Get Ready for Monster Hurricanes This Summer

PLUS: The One Thing Holding Back Heat Pumps, and more.

View in browser  |  Your newsletter preferences 05.08.24 Your weekly roundup of the best stories on health care, the climate crisis, genetic engineering, robotics, space, and more. For all our science coverage, visit WIRED Science. Get Ready for Monster Hurricanes This Summer STURM UND DRANG | 4-MINUTE READ  Scientists are forecasting 11 North Atlantic hurricanes this year, five of them being major. Here's what's turning the storms into increasingly dangerous behemoths. By Matt Simon The One Thing Holding Back Heat Pumps LABOR, THE POINT | 6-MINUTE READ  If billionaires actually cared about saving the planet, they'd pool their vast wealth and buy everyone a heat pump. But it's not funding, or the technology itself, that's preventing a full heat pump takeover. By Matt Simon A Company Is Building a Giant Compressed-Air Battery in the Australian Outback ENERGY | 4-MINUTE READ  Hydrostor, a leader in compressed air energy storage, aims to break ground on its first large-scale plant in New South Wales by the end of this year. It wants to follow that with an even bigger facility in California. By Dan Gearino What Kind of Battery Would You Need to Power a Lightsaber? DOT PHYSICS | 5-MINUTE READ  We use some basic physics to measure the power of the Force. It's strong! By Rhett Allain No One Knows How Far Bird Flu Has Spread HERD FLU | 3-MINUTE READ  With little incentive for US farmers to test their cattle, and many undocumented laborers on dairy farms, the full scale of the outbreak is unclear. By Matt Reynolds An Old Abstract Field of Math Is Unlocking the Deep Complexity of Spacecraft Orbits TO THE MOON | 7-MINUTE READ  Mathematicians think abstract tools from a field called symplectic geometry might help with planning missions to far-off moons and planets. By Leila Sloman ADVERTISEMENT More from WIRED Science Boeing's Starliner Is Almost Ready to Launch a NASA Crew Into Space Seven years behind schedule, this month Starliner will send two astronauts to space on a mission for NASA. The troubled company still has lots of catching up to do. The US Is Cracking Down on Synthetic DNA Synthetic DNA could be used to spark a pandemic. A move by President Biden aims to create new standards for the safety and security of mail-order genetic material. A Face Recognition Firm That Scans Faces for Bars Got Hacked—and That's Just the Start Outabox, an Australian firm that scanned faces for bars and clubs, suffered a breach that shows the problems with giving companies your biometric data. Thinking About Buying a Hybrid Car? Listen Up If you're considering a new car, you may be eyeing the latest hybrids hitting the market. On the latest episode of the Gadget Lab podcast, we cover everything there is to know about hybrids: how the different technologies work, how to keep one charged, and which cars best fit different lifestyles. Trending on WIRED THE BIG INTERVIEW | 12-MINUTE READ Meet the Woman Who Showed President Biden ChatGPT—and Helped Set the Course for AI By Steven Levy Arati Prabhakar has the ear of the US president and a massive mission: help manage AI, revive the semiconductor industry, and pull off a cancer moonshot. ADVERTISEMENT Thanks for reading. Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up here. Plus, browse more newsletters from WIRED. You're receiving this email because you signed up for the Science newsletter from WIRED.   Manage your preferences  |   View our Privacy Policy  |  Unsubscribe   Have questions or comments? Send us a message. Need help? Contact us.   Copyright © Condé Nast 2024. One World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007. All rights reserved.