Table of contents for Sep-15 in WIRED

FOR THE FOUNDERS of San Francisco restaurant The Perennial, farm-to-table isn’t enough. They’re hoping for farm-to-table-to-farm-to-table, repeating. “When we got started, we focused on energy and transportation efficiency,” says Karen Leibowitz, one of the restaurateurs. “But we discovered that food systems and agricultural practices are a huge part of the climate-change equation.” So her team shifted to figuring out how to make an agricultural impact. The results are responsible and tasty. Aquaponic Entrées At a 3,400-squarefoot facility in Oakland, The Perennial’s leftovers will be turned back into food with help from some fish. A mix of Pacific sturgeon and channel catfish convert all that biomass into ammonia-rich waste, which bacteria eventually convert into nitrates. The nitrates make the water less toxic and are a potent fertilizer for veggies that will…

Here’s what I used to hate about late-night talk shows: cheesy topical jokes, forced banter with the band, celebs flacking their latest project. Here’s what I hate about talk shows now: hosts who are more obsessed with virality than a brand evangelist at the Internet of Wearable & Shareable Things Convention. Talk shows are no longer competing with each other for the late-night audience—they’re competing with BuzzFeed to create clips that rule social media the following morning. Look, Stephen Colbert is already a master of stunts—he sustained a piece of performance art for 11 seasons. But his new network show will have to reach a higher (and broader) plane of gimmick if he wants to be competitive. Conan O’Brien is a Twitter maestro with the funniest profile on LinkedIn (that…

yuccies n. pl. / 'y -kēz / Young urban creatives. An inauspicious cross between the yuppie and the hipster, these overeducated millennials combine materialistic ambition with artistic pretensions and—as the yucky name suggests— a dose of cynical self-loathing. inceptionism n./ in-'sep-sh -' niz m / A technique for generating pictures in which image-recognition software amplifies elements of a photograph to look like parts of other images. Named for the neuro-thriller Inception, the method is used by Google to visualize how neural networks process data. The results verge on surrealism. Lokiarchaeota n. / ' lō-kē-'är-kā-'ō-t / An evolutionary missing link between single-celled life and complex organisms, including humans. Discovered near a hydrothermal vent called Loki’s Castle, Lokiarchaeota has many of the genes that make complex life possible, though nobody yet knows…

ED SMITH DOES SOME fiendishly difficult surgeries. A pediatric neurosurgeon at Boston Children’s Hospital, he often removes tumors and blood vessels that have grown in gnarled, tangled shapes. “It’s really complicated, defusing-a-bomb-type surgery,” he says. ¶ So these days, Smith prepares for his work by using an unusual tool: a 3-D printer. Days in advance, hospital techs use standard imaging to print a high-resolution copy of the child’s brain, tumor and all. Smith will examine it for hours, slowly developing a nuanced, tactile feel for the challenge. “I can hold the problem in my hand,” Smith says. “I can rehearse the surgery as many times as I want.” During the operation, Smith keeps the printed brain next to him for reference. As a visualization tool, it’s so powerful that it…

1 BOB Revolution PRO Stroller Along with the usual pneumatic tires and adjustable suspension system, this BOB jogger comes with an adjustable handlebar (nine positions!), perfect for families with a height differential. Rear-drum brakes are there to slow your descent on hills. $540 2 Skip Hop Duo Signature Bag It’s a parental luxury to use both hands, for any task. This diaper bag keeps those hands free, attaching to your stroller with sturdy clips. Two of its 10 pockets have magnetic closures, so you can dig for wipes single-handedly. $60 3 Patagonia Baby Cotton Blanket What would go better with today’s adventure, stripes or solids? This organic cotton blanket has got your youngling covered either way. For playtime, show the bold solid half. For nap time, fold to display the…

Science Robert Capps, Sophia Chen, Katie M. Palmer, Adam Rogers, Caitlin Roper, Nick Stockton, Danielle Venton, Sarah Zhang Culture Robert Capps, Jason Kehe, K. M. McFarland, Alessandra Ram, Peter Rubin, Eric Steuer, Angela Watercutter Security Emily Dreyfuss, Andy Greenberg, Lexi Pandell, Kim Zetter Business Davey Alba, Sarah Fallon, Klint Finley, Julia Greenberg, Jessi Hempel, Issie Lapowsky, Cade Metz, Marcus Wohlsen Design Alex Davies, Jason Kehe, Belinda Lanks, Margaret Rhodes, Michael Silverberg, Liz Stinson, Clive Thompson…

THE NEW CULTURAL LITERACY 2016 There are lots of things they don’t How to mesh music with technology, the and Dr. Dre have managed to do. How to navigate a post-teach you in school. way Jimmy Iovine Snowden security landscape. Why Ebola can help us fight other diseases. When it comes to living in the here and now, your education is incomplete. Good news: We’re about to school you. We’ve assembled the ultimate cheat sheet for the worlds of security and government, business, science, design, and culture. You’ll learn about the core people and concepts, as well as the go-to Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr feeds that you absolutely must follow. Welcome to your crash seminar in the present. Feel free to take notes.…

01. Helen Branswell, Laurie Garrett, and Tara Smith Twitter Maryn McKenna Blog The tale of how new diseases emerge and old ones come back could very well be the last science story anyone ever reads— and these four writers cover its finest details and scariest moments. They don’t work together— McKenna blogs at National Geographic, and Smith is a professional epidemiologist. Branswell works at the Canadian Press, and Garrett (below) is at the Council on Foreign Relations. But each deftly lays out the latest research and discoveries. 02. Emily Lakdawalla Twitter You don’t love space science enough. Lakdawalla works for the Planetary Society, and her Twitter feed (What’s Cassini up to? Oh hai Saturn!) will boost your affection. 03. CityLab Website Cities aren’t—or at least shouldn’t be—accidental. The intrepid writers…

01. Offworld Website Spearheaded by veteran game journalists Leigh Alexander and Laura Hudson (a WIRED contributor), Boing Boing’s bigtent games site covers diverse titles and developers too often ignored by other sites. 02. Paul Feig Twitter #Whoyougonnacall for on-set photos of the Ecto-1, explanations of what’s inside ghost-fighting proton packs, and stills from the next generation of Ghostbusters? Director Paul Feig’s Twitter, that’s who. 03. Frank Ocean Tumblr Take a spin inside the headspace of the reclusive R&B artist on his Tumblr, which features everything from early samples off his album Boys Don’t Cry to video of a NASA rocket launch. 04. The Mary Sue Website The Mary Sue dishes news and analysis of comics and movies from a feminist perspective— the site is named after a type of improbably…

We answer office email on the weekend and run personal errands on Wednesday afternoon—our jobs and our lives have now totally merged. Thank goodness for that! So with an assist from all-star Rashida Jones, we spun up a guide to workplace happiness, everything from the appropriateness of napping (do it) and the optimization of your desk space (crucial) to rules for telepresence robots (have a wingman). That’s all important, because happiness isn’t some fixed end point like a promotion or an IPO—it should be an ongoing state. “You deserve to be happy all the time,” Jones says. We agree. RE: “ALL WORK & ALL PLAY” “SERIOUSLY, RASHIDA JONES CAN DO NO WRONG IN MY BOOK. AMAZING ADVICE.” Genevieve Grdina (@genevievegrdina) on Twitter Fun article and a refreshing look at how…

Melamine On its own, melamine is just an organic base in the form of white crystals. But when combined with other compounds, it can transform into a plush foam—the Magic Eraser—with a sandpaper-like microscopic texture. You can use it to scrub off sticky dirt and scum from all kinds of surfaces; just avoid using it on delicate or glossy exteriors. Melamine’s high nitrogen content also makes it a useful flame retardant and fertilizer. In 2008, Chinese fraudsters used melamine to make milk and infant formula appear to have a higher protein content, killing six babies and making nearly 300,000 others sick. Two of the perpetrators were executed. Formaldehyde This stuff is best known as the smelly liquid that’s used to preserve dead animals for decades and possibly forever. By itself,…

BETWEEN HULU-BINGING Seinfeld and slogging through True Detective, we had one crazy summer—but now a new crop of fall TV shows is vying for our eyeballs. To help find the best series, we called up Eugene Mirman and Kristen Schaal, who voice siblings Gene and Louise Belcher on Fox’s cult animated series Bob’s Burgers, now entering its sixth season. Granted, they’ve only seen the shows’ trailers, but since when did ignorance stop critics? 1 Limitless (CBS) A sequel to the 2011 big-screen brain-boosting-drug thriller. Schaal: It looked like a really good ad for drugs. It should have a warning on it. Mirman: People should know that you can’t eat Tylenol and then know how math works. Schaal: How long does the effect last? Mirman: It seems like the drug runs out.…

Time to shuffle the kids off to school (thank God). But if they’re nagging you about Converse high-tops on sale mid-September, you can just tell them the bad news: They’ve already missed their shot at the year’s best deals. To find out when prices for school stuff (and other stuff) hit their peaks and valleys, we looked at Consumer Price Index data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.* The takeaway? Stock up early in the summer for kids’ clothes ... and stay away from lunch meat in October.…

NO TODDLER CAN resist a car they can propel, Flintstones-style, with their feet. But their little rides usually come in brash, cartoonish plastic—ugh—and inevitably downgrade your decor. Fret not: The German woodworkers at Sirch make an elegant alternative that’ll blend right in with your domicile’s carefully curated ambiance. Company owner Wolfgang Sirch, who studied interior design, collaborated with sculptor and childhood friend Christoph Bitzer on a furniture collection before they dreamed up this curvy ride. The Max is constructed by steam-bending a plank of solid ash—a technique used in crafting chairs and toboggans—to achieve a thin yet sturdy silhouette. The red handle adds a pop of color and front-axle maneuverability, while a tiny hitch in the back lets Junior drag anything around, from Sirch’s matching two-wheeled trailer ($130) to your…

Science Playground Physics Equations can be a little dry. Uncovering the physics behind recess—just how fast did that kickball fly?—is decidedly not. This app, developed by design firm Local Projects for the New York Hall of Science, analyzes the motion, force, and energy of playground demos that kids can create themselves. TBA (IOS) Solar Walk Care to take a stroll … through our solar system? Solar Walk guides budding astronomers from the sun to Pluto, with stops at the planets and moons along the way. Some of the science is a bit advanced for young kids, but their universe of knowledge is sure to expand. $3 (ANDROID, IOS) Math Attributes Math is more than just numbers. Attributes contains seven beautifully illustrated games that challenge players to identify patterns from different…

JIMMY IOVINE HAS A LINE HE LIKES TO USE. Actually he has a lot of them. Today, Iovine runs Apple Music, the latest stop in a career that has taken him from studio rat to cofounder of Interscope Records to head of Beats Electronics. But he is also a longshoreman’s son from Red Hook, Brooklyn, and he has inherited his native borough’s brand of salty raconteurism. Over the years he’s assembled a playlist of zingers to describe, for instance, his philosophy for dealing with prima donna artists (“If the shit gets bigger than the cat, out goes the cat”) or his appeal to Dr. Dre to build headphones with him instead of designing an athletic shoe (“Fuck sneakers—let’s make speakers”). But the line I’m talking about is the one he…

Geoffrey Ling Darpa Is Going to Create Actual Cyborgs Since Ling became its director, Darpa’s Biological Technologies Office has been looking ... cyborgish. neurologist has overseen research on braincontrolled prosthetics and high tech body suits. A member of his team has even mentioned injecting images into the visual cortex. The agency did invent Internet—maybe Ling can put it into our brains. And give us robots to ride as we surf. —K.M.P. Jennifer Doudna Editing DNA Is Now as Easy as Cut and Paste In collaboration with European researcher Emmanuelle Charpentier, this UC Berkeley biochemist discovered that bacterial DNA called Crispr sequences could be repurposed to find and replace genes in any living thing. The technology presages a new era in which humans will have the power to improve crops, obliterate…

Thundercat Modern Music’s Secret Weapon SAYING THUNDERCAT is a bassist is like saying Pharrell plays keyboards. Born Stephen Bruner, the LA native found his groove linking up with producers like Flying Lotus and helping pioneer a sound that meshes hip hop’s energy with free-jazz experimentation. That led to playing on records by artists like Erykah Badu and Kendrick Lamar—whose 2015 album, To Pimp a Butterfly, was recorded with Thundercat as a strong creative influence. Pimp was hailed as much for its sonic texture as for Lamar’s incendiary lyricism. As albums regain ground they’d sacrificed to the MP3, the Thundercats of the world are restoring music’s immersive power. —E.S. Geoff Johns Mastering the DC Comics Universe Marvel’s days as unchallenged box-office superhero are coming to an end. DC Comics’ shared cinematic…

Kathleen O’Toole Holding the Police Accountable Since taking her post as Seattle’s police chief a year ago, O’Toole has rebooted the department by enforcing better behavior on social media, starting a database to detect problem officers, and introducing body cameras. She teamed up with a civic hacker to create auto-redaction software, so cops can upload bodycam videos to YouTube without laborious editing. Lights, camera, reform. —L.P. Katie Moussouris Pay Hackers to Find Your Bugs MOUSSOURIS IS on a mission to convince the government that security research is vital to keeping us all safe. It’s a tough sell when research and hacking can look so much alike. But she has achieved the impossible before: She got Microsoft to launch a “bug bounty” program in 2013 to pay researchers for security flaws…

01. Risky Business Podcast The security industry’s most informative podcast, hosted weekly by Australian Patrick Gray, offers a news roundup with the right blend of snark and insight from top infosec pros. 02. Swift on Security Twitter Taylor Swift may not know anything about computer security, but an anonymous systems administrator tweets about it with sly humor through this parody account, always with an extensive supply of bizarrely spot-on Taylor Swift pics to match every security topic. 03. Samantha Power Twitter The US ambassador to the United Nations is someone who actually knows what’s going on instead of just, you know, talking about it. Plus, is there a better handle than @ambassadorpower? 04. Deeplinks Blog The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s blog dives into all the latest surveillance and privacy issues, providing…

01. Hacker News Website The geeks inherited the earth, and this is what they’re reading. Run by the Silicon Valley startup incubator Y Combinator, this no-frills site aggregates stories (and wickedly incisive comments) by the best and the brightest engineers in Silicon Valley. 02. Real Future Newsletter Alexis Madrigal was deputy editor at The Atlantic. Now he’s the Silicon Valley bureau chief at Fusion, a TV station/online news and pop culture outlet. But he’s also the author of a newsletter called Real Future. Think of each edition as a brief introduction to five things you’re going to see in the years to come. 03. Dave Pell Newsletter Pell makes his living as an investor—he bet early on the company that became Twitter— but he’s making his name as a funny…

Radical Simplicity Make Your Brand a Classic—Now! IT TOOK APPLE 22 years to develop the simple, iconic logo you know and love today. Now tech startups evolve their branding in 22 months, going simpler, faster. From Airbnb to Snapchat, companies are racing to create sleek, name-free logos that are still instantly recognizable. Oh, and now they have to be readable on a 1.5-inch smartwatch. Witness the rapid weight loss. —M.R. Everything Is Uncanny Stop It, Technology, You’re Creeping Us Out IN HOLLYWOOD they call it the uncanny valley effect: When you try to make animated humans look too realistic, they suddenly seem creepy—like zombies. Now the effect is turning up in other fields too. When online ads get too personalized, people find them stalkerish. When recommendation systems are too spot-on,…

01. The Dieline Website The reason you’ll spend $11 on a chocolate bar isn’t the cocoa, it’s the packaging. The Dieline charts all that tempts your wallet, from soapboxes to wine labels to restaurant takeout. 02. Purple Diary Blog Purple is a French fashion magazine, and this is the visual diary of its editor, Olivier Zahm, covering fashion, fine art, architecture, nightlife, television, travel, sex, photography, and, well, the French. 03. John Maeda Twitter The design partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Maeda has a unique vantage point on the intersection of tech and design, and as the former president of RISD he’s got a good eye for up-and-coming talent too. 04. Planet Money Podcast Economics is more than supplyand-demand charts; as Planet Money shows, it explains how the…

The man, the myth, the legend: Bill Murray; Justice Anthony Kennedy; Bob Weir’s “Let Trey Sing” T-shirt; Bernie Sanders for president, #feelthebern; Robin Wright; streaming the final Grateful Dead concerts over YouTube (and following along on Twitter); the adventures of Putt-Putt; Joan Didion; High Fidelity; Batman; Mark Morrison’s “Return of the Mack”; Garmin GPSMAP 60C; the Periscope stream of hummingbird feeding at sunset by @revbeej; Rainbow Brite; the Decemberists’ What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World; Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys’ The Tiffany Transcriptions; Ron Peck Motorcycles; Röyksopp. WIRED is a registered trademark of Advance Maga zine Publishers Inc. Copyright ©2015 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Printed in the USA. Volume 23, No. 09. WIRED (ISSN 1059–1028) is published monthly by Condé Nast, which is a division of…

TRUECRYPT SHOULD BE digital poison. It’s a free piece of security software you download from the Internet. No one knows who created it, and work on it basically stopped in 2012, which means that every time we upgrade an operating system, the program gets one step closer to complete obsolescence. Last year, the mysterious developers of TrueCrypt pulled the plug on their creation, postinga cryptic message on their site: “WARNING: Using True-Crypt is not secure.” Cryptography guru Bruce Schneier wrote on his blog that he quit using True-Crypt—the way responsibility for the program was “weirdly abdicated” eroded his trust. On security forums, posters argue that we should abandon it. They’re wrong. Because True-Crypt is the only disk encryption program proven to not have a backdoor. That means it can’t give…

STUDENTS CAN LEARN plenty of biology and chemistry in school. But you can also stealthily incept them with science-y ways of thinking with the right games. The Bot Maze, a new educational toy from MindWare, is a great example. Kids build a mini obstacle course with pre-cut wood planks and send a little toothbrush-head-shaped robot buzzing through it, bouncing off walls, spinning this way and that, generally demonstrating the principles of kinetics as it goes. Along the way, of course, young Einsteins are testing out hypotheses (will putting a plastic ball in this corner ricochet the racer through the doorway?), learning about vibration, motors, and propulsion, and exercising a little creativity as they decorate their robots with bobbles and feathers. But watch out for those! As our kid testers discovered,…

MONTREAL HAS 20 MILES OF UNDERGROUND TUNNELS; IN WINTER, AROUND 500,000 PEOPLE USE THEM DAILY. // AFTER PARIS, KINSHASA, AND ABIDJAN, MONTREAL IS THE WORLD’S FOURTH-LARGEST FRENCH-SPEAKING CITY. // NO BUILDING MAY EXCEED THE ELEVATION OF MOUNT ROYAL, 763 FEET ABOVE SEA LEVEL. “There’s an interactive exhibit at the Phi Centre showing innovative VR art. No event like this has ever happened in Montreal.” —Félix Lajeunesse, cofounder of VR studio Félix & Paul TORONTO GETS THE film festival, and Vancouver recently hosted the Women’s World Cup Final, but Montreal has quietly emerged as Canada’s cultural hub. Its artistic power is on full display in September, when the 14th annual POP Montreal International Music Festival takes over the city, mostly at venues in the Mile End neighborhood. Over five days, more…

1 Lego Flatiron Building Manhattan’s architectural icon, with its razor-edge corner, took about a year to construct; you and the kids can complete this 5-inch-tall version in a New York minute. Travel back in time to 1902, when the daring wedge structure first drew gawking crowds. $40 2 Hackaball Turn screen fanatics into playground fanatics by tossing them this programmable ball. The companion app walks kids through simple if-then coding to create games. For hot potato, instruct it to turn red every 10 seconds and sound off if it’s dropped. $85 (preorder) 3 Grids & Guides: 3 Notepads For Visual Thinkers Get those scientific juices bubbling with this three-pack of graph-paper notepads. One has a standard 3-mm Cartesian grid, another has an isometric grid, and the third has a logarithmic…

At 20, Iovine joins Record Plant Studios in New York City as a staff engineer. During the ’70s he works on three John Lennon albums and two Bruce Springsteen LPs. 19 73 Iovine produces Patti Smith’s album Easter, featuring the Top 40 hit “Because the Night.” He goes on to work with major artists in the late ’70s and ’80s, including Tom Petty, Stevie Nicks, Simple Minds, the Pretenders, and U2. 19 78 An opportunity to supervise the musical direction for the Brat Pack classic Sixteen Candles becomes Iovine’s first foray into film. 19 84 Iovine cofounds Interscope Records with Ted Field. The label’s first album release, Mo’ Ritmo by Ecuadorian artist Gerardo, includes the hit track “Rico Suave.” 19 90 Interscope signs Tupac Shakur and releases 2Pacalypse Now. Death…

We Control Life Produce (Almost) Anything With Yeast WITHIN THE NEXT FEW YEARS, scientists will be able to produce morphine with genetically engineered yeast. That’s just one example of synthetic biology—already researchers have modified algae to manufacture biofuel and palm oil substitutes. For yeast to synthesize morphine, 15 enzymes have to work in a kind of blacktar assembly line, each of them encoded by a distinct gene. That’ll take some molecular fiddling. But in layperson’s terms, here’s how synbio is done. —S.C. Particles Are Knowledge The Hadron Collider Is Smashing Old Ideas THEORETICAL PHYSICISTS have filled in the Standard Model—a set of equations describing the interactions among the universe’s fundamental particles. In 2012, CERN’s Large Hadron Collider put the final button on the tuxedo when it found the Higgs boson.…

We’re at Cyberwar A Global Guide to Digital Attacks EVERY MONTH, it seems, a mammoth cyberattack sponsored by a nation-state comes to light. In recent years, more than 20 countries have announced their intent to launch or beef up their offensive cyber capabilities. The result is a burgeoning digital arms race that presents a major threat to the security of our data. Here’s a look at the countries that have garnered the most headlines in the past few years and a comparison of how their cyberoffensive capabilities stack up. Our assessment is, of course, based only on known attacks. And attribution is often tricky. It’s difficult, forensically, to distinguish nation-state attacks from those of independent groups—even more so when China and Russia use state hackers and also pay freelancers when…

Jan Koum and Brian Acton Connect the World With Just One App After toiling away in the Yahoo boiler room, Koum and Acton launched WhatsApp, a service that lets users send and receive free texts via the Internet. And it took over the world (almost—less than 2 percent of users are in the US). WhatsApp now runs on more than 800 million phones, and it could make messaging the defining platform of the mobile era, for everything from voice calls to payments. —C.M. Shannon Liss-Riordan Sharing-Economy Workers Deserve Protection Companies like Uber and Lyft are using the Internet to remake transportation. But labor attorney Liss-Riordan says they’re also misclassifying workers as contractors to skimp on taxes and benefits. She’s won cases for FedEx drivers and exotic dancers over similar practices;…

Miles Barr Every Window Can Be a Solar Cell Solar panels are usually bulky, opaque, reflective rectangles. Barr, the CEO of Ubiquitous Energy, is reducing solar cells to a thin, transparent film that, when applied to any piece of glass or plastic, absorbs light and converts it to electricity. The first prototypes are for mobile gadgets, but the larger potential is clear: Once perfected, the film could coat entire skyscrapers to offset energy use. —B.L. Meredith Perry Charge Gadgets With Sound ENERGY CAN BE extracted from wind, water, and light. Meredith Perry is adding sound to that list. The 26-year-old and her startup, UBeam, are turning sound waves into wireless power for charging gadgets. And unlike other wireless power-ups, her version doesn’t require the gadget to be touching the charger.…

01. What is Synbio? A Where you put the really naughty stuff in your Facebook profile B Tricking yeast into belching out stuff like morphine C A new mobile game where you control ribosomes and Golgi apparatuses D The name of Kanye and Kim’s forthcoming second child 02. Who is Christopher Soghoian? A The ACLU’s tech guru B The left-hand fern on Zach Galifianakis’ Between Two Ferns C The target of an FBI investigation D The birth name of Ronan the Accuser from Guardians of the Galaxy 03. What is Cli-Fi? A Syfy’s new spinoff network that features nothing but clip art B “Click financing,” in which new-media employees get loans based on site traffic C A nickname for Clint Fisticuffs, Andreessen Horowitz’s new bulldog mascot D Climate-disaster fiction, a…