WIRED

The Wired mission is to tell the world something they've never heard before in a way they've never seen before. It's about turning new ideas into everyday reality. It's about seeding our community of influencers with the ideas that will shape and transform our collective future. Wired readers want to know how technology is changing the world, and they're interested in big, relevant ideas, even if those ideas challenge their assumptions—or blow their minds.

TOTALLY WIRED

WE ASKED CONTRIBUTORS:

REFLECTING POINT

WIRED CAFÉ

CLOCK WATCHERS • The beautiful benefits of contemplating doom.

CHARTGEIST

PRIVATE A.I. • Machines shouldn’t have to spy on us to get smarter.

SEIZE THE MOMENT • Americans have reached peak indifference on climate change. Time to do something about it.

ANGRY NERD

VROOM TO SPARE • Propelling the fastest woman on four wheels.

Ace of Hearts • The next step in wearables: sensors that watch for ticker troubles. —Lauren Goode

Who’s There • The latest video doorbells don’t just connect your door to your phone. Control these with your voice, and let them govern the gadgets in your smart home. —Adrienne So

Residence Genius • You can teach an old house new tricks. Add convenience and energy-saving perspective to your home with these intelligent gadgets. —Michael Calore

Night Moves • Devices claiming to deliver a more satisfying night’s sleep keep materializing. Do we really need the help? —Arielle Pardes

WIRED. NOW ON YOUR SMART TV. • WIRED’s Video App Now Available on Your Smart TV

EFFICIENCY IS BEAUTIFUL • For coders, lack of friction is an aesthetic joy, an emotional high, the ideal existential state. It’s what drives them—and what shapes our world.

“YOU COULDN’T PAY ME TO DO THAT.” • The punishing ecstasy of being a Reddit moderator.

LIFE As We’ll Know It • Researchers are ready to unleash cut-and-paste gene editing on the world. But is the world ready?

THERE’S MORE THAN ONE WAY TO CUT DNA • Crispr scientists are, essentially, muggers in lab coats. When they need a new pair of DNA-slicing scissors, called a nuclease, they just steal one from a germ. But repurposing microbial machinery isn’t so simple: Some nucleases are too big; some are too blunt; some don’t work well inside human cells. So, as Crispr wends its way out of the petri dish and into our genes, the search is on for slimmer, sharper tools. With trillions of muggable microbes, there are plenty to choose from. Here are just a few, from the stalwarts to the up-and-comers.

COW, INTERRUPTED • Crispr could make our food supply more efficient and more humane. But it’s struggling to get out of the lab and onto our plates.

Is There a CRISPR BABY in My Future? • The world’s first full-term Crispr baby experiment got everything wrong—the ethics, the science, maybe even the law. But now that He Jiankui has dragged us all into this brave new world, there’s no going back. Scientists are eager to prove that the technology can be deployed with competence, integrity, and compassion. So what would a do-over done right look like? Just ask the flowchart.1

BUILDING A TROJAN PIG • Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte wants to use Crispr to grow human organs in livestock.

A POX ON US ALL • SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY IS MAKING IT EASIER THAN EVER TO PRODUCE LIFE-SAVING VACCINES—AND LIFE - TAKING VIRUSES THAT HUMANITY IS NOT PREPARED TO FIGHT.

SYNTHETIC BIOWEAPONS, A REALITY CHECK • How worried should we be about warring countries or terrorists turning synthetic viruses, bacteria, and microbes into bioweapons? For some doomsday scenarios—the creation of, say, a wholly manufactured monster mashup of bad viruses—the answer is not very. But there is still plenty to...