What's Next for the ISS? Hell if NASA Knows
This week, a car-sized scale model of the International Space Station is hanging from the ceiling of the Regency Ballroom at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington. It’s positioned toward the back of the room, so it doesn’t block the view of a bank of six TV cameras. Bathed in purple lights, the grayish behemoth…
Jeff Bezos' Divorce Could Mean Big Changes for Amazon
Click:Concrete Block Machine Welcome back to another installment of The Monitor, WIRED's roundup of the latest in the world of culture. In today’s installment: Jeff Bezos' divorce will likely impact Amazon; the forthcoming Dune film is spicing up its cast; and Lady Gaga's streaming catalog is losing one of her most controversial hits. Bezos' Prime…
The Physics of Almost Whacking Someone With a Bowling Ball
Every once in awhile a new science show comes on TV. I find some of them pretty good and others not that great. I was pleasantly surprised to find Outrageous Acts of Danger on the Science channel features a reasonable amount of science and makes it interesting. It does this by making otherwise common science…
While You Were Offline: Rain Near Spain Means Trump Stays on the Plane
In all kinds of ways, the past seven days feel like the second part of a two-episode storyline that started last week, and not just because California is still on fire and we’re still getting midterm election results (for those curious, it’s only gotten worse for Republicans, no matter how desperate they get). Indeed, a…
Heating Dirt Could Cause a Runaway Rise in Carbon Emissions
Tucked into the apple-growing hills of Western Massachusetts is the Harvard Forest, a 3,700-acre wooded preserve that hosts school kids on field trips, day-tripping hikers, and, for more than a quarter century, a highly unusual science experiment. For the past 26 years, strings of subterranean electrical wires have heated segments of the forest floor to…
Metro Exodus Brings the Series' Grim Atmosphere Aboveground
Before playing Metro Exodus, or any game in the Metro series, there's something you have to do: Go to the Options screen and find the audio options. Turn subtitles on, and then change the speaking dialog from English to Russian. I am loath to tell anyone they're playing a videogame wrong, but this is the…
Ted Cruz Asks Space Capitalists How to Make Orbit Great Again
Space could be capitalism's next frontier, but not without the government's help. Luckily, the government is all ears. Last Thursday, a bunch of space capitalists sat across from a bunch of senators to talk policy. The panel included everyone from SpaceX's senior VP to the CEO of a small launch startup. Topics ranged from removing…
The Americans' True Gift? Looking Inside the Mind of Vladimir Putin
All week, WIRED's Culture team will be writing endorsement letters for various Emmy nominees in advance of next Monday's awards ceremony. Today: senior writer and amateur Soviet historian Emily Dreyfuss. Before he was president of Russia, Vladimir Putin was an intelligence officer in Dresden, East Germany. His job there was to recruit “illegals,” USSR spies…
The Future of Work: The Farm, by Charlie Jane Anders
“It seems like journalists are used to being in charge of editorial processes.” —“Algorithms for Journalism: The Future of News Work,” The Journal of Media Innovations (2017) News breaks like a rain cloud, or a daydream. Roy arrives at his desk just in time to claim the story: Rival militias started a gunfight at a…
Ultra-Powerful Radio Bursts May Be Getting a Cosmic Boost
Some of the brightest flashes in the universe may be coming into focus. So-called fast radio bursts are enigmatic, ultra-brief, ultra-powerful bursts of energy coming from distant galaxies. They last for only a fraction of a second, but in that time they emit the energy of perhaps 500 million suns. Their power and brevity have…