Science

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Shooting Blanks

Those Viral Bodega Peptides Aren’t Actually Peptides

WIRED tested samples of four types of peptides. The results show how lightly regulated the industry is, even as popularity surges.

Sophie Kleeman and Kate Knibbs

Rewiring the Brain

A New Headset to Help With Depression Is Now Available in the US

Emily Mullin

Power Play

AI Agents Are Thirsty for Power

Molly Taft

Health

A New Startup Lets You Freeze Your Eggs For Free. But Is Anything Ever Free?

Cofertility manages the costs of egg freezing and storage, in exchange for half the batch. One young client became suspicious of the arrangement—and started to investigate.

Maia Hibbett

These Cyborg Cockroaches Could Save Your Life

The team embedded electrodes into live cockroaches, then outfitted them with cameras and injection devices to deliver medication via remote control.

Ritsuko Kawai

Measles Outbreaks Are Forcing Parents of Immunocompromised Kids to Make Hard Choices

With the risk of infection rising, parents and their children are trying to navigate how safe it is to be out in public as school starts back up.

Emily Mullin

A Transplanted Pig Kidney Is Still Working After a Record-Setting 9 Months in a Patient

Gene-edited pig kidneys could offer a lifeline to patients stuck waiting for a human donor.

Emily Mullin

Environment

Plastics Companies Are Writing Lesson Plans. What Could Go Wrong?

The science curriculum the industry is offering to schools casts plastics as safe, recyclable, and a source of good jobs. Critics say it’s propaganda.

Joseph Winters

Scientists Put Caterpillars in an Ultraquiet Chamber to Learn How They Hear Without Ears

The research could do more than help unlock the mystery of caterpillar hearing. It could also help make microphones better.

Aishwarya Sriram , Carol Miles, Ronald Miles, and Sara Aghazadeh

How an Orangutan Breeding Program Is Creating a Baby Boom

The success of a program linking zoos across the US has created social media stars and generated a wave of interest in how to protect the endangered great apes in the wild.

Caroline Reilly

How Rising Temperatures Likely Contributed to Nepal’s Deadly Flood

Climate change is causing glaciers to retreat and become less stable, upping the odds of catastrophic collapses.

Molly Taft

Climate

You Don’t Have a Right to Safe Drinking Water, Trump-Appointed Judge Rules

And if your tap water is undrinkable, you have no “constitutional right to truthful information” about it.

Sophie Hurwitz

Congratulations! You Just Lived Through the Hottest Month Ever Recorded

While the strengthening El Niño helped boost temperatures, climate change is the main culprit for making August so hot.

Molly Taft

We’ve Got a ‘Supersized’ El Niño on Our Hands

The World Meteorological Organization is warning that the climate phenomenon that has the Pacific running a fever will last until at least February, with dire consequences for weather worldwide.

Molly Taft

Livestream Replay: The Great Data Center Backlash

You have questions about data centers, and WIRED has answers. Watch our livestream where a panel of experts tell you everything you need to know.

Tim Marchman, Maxwell Zeff, Molly Taft, and Hugo Lowell

Energy

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

Squeeze More Juice Out of Your Dead Batteries—Using Physics

How the joule thief circuit “steals” energy from seemingly depleted power cells.

Rhett Allain

Space

A Satellite Falling Out of Orbit Embarks on Its Final Mission

Before reentering our atmosphere, the telescopes onboard NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory have been restarted to take their last observations.

Teruyuki Hayakawa

Astronomers Have Completed the Largest Map of Space. Yes, You Can Play With It

The intricate, 5.6 trillion-pixel map covers approximately 75 percent of the sky and includes about 4 billion celestial objects.

Ritsuko Kawai

Japan Is Launching a Probe to Collect the First-Ever Samples From a Martian Moon

The mission to Phobos, Japan’s first Mars probe launch in 28 years, may reveal new information about our closest planetary neighbor.

Ritsuko Kawai

What the Heck? Another Perfect Geometric Shape Has Been Detected on Saturn

The discovery adds to the planet’s history of strange atmospheric phenomena that scientists don’t fully understand.

Jorge Garay

Physics and Math

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

Two of the Universe's Great Mysteries May Have Their Own Dimension

Dark energy might be getting weaker. Scientists are wondering if interactions with dark matter in a “dark dimension” may be responsible.

Steve Nadis

Scientists Have Found the Most Convincing Evidence Yet of a Dark Matter Particle

An underground detector recorded a strange interaction pointing to a particle with some properties that signify dark matter. The detection is small but promising.

Jorge Garay

Biotech

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

AI Is Dead. Organoids Are Alive

Mini human brains are being grown in labs all over the world. Soon, they could outthink neural networks.

Claire L. Evans

Scientists Used AI to Create 16 New Viruses

The use of AI systems to create viruses opens up new possibilities for combating bacterial resistance. It also raises concerns about the pace at which technology is outstripping regulation.

Fernanda González

Gene-Edited Puppies Will Melt Your Heart—but Won’t Trigger Your Allergies

A startup has created beagles without the gene that causes runny noses and watery eyes for allergy sufferers.

Emily Mullin

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