THIS STORY ORIGINALLY appeared on WIRED en Español and has been translated from Spanish. Traditionally, the athletics track in an Olympic stadium is red. However, at the 2024 Summer Olympics, it's purple, to match the event colors chosen by the Paris organizing committee. But there's another difference: It's made with …
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Pole vaulting is one of the more outlandish Olympic events. The primary instruments of the sport are curious creations—big sticks, between 10 and 17 feet in length, that certain track & field Olympians hold while sprinting, then jab into the ground and hang on to as they hurl themselves through …
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The Ocean Sciences Building at the University of Washington in Seattle is a brightly modern, four-story structure, with large glass windows reflecting the bay across the street. On the afternoon of July 7, 2016, it was being slowly locked down. Red lights began flashing at the entrances as students and …
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The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. In 1956, David Pines formulated a phantom. He predicted the existence of seas of electric ripples that could neutralize each other, rendering the overall ocean motionless even as individual waves ebbed and flowed. The oddity, which came to be known …
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The robotic line cooks were deep in their recipe, toiling away in a room tightly packed with equipment. In one corner, an articulated arm selected and mixed ingredients, while another slid back and forth on a fixed track, working the ovens. A third was on plating duty, carefully shaking the …
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