WIRED Ghost Stories
Five hauntings from the other side of technology.
Wikipedians Believed AI Would Come and Go. They Were Wrong
In a world of AI Overviews, Wikipedia usage declines. But the real loss may be far more existential than website traffic.
Richard Cooke
You Finally Got a Wikipedia Page. Then It Vanished
Every day, Wikipedia biographies of living people are flagged for deletion because the subjects are not “notable” enough. How do these poor souls take the news?
Duncan Fyfe
Please Let the Internet Die
Online spaces are captured by oligarchs and saturated with slop—and they’re exacerbating humanity’s worst impulses. It’s time to start over.
Miles Klee
Inside the Supermassive Debate Over the James Webb Telescope’s ‘Little Red Dots’
The Webb telescope sees tiny red dots everywhere. Astronomers can’t agree on what they are, but some believe they may be enormous stars with black holes inside.
Charlie Wood
Spend Elon Musk’s Money
What’s it like to be the richest man in the world? Find out for yourself.
Neal Agarwal
The ‘Exotic Physics’ Behind a Mysterious 1,000-Mile Cloud on Mars
The cloud has baffled astronomers since its discovery in 2018. Now, a new study offers a possible cause for its appearance.
Tereza Ondráčková
You Probably Aren’t Going to Get the Plague
The death of a lab worker in Russia has authorities looking at whether plague played a role. Even if it did, though, the odds of it spreading are very low.
Emily Mullin
NASA’s Oldest Martian Spacecraft Have Been Running for Decades. Here’s How
Two orbiters have long outlasted their expected lifespans and completely reshaped our understanding of the Red Planet, all while operating 140 million miles from Earth.
Meghan Bartels
Astronomers Confirm Discovery of the Youngest Known Exoplanet Ever
Under 1 million years old, “Elias 2-24b” is now the youngest exoplanet ever observed, and it may force researchers to reevaluate theories about how planets are formed.
Teruyuki Hayakawa
An AI Breakthrough Has Made Decades of Computer Science Research ‘Irrelevant’
Anthropic and OpenAI say they’ve disproved a key tenet of computer science. Researchers are struggling with the fall but also feel like “overexcited bunnies” as they look at new questions to explore.
Isabella Ward
Dune: Part Three’s Cowriter Has a New Comic on the Way
Brian K. Vaughan claims he’s seen Dune: Part Three and it’s “a fucking beautiful movie.”
Angela Watercutter