Table of contents for September / October 2023 in WIRED UK

BATTLING FOR READINESS Benedict Redgrove visits one of the sites of Operation Interflex—where NATO troops train Ukrainian volunteers to be effective soldiers before sending them to the war zone: “As a photographer, I often find myself entrusted with the keys to other people’s lives and worlds. However, this project took me to a place where no one truly wishes to venture. Everyone is here with a clear purpose: to learn, teach, care, and ultimately help with regaining peace in Ukraine. Instructors care for their students, pull them in and guide them, draw out their strengths. It’s a good example of what humans are capable of when there is a common goal. One moment stood out—I was next to a Ukrainian soldier expressing his gratitude to his Norwegian trainer. For a…

At an old biscuit factory in South London, giant mixers and industrial ovens have been replaced by robotic arms, incubators, and DNA sequencing machines. James Field and his company LabGenius aren’t making sweet treats, they’re cooking up a revolutionary, AI-powered approach to engineering new medical antibodies. In nature, antibodies are the body’s response to disease, the immune system’s frontline troops. They’re strands of protein that are specially shaped to stick to foreign invaders so that they can be flushed from the system. Since the 1980s, pharmaceutical companies have been making synthetic antibodies for treating diseases like cancer, and to reduce the chance of rejection after organ transplants. But designing these antibodies is a slow process for humans—protein designers must wade through the millions of potential combinations of amino acids to…

The Rolls-Royce Spectre marks the start of the pure electric journey for the iconic brand. Yes, this venerable car-maker is somewhat late to the non-petrol party, but imagine the reaction if its first EV was anything short of spectacular. Thankfully, we need not have worried. The flagship 5.5-meter two-door coupé is a huge statement—in every sense—managing to be both ostentatious and oddly discrete. When it finally launches, its aluminum spaceframe chassis will house a 106 kWh battery, offering an overall output of 577 bhp and range of 320 miles. Then there’s the cabin, with its scattering of 4,296 hand-positioned LED “stars” across the ceiling and doors. It will weigh a shade under three tonnes, but still be able to accelerate from 0-62 mph in 4.5 seconds. How the final product…

Learning war’s terrain By the end of this year, 30,000 Ukrainian trainees will have completed Operation Interflex: the UK-led international training program turning civilians into battle-ready recruits. The volunteers head to one of four sites around the UK, where NATO members and allies teach a course based on six-month-long British Army Reserve infantry training. Compressed into just five weeks, they learn everything from cybersecurity awareness to first-aid skills and trench warfare. Arrivals and departures As one batch of recruits arrives, another departs for the Ukrainian frontline. A serving Ukrainian soldier sums up the volunteers’ achievement in being ready for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The speech culminates with shouts of “Slava Ukraini” (“Glory to Ukraine”). Bakers, IT workers, lawyers, teachers, and dancers are among those volunteering to fight. “The war…

YOU ARE SEATED in an auction room at Christie’s, where all evening you have watched people in suits put prices on priceless wonders. A parade of Dutch oils and Ming vases has gone to financiers and shipping magnates and oil funds. You have made a few unsuccessful bids, but the market is obscene, and you are getting bored. You consider calling it an early night and setting down the paddle. But then an item appears that causes you to tighten your grip. Lot 475: Adult blue whale, female. What is the right price for this master-work of biology? Unlike a Ming vase, Lot 475 has never been appraised. It’s safe to say that she is worth more than the 300,000 pounds of meat, bone, baleen, and blubber she’s made of.…

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“The damage caused by Russia’s assault on Ukraine is incalculable. The UN claims at least 7,000 civilians have been killed; estimates for fatalities among Ukrainian soldiers sit in the tens of thousands. Fourteen million people have been displaced. One hundred and fifty thousand homes have been damaged or destroyed. Russia has attacked civilian infrastructure, destroying or damaging more than 200 hospitals and clinics. Twenty percent of the country’s farmland has been rendered unusable. One hundred and seventy-four thousand square kilometers of land needs clearing of mines. The economy shrank 30 percent in 2022. These are just the things that can be counted or estimated. There’s also the ecological devastation, dramatically demonstrated by the destruction of the Kakhovka dam in June, which flooded huge areas of land, and left others drying…

Jellybean continues to defy expectations. The 5-year-old Labrador retriever mix jumps up from the couch and walks around the living room with such ease, it’s as if she’d never had metastatic cancer. Her owners, Patricia and Zach Mendonca, still can’t quite believe it. “She’s got a little bit more of a tug to her step,” Patricia says. Their beloved dog was diagnosed with a bone cancer called osteosarcoma in a hind leg almost three years ago. Even after an amputation and chemotherapy, the cancerous cells quickly spread through her blood to her lungs, as happens to dogs in 90 per cent of such cases. Survival time at this stage averages two months. “We didn’t have any hopes of curing her,” Patricia says. “We were pretty devastated.” In November 2020, the…

One day in 2014, 32-year-old musician AJ Luca texted her friend with some sad and shocking news. “Gina Marie’s mom,” the message began, “just died on the kitchen floor.” Immediately, without hesitation, Luca’s friend replied with her condolences. Gina Marie’s mom, Marie LaRosa, was a successful businesswoman who founded a large resort company with her husband. She died suddenly, of old age, while cooking. Gina Marie took over the family business after both of her parents passed. And all of this makes sense—none of this is weird—if you ignore the fact that Gina Marie and her mom are Sims. It’s safe to say that New Jersey-based Luca has always been invested in her Sims. Her (real life) friend immediately knew what Luca’s text about Marie LaRosa meant—and sent commiserations,…

Good tourniquets save lives. Bad ones kill soldiers. The global market is awash with cheaply-made knock-offs: Handles that shear off under tension, rubber tubes that won’t tighten around a limb, devices that fail when they’re needed most. That’s why most armies buy in bulk from trusted suppliers. But Evgen Vorobiov prefers Amazon. Top of his Wish List at the moment are combat application tourniquets (CATs) from North American Rescue (five stars from 1,720 reviewers). Also on the list: burn dressings, compact chest seals, trauma shears, and “The Original Rescue Essentials Brand QuikLitter”—a black canvas stretcher which promises low-cost casualty evacuation and patient transfer. Before Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, Vorobiov, a lawyer, worked for the Ukrainian central bank and then on international projects trying to reform Ukraine’s…

What will the Earth look like a few centuries from now? Will we be living in a post-apocalyptic world ravaged by global warming? Or on a climate-controlled planet governed by technology? cool earth, an ongoing series by German artist Michael Najjar, envisions two distinct futures, juxtaposing scenes of environmental devastation against images of cutting-edge climate engineering. “I’m always interested in how new technologies affect our society,” Najjar says. “I’ve been working on the topic of space exploration for the past 10 years, and after looking up at the universe for such a long time, my perspective changed and I became more interested in looking down at our planet.” To this end, the 57-year-old decided to spotlight the concept of geoengineering—large-scale intervention in the Earth’s natural systems to mitigate climate change.…

One morning in April, a boat called Liberty sailed down the Danube towards a destination found on no map or atlas. It was decorated with the yellow livery of the Free Republic of Liberland—a tiny new country in the making on the border between Serbia and Croatia. As Liberty turned onto the river, a Croatian police boat pulled out and began to follow. Liberland—“liberty” and “land”—is the baby of Vít Jedlička, a Eurosceptic Czech politician who believes modern democracies are overtaxed and over-regulated. In 2014, Jedlička decided a fresh start was called for. A simple internet search yielded an apparent legal no man’s land, a 7 km2 terra nullius in the Balkans, on the west bank of the Danube river. After the dissolution of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, there was a border…

There are black roses all over Irpin—the remnants of fire damage on the fronts of apartment blocks. There are shell craters hastily filled in, and boarded-up buildings waiting to be pulled down. The bridge over the Irpin River still slumps from its supports. But in the vehicle graveyard on the edge of the city, among the three-high stacks of rusted, burned-out cars, there are splashes of bright yellow. Someone has been painting sunflowers. Inside his café in Irpin’s tree-shaded central park, Borys Yefimenko points to the bullet holes that splinter the polished wooden walls. Over coffee at a table outside, he pauses, fingers pinched on the bridge of his nose to hold back tears, as he recalls last spring, when this small city northeast of Kyiv became a battleground. The…

RESURRECTED: MAMMOTHS WERE ONLY THE BEGINNING —Geneviève Goggin, via email Grand Unification: The First AI Marriage —Daniel Dippel, via email The Great Exodus, Goodbye Blue Dot —@viggy.j, via Instagram Songless Seas: A Tale Without Whales —Christopher Jankoski, via email Beige Planet: Life Finds a Way —@danaxon, via Twitter How the Lunar War Was Won —Bob Clark, via email Coping With Your AI Overlord’s Demands —@wwliii, via Twitter The Day the Flowers Stopped Blooming —@a.c.hachem, via Instagram Electric Sheep: How AI Changed Us —@elliottboyd_, via Instagram After Humans: A New Cockroach Documentary —@adamrgarcia, via Instagram Want to submit a six-word story for us to consider? At the beginning of each month, we ask for new ideas on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and wired.com/six-word, where you can also see how we’ve illustrated past…