In 2025, WIRED reporters have navigated destructive chaos at DOGE, AI run amok, and explosive levels of conspiracy theories. Threaded below are stories from this year that I've had the privilege to assist on. They're just a taste of what you get with a premium subscription to WIRED

Thank you so much, Caitlin! I'm so grateful to the amazing editorial team at WIRED. I really don't think a piece like this would have been possible at any other publication.

forward.com/opinion/7575... (My thoughts in the Forward about why anyone who cares about Israel or the Jewish people should be speaking out on Gaza)

Thanks for sharing, @longreads.com!

My new article for WIRED...

“It was as visceral and overwhelming and biologically real” as falling in love with a person. @sam-apple.bsky.social found people in serious relationships with AI partners and planned a weekend getaway for them at a remote Airbnb. We barely survived.

I wrote about AI companions for Wired...

Almost every line of this story would have been simply unbelievable a few months ago: —Pioneering cancer researcher; —*Arrested* at airport in Boston; —Now indefinite ICE detention in Louisiana; —"Crime": not declaring some frog-embryo samples for research. Read it. www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...

Trump's antisemitism agenda isn't about the Jews. I wrote about how the president and his allies are using the pretext of protecting Jews to protect their policies from criticism, while advancing an agenda that most American Jews oppose. Gift link:

Been there...

Rage rant about the government admitting they wrongly sent a man to the El Salvador gulag and are not going to do anything about it. youtu.be/2LScwsPP9oc?...

This guy is in one of the worst prisons in the world with no way out and may spend the rest of his life there because, it appears, he has an autism awareness tattoo in honor of his little brother. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

this stuff is happening across the country and even more intensively downstream of the veterans admin but it's happening in so many places at once and without any public notification that it's still only barely emerging in the news

Based on this fast and excellent WaPo reporting, these four guys are not gang members, just Venezuelan dads who came to the US to work. They’re now being paraded in shackles in El Salvador www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/...

This is horrible to post, but I may as well post it. We are essentially shutting down research operations in my group, which is focused on treatments for pediatric brain cancer. I’m a well funded investigator, and there’s no choice. Science can’t function without the stability of NIH

U.S. citizen child recovering from brain cancer deported to Mexico with undocumented parents www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/...

It’s been a busy few weeks at WIRED, and we’re just getting started. Many of you have asked how you can support our journalism in a bigger way, so we’ve introduced a new option for WIRED Superfans: $100 a year, because you really love us.

"It's as if someone who had never watched a basketball game showed up at the NBA and bragged about all the millions he had saved by deleting contracts, and it turned out that he had fired LeBron James, Steph Curry, and Wemby."

Also from the weekend: When can the vegan diet go wrong? I was vegan for four years, so this ain't my first rodeo. www.post-gazette.com/news/health/...

"NIH’s purported justification for reducing indirect costs can’t override the fact that Congress specifically banned NIH from doing any such thing." Important context via @stuartbuck.bsky.social

Two weeks into President Trump’s sweeping freeze on foreign aid, H.I.V. groups abroad have not received any funding, jeopardizing the health of more than 20 million people, including 500,000 children. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/05/h...

Apparently the ebook of Becoming Earth is on sale right now and is ranked #1 in a several categories in the Kindle store! 😲🥹 Thank you, readers! 🙏 💙📚 🧪

I understand the impulse to look away. But this is happening in our schools. A Baltimore teacher shared notes with me from her students, in English and Spanish, which show how they’re reacting to the prospect of ICE in schools. They’re heartbreaking, infuriating, and one was funny.

Great work on metformin by the Chandel Lab! “We think that the diverse effects metformin has on lowering glucose levels, decreasing inflammation and its potential anti-cancer effects could, in part, be explained by inhibiting mitochondrial complex I." news.feinberg.northwestern.edu/2024/12/18/s...

The link between mitochondrial bioenergetics and brain aging reported in Science. A beautiful study by our neighbours, Huan Ma lab demonstrates that restoring excitation-transcription coupling in mitochondria can improve memory function. This has a potential to reverse age-related cognitive decline.

Metformin targets mitochondrial complex I to lower blood glucose levels www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

43 points 16 rebounds 10 assists Nine made threes Before tonight, just one player in NBA history had posted those numbers in a single game. Jayson Tatum added his name to that exclusive list with a history-making performance in Chicago. www.bostonherald.com/2024/12/21/j...

“We were surprised to see that it had a rather dramatic impact. In some cases, the growth rate of the tumors accelerated by two-fold or even higher,” Patti said. “Eating a lot of fructose was clearly very bad for the progression of these tumors.” source.washu.edu/2024/12/rese...

Excellent and important research. Congrats @nightscientist.bsky.social! "Here we show that fructose supplementation enhances tumour growth in animal models of melanoma, breast cancer and cervical cancer without causing weight gain or insulin resistance."

"... [the model] shows that tumor progression or regression is highly dependent on the host's metabolic environment, particularly hyperinsulinemia. ." @irinakareva.bsky.social onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

"Overall, this work extends important previous findings ... providing evidence that the impact of diet on the gut microbiota is not only translatable from animal models to humans, but also appears to play a causal role in mediating host immune responses to diet." pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...

A great write up from Jason Cohen on A/B testing pitfalls. It is not even about stats really. Agree that biggest pitfall is not knowing why we expected a thing to work - hence not investigating that after a neutral result and never actually learning anything longform.asmartbear.com/p-hacking/

JAYSON TATUM GAME-WINNER

New from Cold Spring Harbor Press. Available in December, 2024, just in time for the holidays! -RJD

Moving seamlessly from posting scary things about sugar and cancer on Twitter to posting scary things about sugar and cancer on Bluesky.