Game of Thrones' Final Season Might Be … Funny?
Happy Monday, and welcome to another edition of The Monitor, WIRED's look at all that's happening in the world of pop culture. Hollywood is in a bit of a post-Oscars lull, but that doesn't mean all's quiet—hey, Steven Spielberg and Netflix have already gone a few rounds since last week. What else? Well, Edge of…
Hurricane Irma: A Practically Impossible Storm
Hurricane Harvey, which killed 60 people and may end up costing $150 billion, parked over Houston and dumped four feet of rain. The water overwhelmed the sprawling city’s flood control systems. Meteorologists and atmospheric scientists used up their superlatives describing the storm’s size and impact. They should have saved some. Hurricane Irma has become the…
Now Particle Physics Is Getting in on the Archaeology Game
In December 2015, a group of scientists carried tools into a chamber inside of the Great Pyramid of Giza. Usually, the room was sealed from the public. But with the blessing of Egypt’s Ministry of Antiquities, they used laser tools to carefully align several bathroom-tile sized panels on the floor of the last intact Wonder…
Cantina Talk: Here's What One Dude Has Seen of Episode IX
You're not alone if you're thinking that the Star Wars franchise is seeming just a little bit … more compressed lately. The animated series Star Wars Resistance just brought its first season to an end by stepping into the shadow (and runtime) of Star Wars: The Force Awakens and in doing so left only the…
These Mice Stopped Eating Carbs So You (Maybe) Don't Have To
In the ever-more masochistic world of wellness-boosting, pound-shedding diets, the latest trend involves putting your body into a controlled state of starvation known as “ketogenesis,” by cutting out nearly all carbs. If that doesn’t sound like your particular brand of torture, guess what? You’re already on it. Well, at least while you’re sleeping. Two independent…
The Hunt for the Brain-Eating Amoebas of Yellowstone
It was a lovely September day in Yellowstone’s Boiling River, which was not, in fact, boiling. Tourists trundled through the shallow water and dipped in where it was deeper. A herd of elk even waded through unconcerned. And among it all, a team of researchers in waders sampled the water for a brain-eating amoeba that…
What James Damore Got Wrong About Gender Bias in Computer Science
In August Google employee James Damore made the news and even Wikipedia by publishing his speculation that female software engineers are underrepresented due to inherent biological differences. Although he admitted that implicit bias and explicit bias may exist, Damore wrote, “I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ…
Your Brain Doesn't Contain Memories. It Is Memories
Recall your favorite memory: the big game you won; the moment you first saw your child's face; the day you realized you had fallen in love. It's not a single memory, though, is it? Reconstructing it, you remember the smells, the colors, the funny thing some other person said, and the way it all made…
How Do Viral Videos Make Money? YouTubers Share Their Secrets
For anyone who doesn't work in the vast world of online videos, the idea of "YouTube stars" is baffling. What's even more astounding is that so many of those YouTubers can make a living simply from viral videos. An entire career just based on posting funny things on the internet, where so many people do…
While You Were Offline: 2019 Is Just the Runway for 2020
Finally, we've made it to 2019—a year that will bring events better than any that came in the last 12 months simply because they won't be happening in 2018. Almost immediately, it’s obvious that things are better, because … the US national debt is higher than ever? No, that's not right. Maybe it's because Apple's…