs Stepped In, Now It Helps Sell Them
Stephen Robert Miller
compound fracture
The Maker of Ozempic Is Trying to Block Compounded Versions of Its Blockbuster Drug
Kate Knibbs and Emily Mullin
Urban Design
Here’s What the Regenerative Cities of Tomorrow Could Look Like
Kotaro Okada, Yukako Ishikawa, and Mariko Sugita
Thoughtful Food
California Is Flooding School Cafeterias With Vegan Meals—and Kids Like It
Frida Garza
Life and Death
The Doctor Behind the ‘Suicide Pod’ Wants AI to Assist at the End of Life
Morgan Meaker
Disaster Relief
Milton Disrupted the Flow of Drinking Water—so Florida Deployed a Machine to Harvest It From Air
Emily Mullin