Science

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Cough Cough

There Are Plenty of Reasons to Be Concerned About Bioweapons Development—Even Without AI

In her new book on biological warfare, Annie Jacobsen didn’t even discuss AI because scientists can already warp Mother Nature to create extinction-level events.

Michael Mechanic

Hmmmmm

A Biotech Founder Makes the Moral Case for Gene-Editing Human Embryos

Kristen V. Brown

Lookalike

Anthropic Says It Discovered a Crispr-Like System. Now What?

Emily Mullin and Anna Rogers

Health

Nicotine Is Mounting a Comeback in the Wellness Movement

Improving mood and increasing longevity are just some of the unfounded claims about this substance circling around the “natural” medicine corners of the internet.

Hasmeena Kathuria

Some Pancreatic Cells Are Just One Genetic Tweak Away From Treating Diabetes

By deactivating a gene, researchers were able to cause cells in the pancreatic ducts to produce insulin to regulate blood sugar.

Jorge Garay

The Ovary Is Surprisingly Active After Menopause. Scientists Are Trying to Figure Out Why

A growing body of research is putting the ovary in a new light, not as an egg factory with an expiration date, but as an organ that shapes women’s health long after the fertile years have passed.

Kristen V. Brown

The World Forgot About Ebola. The Organization Fighting It Has Never Been More Worried

The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo is on track to be the largest ever.

Isabella Ward

Environment

Plastic Is Melting Onto Corals

Scientists have found a new form of pollution, one where plastic and pieces of coral become irreversibly intertwined.

Ritsuko Kawai

Why This Weekend’s Nor’easter Is Like a Hurricane

Nor’easters are usually a winter phenomenon. But this week’s storm is arriving earlier than usual, and it could take on some characteristics more typical of tropical systems.

Dennis Mersereau

Residents Harmed by Oil Drilling May Soon Receive Reparations Under New California Law

While lawmakers iron out the details, advocates hope this approach could serve as a model for addressing histories of environmental hazards often concentrated in Black and low-income neighborhoods.

AI Agents Are Thirsty for Power

Silicon Valley is shifting away from chatbot queries toward a future filled with resource-intensive agentic AI—and it's driving the data center buildout.

Molly Taft

Climate

The Data Center Backlash Should Also Be a Climate Reckoning. It Isn’t Yet

Climate groups are latching onto the data center opposition movement, but it remains to be seen if they can get people to care about the facilities’ impact on the atmosphere.

Molly Taft

Tiny Hairs That Help Corals Breathe May Malfunction in Warming Oceans

Several new studies have uncovered this long overlooked aspect of coral physiology that could be the key to the animals’ fate in a changing climate.

Marlowe Starling

It Still Feels Like Summer in Parts of the US. Blame El Niño

Heat records are being shattered thanks to a boost from the natural climate pattern—and burning fossil fuels, of course.

Dennis Mersereau

Why It Seems Like Great White Sharks Are Overrunning Maine

While a bunch of sharks cruising the Maine coast may seem ominous, it’s actually a sign of a conservation success story.

Molly Taft

Energy

A Startup Wants to Power Data Centers With ‘Supercritical’ Carbon Dioxide

The technology could strap onto existing gas turbines and make them more efficient—but it wouldn’t do away with their emissions entirely.

Molly Taft

Data Centers Are Driving an Alarming Gas Power Expansion in the US

There’s no clearer sign of the data center boom than rampant gas projects that have been proposed or that are already under construction.

Molly Taft

Transistors Changed Everything. Here’s How They Work

How a tiny little electronic switch sparked the computer revolution.

Rhett Allain

The Super El Niño Won’t Fix the West’s Water Crisis

“People have talked about the Colorado River crisis for decades—we’re now in it,” says one expert. “Everyone you talk to is like, ‘Shit, man.’”

Molly Taft

Space

Space Lasers Are About to Get Their First Real Test Generating Energy

Startup Star Catcher is launching a system that, if successful, would be the first time energy has been beamed between two separate spacecraft.

Brian Kahn

A Gravitational Battle Within the Earth Is Changing the Length of Days

A competition between the gravity of the inner core and other forces in the mantle is altering the Earth’s rotation.

Jorge Garay

Venus May Have Devoured Its Moon

One of the great mysteries in astronomy has been why Venus has no moon. Now a new theory provides a simple answer: It might have been eaten.

Ritsuko Kawai

Scientists Detect Radio Signals From an Exoplanet for the First Time in History

No, it’s not aliens, but a phenomenon caused by magnetic activity that astronomers have never before been able to pin on a specific planet.

Jorge Garay

Physics and Math

Solving Math’s Greatest Problems Was an Art Form. Then Came AI

Mathematics has been one of humanity’s most creative endeavors, akin to painting and poetry. Now, mathematicians are trying to save it from the brute force of AI.

Sophia Chen

Mathematicians Hate AI. They Can’t Quit It

Powerful AI models have created an existential risk to the field, but researchers can’t stop relying on them because they’re too useful.

Isabella Ward

With a Better Understanding of Physics, We Could Predict Volcanic Eruptions

“There’s no reason we can’t think that, at some point in the future, we can have volcano forecasts that are like weather forecasts.”

Robin George Andrews

‘I’m Really Terrified’: A Mathematician Grapples With AI’s Recent Breakthroughs

Steven Strogatz coauthored a book about how math is moving beyond human understanding. He spoke with WIRED about the seismic impact artificial intelligence has had on his life’s work.

Isabella Ward

Biotech

He Won the Nobel Prize for Protein Design. Now He Uses AI to Create Molecules Not Found in Nature

David Baker spoke with WIRED en Español about where biological design is headed next and the great potential and risks of taking biology outside the bounds of the natural world.

Jorge Garay

Why AI Isn’t Likely to Wipe Out Humanity With Bioweapons

Of all the threats presented by uncontrollable artificial intelligence, scientists say death by plague ranks low.

Kate Knibbs and Emily Mullin

‘Smart’ Nanoparticles Deliver mRNA Directly to Tumors in New Cancer Therapy

The treatment can reprogram immune cells that have been corrupted by the cancer, strengthening the body’s ability to attack.

Javier Carbajal

Seedless Blackberries and Cherries That Grow on Bushes Vie to Be the Future of Food

Startups and Big Ag are using Crispr gene editing to create crops that taste better and grow on a hotter planet. But will they find a market?

Mike Grunwald

Psychology and Neuroscience

Psilocybin Might Make Your Brain Live in the Moment

Psychedelics are often associated with disconnecting from reality, but a recent neuroimaging study found that psilocybin can actually make our brain activity more connected to the world around us.

Jorge Garay

Big Tech Wants to Harvest Your Thoughts

Silicon Valley companies are already working on neurotechnology products that track your brain activity. The next privacy frontier might be the things you only think.

James Crawford

Study of Buddhist Monks Finds Meditation Alters Brain Activity

Meditation isn’t thinking about nothing. New research reinforces that it’s a mind-altering, dynamic state that promotes focus, learning, and well-being.

Javier Carbajal