Watch the New Men in Black International Trailer Now
It's time for the final pre-holiday edition of The Monitor, WIRED's roundup of the latest in the world of culture, from box-office news to announcements about hot new trailers. In today's installment: the Men in Black are back; To All the Boys I've Loved Before is officially a Netflix franchise; and Aquaman is doing swimmingly…
Opioids Haven't Solved Chronic Pain. Maybe Virtual Reality Can
When someone walks or rolls into the emergency department at Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles with food stuck in their throat, the ER staff calls someone like Brennan Spiegel. As a gastroenterologist, food-pulling-out is something he’s uniquely equipped to do. So when he got the call one day to see a young man admitted with…
Jack Dorsey Has Problems With Twitter, Too
It contributes to filter bubbles, he said. It risks silencing people, he said. And when it’s not silencing them, it might be incentivizing them to behave badly, or basely, he said. His biggest criticism of the social media site he runs was that it could be nudging its users in the wrong directions. “What does…
Get Lost in This Visualization of Interconnected Global Issues
The best sources of information are organized according to what you want to know and how you wish to know it. Want some fresh perspective on humanity's place in the tree of life? I recommend the Hillis Plot, a circular map of evolutionary relationships between thousands of animal, botanical, and microbial species. If it's straight…
Cantina Talk: Is Episode IX Called Balance of the Force?
Following a down period for rumormongering around December's Star Wars: Episode IX, things have really picked up in the last couple of weeks. Now all kinds of potential plot points, costume designs, and even maybe-possibly-kinda movie titles are being thrown around with wild abandon. Fans won't know for sure until the end of the year,…
Meet the Geek Who Tracks Rogue Satellites With Coat Hangers
Every 95 minutes, the Chinese satellite Zhuhai-1 02 makes a full pass around the planet, its solar-panel arms extending from its boxy body as it observes Earth. Sometimes, its path takes it over Pueblo, Colorado. There, more than 300 miles below, Mike Coletta’s receiving station can pick up Zhuhai’s transmissions. Because as sophisticated as space…
The Alt-Right Are Savvy Internet Users. Stop Letting Them Surprise You
Far-right YouTube is the internet age equivalent of conservative talk radio: It’s a place for ultra-conservative commentators to react vehemently, personally, emotionally to the news of the day and the creeping horrors of American progressivism. But while the commentators—who range in ideology from mainstream libertarian to openly white nationalist—certainly owe a debt to Glenn Beck…
How the Surprise New Interactive Black Mirror Came Together
By nearly any measure, Netflix has had a ridiculous year. When all is said and done, the company will have spent upwards of $10 billion (and perhaps as much as $13 billion) to produce more than 550 new movies and shows. Those new movies and shows, in turn, have helped to attract some of the…
Space Photos of the Week: Check Out the Stretch Marks on Mars
This week’s space photos take us on a mini tour of the solar system. First up is that bright nuclear fusion reactor in the sky, our sun. This week NASA’s Solar Dynamic Observatory captured a colossal coronal hole, a magnetic opening in the sun that spits out solar wind laced with highly charged particles. When…
Say Goodbye to @sweden, the Last Good Thing on Twitter
When @sweden began its grand experiment in 2011, Twitter had never seemed more full of possibilities. In New York, Twitter served as a digital bulletin board to organize protesters at Occupy Wall Street. In the Middle East, tweets served as the roots of the Arab Spring. Companies signed on to engage with customers; celebrities made…