WIRED - September - October 2024

In this issue

The Hole in the Map of the World.
Beneath the waves lurks a massive waterfall. And in its mysterious depths, the fate of the world churns. by Sandra Upson

An Imperfect Storm
Can the UAE really make rain on demand—or is it selling vaporware?
by Amit Katwala

THE TECH WORLD'S GREATEST LIVING NOVELIST GOES META

In which Robin Sloan writes Moonbound-a science fiction book about science fiction-and our writer writes his way into total insanity.

7 mins

The Eternal Truth of Markdown -An exegesis of the most ubiquitous piece of code on the web.

Markdown is not just a piece of software. It's also a markup language it's used to format plaintext, which then appears the way you want it to on, say, the internet. Markdown the markup language was designed to be as easy-to-read and easy-to-write as is feasible, according to creator John Gruber's syntax guide. A Markdown-formatted document should be publishable as-is, as plain text, without looking like it's been marked up with tags or formatting instructions.

5 mins

Spin Cycle - To study tornadoes, it helps to wear a skirt (and rocket launchers).

To study tornadoes, it helps to wear a skirt (and rocket launchers). When the Dominator is about to intercept a tornado, Timmer uses a two-prong system to anchor the vehicle. Air compressors lower the car so its thick rubber skirt nearly touches the ground, and spikes wedge 6 inches into the earth to firmly prevent the vehicle from liftoff. Timmer and ONeal have seen roughly 65 tornadoes in the past six months. It was a historic amount, ONeal says. A lot of meteorological setups are busts, but every day we drove out this year, we felt like we would see a tornado.

1 min

Terminal Velocity - Murphy, a competitive runner since high school, was an avid user of the exercise app Strava, and he frequently checked the app while traveling to see where locals liked to run.

It was 2 am at Denver International Airport, and Jared Murphy was only a few hours into a planned 17-hour layover. His options at this quiet hour, in the expansive halls of the concourse, were pretty much nil. There would be no nibbling on ahi tartare at the Crú Food & Wine Bar for at least another seven hours, and the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory's signature caramel apples had long since been cached for the night.

4 mins

Cooler Heads - The deadliest environmental threat to city dwellers worldwide isn't earthquakes, tornadoes, flooding, or fire. It's heat.

The deadliest environmental threat to city dwellers worldwide isn't earthquakes, tornadoes, flooding, or fire. It's heat. In Phoenix, Arizona, where almost 400 people died from heat exposure last year-and where falling on the pavement can leave a third-degree burn-the question isn't whether this summer's temperatures will kill people, it's how many.

4 mins

Piece of Mind - This diagram maps 1 cubic millimeter of the brain-but its unprecedented clarity deepens the mysteries of cognition.

This diagram maps 1 cubic millimeter of the brain-but its unprecedented clarity deepens the mysteries of cognition. Although this image wouldn't look out of place on a gallery wall alongside other splashy works of abstract art, it represents something very real: a 1-cubic-millimeter chunk of a woman's brain, removed during a procedure to treat her for epilepsy. Researchers at Harvard University stained the sample with heavy metals, embedded it in resin, cut it into slices approximately 34 nanometers thick

1 min

The Hole in the Map of the World - On the surface, there's nothing unusual about it. just a spot of ocean. but beneath the waves lurks something incredible: a massive waterfall. and in its mysterious depths, the fate of the world churns.

Tip of Iceland, you'll find what's often called a marginal body of water. This part of the Atlantic, the Irminger Sea, is one of the stormiest places in the northern hemisphere. On Google Maps it gets three stars: very windy, says one review. It's also where something rather strange is happening. As the rest of the planet has warmed since the 20th century-less in the tropics, more near the poles-temperatures in this patch of ocean have hardly budged. In some years they've even cooled. If you get a thrill from spooky maps, check out one that compares the average temperatures in the late 19th century with those of the 2010s. All of the planet is quilted in pink and red, the familiar colors of climate change. But in the North Atlantic, there's one freak splotch of blue. If global warming were a blanket, the Irminger Sea and its neighboring waters are where the moths ate through. Scientists call it the warming hole.

10+ mins

AN IMPERFECT STORM

CAN THE U.A.E. REALLY MAKE RAIN ON DEMAND OR IS IT SELLING VAPORWARE?

10+ mins

Fantastic Plastic - a plastic bag might be the most overengineered object in history.

Stretchy seaweed. Reverse vending machines. QR-coded take-out boxes. To cure our addiction to disposable crap, we'll all need to get a little loony.

10+ mins

DAMAGE CONTROL

According to Léna Lazare, the 26-year-old face of the radical climate movement, they're also acts of joy.

10+ mins

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