Save Us From Superheroes—Because They Can't Save Us
Superheroes are over, done with, dead. There, I said it. If I see one more lustrous cape, magic doodad, or chiseled hunk of a Chris, I’m gonna beg Thanos to keep snapping. Look, I love Black Panther, and Captain Marvel totally deserves her own movie. But, man, the story is played out. Some misunderstood dweeb…
Eagles vs. Seahawks Analysis: Why Russell Wilson's Forward Pass Looks Backward
During Sunday's NFL game between the Seattle Seahawks and the Philadelphia Eagles, Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson makes a pretty nice move. After taking the ball and running with it, he makes a quick pitch off to the side while faking out the defender. Looks pretty cool, but it probably wasn't legal. In the NFL, once…
Cantina Talk: Boba Fett Is Dead (Again)
Normally this time of year, fans are eagerly awaiting the December release of a new Star Wars movie. But with Episode IX not hitting theaters until the end of 2019, things are relatively quiet in the galaxy far, far away. But at least the news that is coming out is good: Composer John Williams is…
Assassin's Creed Odyssey Promises Romance—Then Locks It Away
Assassin's Creed: Odyssey is not nearly as romantic as I'd been led to believe. Her name is Odessa, and, a few hours into Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, she's the first person in the entire world I can flirt with. A descendant of Odysseus, supposedly, she's on the island of Ithaca to visit his ruined palace, hoping…
An Astronomer Explains Black Holes at 5 Levels of Difficulty
You probably know the basics when it comes to black holes: A lot of mass squished into not a lot of volume makes for an entity so prodigiously dense, not even light can escape its gravity. Perhaps you even know about things like event horizons, the boundary outside of which escape becomes possible, and gravitational…
Cantina Talk: Leia's Family Loves Episode IX, and a Rogue One Show Blasts Off
Who knew that the nearly two-year gap between Star Wars movies would see the space in fans’ hearts filled so completely by small-screen developments? Forget the multiplex—at least until December 2019, when Episode IX hits theaters—because a galaxy far, far away seems to be in your own home, or wherever you take your devices. (Or,…
The Case of the Evaporating Exoplanets
Until recently, Fergal Mullaly worked for the science office of the Kepler space telescope, the planet-hunting satellite that has verified more than 2,600 planets so far. “We have this really strong emotional desire to be able to point to a place in the sky and say, ‘That star there has a planet around it,’” he…
All Your Questions About K-Pop, Answered
By now, you probably know what K-pop is. (Real quick if you don’t: It’s a genre of super sugary, upbeat pop music from South Korea.) But while the genre has been around since the mid-1990s, it’s seen a massive uptick in popularity stateside thanks, in part, to the massive popularity of groups like BTS. In…
The Wild Logistical Ride of the Ebola Vaccine's High-Tech Thermos
The viral disease Ebola has, as of May 26, killed 25 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo and sickened 31 more. In response, treatment centers have popped up (two of three people who fled one of those centers in the city of Mbandaka have died) and health care workers there are getting a still-experimental…
Streaming Tightens Its Grip on the Golden Globes
It's time once again to turn on The Monitor, WIRED's roundup of the latest in the world of culture, from box-office news to announcements about hot new trailers. In today's installment: Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon dominate the Golden Globes; Ryan Reynolds logs onto Reddit; and Spider-Man's next villain is no longer so mysterious. Golden Globetrotters…