Science

“People don’t always realize they are creating a human being and not a piece of furniture.”

Simple external cues, such as lines on the floor, can help Parkinson’s patients focus their efforts and overcome the difficulty of the symptoms. With augmented reality, those cues can be anywhere.

Startup Phantom Neuro is building an implant that sits under the skin and promises to give amputees more accurate control of electronic prosthetics.

The WHO has sent epidemiologists to the country to uncover the cause of the illness, which has killed more than 70 people, half of them children.

Global plastic pollution talks have stalled—but a treaty is possible if countries can agree on finances, the proper regulation of dangerous ingredients, and set limits on production.

The internet of things turned every device in your house into a smart something. Now it’s coming for nature—to track forest fires and tree health or to listen out for threatened animals.

For decades, the screwworm was eliminated in North America, but containment efforts in Panama have failed. Now cattle smugglers are helping the parasite advance north.

India’s capital has turned to tech to fight its worst air pollution in eight years.

During their passage through Mexico, monarch butterflies depend on the shelter of endangered trees—so this scientist is leading a huge experiment to build them a new winter habitat.

The opportunity for artificial intelligence to actually do some good has arrived—if it can be redirected toward where it’s needed most.

Scientists have discovered a new way of making chocolate that uses the entire cocoa pod to reduce waste and improve farmer revenue streams. But can chocolate made any other way taste as sweet?

Indigenous peoples forced from the Amazon rainforest are finally getting the legal power to return—and it’s not only about justice. Under their stewardship, the forests can thrive.

State leaders want nuclear reactors to provide consistent, low-carbon power for AI, oil extraction, and more. But in South Texas, people worry mining for fuel will poison their water.

Next year, you won’t need to download yet another app to use an EV charger from an unfamiliar brand. Most of the major EV makers and charging networks are on board.

The term “reducing emissions” has outlived its usefulness, a crutch to soften the blow that’s being exploited by greenwashers. Now it’s time to get real.

The WIRED & Octopus Energy Tech Summit in Berlin was bursting with innovative ideas for reaching net zero and on working together at an ever-greater scale.

Thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope, we may have spotted a galactic neighbor with all the right molecular ingredients a mere 40 light-years away.

The two probes have left the solar system and are still collecting data from the interstellar environment—but their atomic hearts are growing weaker and weaker.

The giant holes in galaxies’ centers shouldn’t be able to combine, yet combine they do. Scientists suggest that an unusual form of dark matter may be the solution.

The SpaceX rocket will launch during the late afternoon so its descent into the Indian Ocean is visible.

Mathematician David Bessis claims that mathematical thinking isn’t what you think it is, and that everyone can benefit from doing more of it.

How do these giant balloons work? What makes them both easier and more complicated than a normal-size balloon?

This famous probability theory was intuitive, even obvious. It was also wrong.

In a nutshell, you can get the distances or the sizes right, but not both. Space is hard!

The genome-editing technology can be supercharged by artificial intelligence—and the results are already being felt.

Elon Musk’s brain implant company is launching a new study to test whether its wireless device can control a robotic arm.

It’s been a year since the gene-editing treatment Casgevy was approved for sickle cell disease and a related blood disorder. It’s finally being infused into patients.

San Francisco–based Ossium Health has carried out three transplants for cancer patients using stem cells from deceased donors’ bone marrow in recent months.

The Advanced Research and Invention Agency—ARIA—is the UK's answer to Darpa. But can it put the country back on the scientific map?

Before the dear old model could even power down, Boston Dynamics unleashed a stronger new Atlas robot that can move in ways us puny humans never can.

Don't worry, your next surgeon will definitely be a human. But just as medical students are training to use a scalpel, they're also training to use robots designed to make surgeries easier.

Robots, computers, and algorithms are hunting for potential new therapies in ways humans can’t—by processing huge volumes of data and building previously unimagined molecules.

Forecasting is both art and science, reliant on both rigor and luck—but you can develop a mindset that anticipates and plans ahead.

Driving represented an interesting way for neuroscientists to study how rodents acquire new skills, and unexpectedly, rats had an intense motivation for their driving training.

The cerebellum is responsible for far more than coordinating movement. New techniques reveal that it is, in fact, a hub of sensory and emotional processing in the brain.

Afshin Mehin has helped design some of the most futuristic neurotech devices.