Zipping around like a bumblebee, the little black-and-yellow tractor claws its bucket into one of San Francisco’s few vacant lots, kicking up a puff of dust. Payload secured, it backs up—beep, beep, beep—whips around, and speeds to its dirt pile, stopping so quickly that it tips forward on two wheels. It drops its quarry and […]
First, I saw the tweet. “I miss having a real connection w/ real people. My Community. From now on you can just text me. I won't be able to respond to everyone but at least we can be real w/ each other & I can share the unedited latest & greatest in my world,” wrote […]
Joseph Herscher's YouTube videos get millions of views. They’d better—Herscher spends a lot of time on them. That’s because Herscher’s channel, Joseph's Machines, isn't just an ongoing vlog or series of simple tutorials (not that there's anything wrong with that). Instead, it's a series of videos in which the comedian demonstrates the overly complex Rube […]
I can’t sit here and promise you that the robot apocalypse isn’t coming, that the machines won’t eventually rise up and overthrow their makers. But what I can promise you is that not all of them will be able to punch you out. Because robots are going soft. Like, literally soft, controlled with liquid or […]
Happy Thursday, and welcome once again to The Monitor, WIRED's roundup of the latest in the world of pop culture, from music to movies to Momoa. Today, we've got updates on new tunes from Weezer and Ariana Grande, as well as details on a new Riverdale spinoff and the latest battle in the streaming wars. […]
As powerful as the gene-editing technique Crispr is turning out to be—researchers are using it to make malaria-proof mosquitoes, disease-resistant tomatoes, live bacteria thumb drives, and all kinds of other crazy stuff—so far US scientists have had one bright line: no heritable modifications of human beings. On Wednesday, the bright line got dimmer. MIT Technology […]
After a two-month glut of blockbusters leading up to the holiday shopping season, new releases are in a bit of a lull, which means there wasn't a lot left in gaming news this week beyond controversy, lawsuits, and … well, more controversy. Hope you're in the mood for reading about bad behavior (and consequences for […]
Update: On December 20, 2017 the House approved the GOP's overhaul to the nation’s tax code. A provision in the plan had originally proposed taxing graduate students’ tuition waivers. But in the final version of the combined House-Senate tax bill, which now makes its way to President Trump to be signed into law, tuition waivers […]
Humans are pattern seekers. It’s how we’ve always made sense of the world: Our ancestors wouldn’t have survived if they hadn’t realized that plants tend to flourish after rainfall or that sabertooth tigers tended to eat them. But sometimes we’re just a little too good at finding meaning in the noise, occasionally unable to separate […]
Chemotherapy is brutal. The drugs are delivered in near-toxic doses to penetrate tumor tissues, indiscriminately vanquishing the patient’s appetite, hair, and immune system alongside cancer cells. Scientists have tried everything from nanoparticles to homing-beacon bacteria to better target the disease. Now researchers at Germany’s Institute for Integrative Nanosciences are deploying a natural-born infiltrator: sperm. The […]