AI 资讯
Hacking the atmosphere: Geoengineering gets a reality check
Jim Franke pulls away the cover page of a presentation on the wraparound desk in his office, revealing an illustration of an odd-looking aircraft with massive wings stretching out from a stubby fuselage. The uncrewed plane is soaring thousands of meters higher than commercial jets fly—so high you can see the curvature of the Earth.…
AI 资讯
Entrepreneurs in Nairobi make the case for going solar
Most of Kenya’s power grid runs on renewables. But with 25% of communities lacking centralized electricity, the nation is looking to off-grid solar to hit its goal of delivering universal electricity access by 2030 without driving up emissions. The ever-improving economics of solar technology have helped. A couple of years ago, a panel cost about…
科技前沿
Why the Reflecting Pool Is Full of Algae After Trump's Renovation
Warm weather has fueled a bloom that National Park Service workers are trying to kill using everything from hydrogen peroxide to nanobubbles ahead of July 4 celebrations.
AI 资讯
Traditional Home Insurance Is Collapsing. Here’s What Could Fill the Gap
A new, AI-assisted model of insurance is quietly exploding in disaster-prone areas—and may be coming for FEMA too. Is it the answer to climate change, or a trap?
科技前沿
What Do We Need From Our Homes Right Now?
The global editorial directors of WIRED and Architectural Digest on teaming up to help you understand how we live today, and what comes next.
AI 资讯
These new solid-state ACs promise a cool future. Scientists aren’t so sure.
After three years of record-breaking heat, this one is set to be yet another scorcher. Air-conditioning? Not going anywhere. The International Energy Agency projects that the number of AC units will triple by 2050. That’s good for health—one Lancet study estimated that AC prevented nearly 200,000 premature deaths in 2019 alone—but bad for the planet.…
开源项目
Have politics finally come for the National Academies of Science?
A pending report on climate attribution may be setting the stage for conflict.
科技前沿
Is It a Super El Niño Year? It Could Turn the World’s Weather Upside Down
From a wet winter in the Southwest to fewer Atlantic hurricanes, this is what to expect as a potential super El Niño takes shape.
开发者
Why China is betting on big nuclear reactors
It’s a tale of two nuclear industries. In China, large reactors are coming together at a stunning pace. The country has nearly doubled its nuclear fleet since 2016, reaching nearly 60 gigawatts of total power capacity. The new facilities are nearly all gigawatt-scale pressurized-water reactors. Meanwhile, the US has built just two reactors in that…
开发者
Job titles of the future: Nature’s drug designer
In 2018, after nearly two decades working in Big Pharma, chemist Tim Cernak was ready to put his skills to a new use. For Merck, he’d developed precision therapies for cancer, HIV, and diabetes that could target disease while minimizing harm to healthy cells. But as a lifelong nature lover, he was increasingly concerned about…
AI 资讯
How a Citizen Science Organization Aims to Preserve the Places It Brings Tourists to Study
The actual eco-friendliness of ecotourism varies considerably. One research station in the Peruvian Amazon is out to prove it can bring visitors to the area without disrupting the environment.
AI 资讯
How to Spot Greenwashing Claims When You Travel
Hotels and other service providers pitch themselves as eco-friendly when they’re not. Here’s how to call their bluff.
开发者
How virtual power plants could provide energy for data centers
Would you take a payment to ramp down your electricity use? Would it change anything if you were doing so to help power a local data center? Google just signed a new deal to help pay for a virtual power plant (VPP) in the largest power grid in the US. The agreement is with Voltus,…
AI 资讯
They call it stupid hot for a reason: Heat muddles animal brains
As temperatures rise, some creatures pick fights while others struggle to learn.
科技前沿
How a new extraction process could unlock the world’s lithium
Researchers say they’ve found a new way to extract lithium, a crucial metal used in the lithium-ion batteries that power electric vehicles and energy storage arrays. This new technique could be more environmentally friendly and cheaper than existing ones. The research was published today in Science, and a startup called Rock Zero is working to…
开发者
Climate tech companies are going public. What’s next?
This year, there’s been a wave of notable energy companies going public via IPO in the US. The solar and battery company Solv Energy went public in February, to the tune of $6 billion. X-energy, which is building small modular nuclear reactors, did the same in April, and its stocks surged on its first day…