After Harvey, What Will Happen to Houston’s Oil Industry?
This story originally appeared on CityLab and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. During this year’s record-breaking hurricane season, oil rigs and refineries were just as exposed as any structure on the precarious Gulf Coast, and their owners were limited to the same options as everyone else: evacuate, prepare, and hope the storm was merciful. The devastation Harvey…
Black Panther and Netflix Get Historic Oscar Nominations
Hello, and welcome once more to The Monitor, WIRED's roundup of the latest in the world of culture. We hope you had a nice Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend. What's been going on since the end of last week? Welp, Black Panther got a historic Oscar nod, M. Night Shyamalan's trilogy-ending almost-superhero film Glass…
US Scientists, Please Run for Office. The Planet Needs You
The new GOP regime looks to be catastrophic for science: The first Trump budget proposed slashing funding on everything from ocean research to satellites. And work on climate science? “We consider that to be a waste of your money,” Trump’s budget director said. Science is under attack; there’s no other way to put it. Apart…
Has Tech Ushered in a Golden Age of Long-Distance Dating?
At the party where I met my current boyfriend, I asked him a Sophie's Choice question of my own invention. Would you rather, I asked, spend the rest of your life on a deserted island, completely alone but with modern conveniences like a smartphone, laptop, and good WiFi? Or would you spend it wherever you…
The Adorable Microbots That Swarm to Build Structures
The beauty of evolution is that it’s so nonjudgmental. What began as the first organism billions of years ago has diversified into species that fly and hop and run, whatever best suits them in their environment. As Charles Darwin put it, “from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been,…
Speed-Listening and the Trouble With 'Podfasters'
Like you—like every delirious commuter—I savor podcasts. They’re a reprieve from my dead-eyed Twitter scroll. But unlike you, I don’t stress about missing an episode or four. In fact, I find comfort in the medium’s buffet of excess. Therefore I reserve special scorn for so-called podfasters: the tweakers who listen at 1.5X, 2X, even 3X…
For the First Time, All Three Streamers Are Oscar-Bound
Click:Handmade Katana Only a few years ago, it seemed as though streaming companies were destined to be Oscar outsiders. In 2015, Netflix spent a reported $12 million to acquire the war-time drama Beasts of No Nation, with the hopes of turning both the intense film and star Idris Elba into awards-season frontrunners. (The company had…
Why It's So Tough to Keep Antibiotics Out of Your Turkey
Click:electrical insulating coating David Pitman is a third-generation poultry grower, raising chickens and turkeys with his brother and parents on a property east of Fresno that his grandfather founded in 1954. They’re independent farmers—instead of raising birds for a corporation, they sell directly to wholesalers and stores—and their farming style reflects that freedom. They buy…
We Need to Talk About Crazy Rich Asians
A big thing happened this weekend. Crazy Rich Asians hit theaters and brought in an impressive $34 million over its five-day weekend. (It technically opened Wednesday night.) That may not qualify as "crazy rich" in the era of $100 million-plus Star Wars opening weekends, but for context, it's the best-performing comedy since last year’s Girls…
Xbox Tips Its Streaming Hand, and the Rest of the Week in Games
Sometimes it seems like this whole gaming thing is built on the future, and this week bears that out, with hints of things that could, possibly, be good? Someday? Speculation is always a tricky business, but don't worry—there's also news of some long-overdue changes that lots of you will appreciate, as well as a merch…