Busy week, eh? Unless Congress has shut down your place of employment, of course. Why, you probably barely had time to look at the news. We get that. We don't judge. But your friends at your power brunches this weekend will. That’s why we’ve got your WIRED dozen here: a recap of the week’s most interesting stories -- from WIRED and around the web. Cram this into your brain and wow your cohorts with your with-itness.
Nobel Prize for the Higgs Boson Triggers Existential Crisis in Physicists
This week, the physicists who discovered -- nay, theorized -- the Higgs Boson particle got the Nobel Prize. But then all the physicists got really depressed. Why? Because what does it all mean, man? Where do we go next? How does it affect once-popular ideas like String Theory and Supersymmetry? Quantum mechanics is now even more of a head-scratcher. Behold, the “crisis.” [WIRED bet365体育赛事]
__A Smoke Detector Worth Getting Excited About
__When was the last time you said, “Wow, that smoke detector is awesome!” Let me just go ahead and answer that for you: Never ever, until maybe now. The Nest Protect -- from Apple alum and ipods lead inventor Tony Fadell’s company Nest -- will warn us of dangerous smoke and carbon monoxide levels. But not in the usual annoyingly shrieky way. Instead, a voice comes through its speaker, telling you exactly in which room it detects the problem. If it's just a little stir-fry smoke, you can wave your hand in front of it to dismiss. And it's internet-connected, which means remote alerts via an app. [WIRED Business]
__What Sticks to the Roof of Your Mouth and May Be an Alzheimer’s Indicator?
__Peanut butter isn't just for bread and jelly anymore. According to researchers at the University of Florida McKnight Brain Institute (not to be confused with the Brian McKnight Institute), the smell of peanut butter may be used in a test to determine if a patient has Alzheimer's disease. See, one of its first targets is the olfactory nerve, and because peanut butter is a “pure odorant,” it can *only *be detected by that nerve. In other words: All hypochondriacs need is a ruler and a spoon full of peanut butter to determine their fate du jour. [University of Florida News]
__What Will the Feds Do With the Bitcoins Seized From Silk Road?
__Drugs busts are usually pretty straightforward. Feds seize illegal monies. Feds put illegal monies in a bank account. Feds use illegal monies to fund more busts and the acquisition of more illegal monies. It's the circle of drugs, Simba. But what the hell happens when the money exists solely online and can only be kept in digital internet “wallets?” And so we find ourselves in uncharted waters. [WIRED Enterprise]
__Governmental Bickering Gives America Salmonella
__The “well then I'm taking my ball and going home!” political-playground strategy is all fine and good when it's just kickball, but when the federal government shutdown leads to a lack of food-safety inspections -- followed by a gigantic and potentially deadly, multi-state, antibiotic-resistant salmonella outbreak -- well, then it's time to talk homeschooling. [WIRED bet365体育赛事]
__Your Physical Reality, Personalized
__Imagine you walk into a room and your favorite song starts playing. As you're joined by others, a playlist is automatically generated consisting of a mix of everybody's favorite music. It sounds crazy, but it's already possible. Meet the Tessel, an internet-connected doodad that may be able to shape your world to your preferences -- and it’s all open source. [WIRED Enterprise]
__Formula One's Most Dominant Team Has Everyone Stumped
__Dashing around a Mario Kart-like track, Formula One car races are almost always decided by a matter of milliseconds. So why is Team Redbull beating the competition by more than half a minute? Nobody knows. Some speculate there's an illegal use of traction control, but the car is carefully inspected before every race. So how are they doing it? How can they accelerate out of corners like that? What's that weird sound? Redbull knows something, but it's not tellin'. [WIRED Autopia]
What Accelerates the Fastest? A Bullet? A Missile? Or Maybe Is It a Tiny Fungus That Grows on Horseshit?
Yep, that's the one. Pilobolus, a fungus that loves poo more than anything, accelerates faster than anything we know of on Earth. We're talking 20,000 Gs. In human terms, that would be like a person being catapulted at 100 times the speed of sound. It's hard to fathom, but thanks to ultra high-speed HD video, we can get a pretty astonishing look at it. [Gizmodo]
__How the Film Gravity Created the Most Realistic Weightlessness We've Ever Seen
__Most sci-fi films don't even bother trying to simulate zero gravity. But director Alfonso Cuarón went to painstaking lengths to create something that resembled reality (at least pretty closely). In fact, Cuarón and company had to invent their “own set of tools,” and the resulting mix of CGI and gigantic machinery is pretty awesome. [Popular Mechanics]
__The Crushing Loneliness of Surviving Outdoors, and What It Takes to Survive
__Most survival reality shows on TV are crap. Actually, it's worse than that, because they give potentially dangerous advice. Running down a rocky hill might create a sense of drama, but in real life, you break an ankle and your chances of dying go way up. Les Stroud's show is slow-paced by comparison, but nobody accuses him of being a fake. His thoughts on what it takes to survive, crushing loneliness, and Bear Grylls are all worth reading. [Outside Magazine]
__Why Don't We Have High-Speed Fiber Optics Yet?
__If you're like me, you've wanted Verizon's high-speed fiber-optic network (Fioses) since you first heard it existed. And, if you're like me -- and basically everyone else in this country -- you've never been able to get it. We know it's there, somewhere in our neighborhood, but it's always just out of reach. Taking a deep look at the problem could make it even more frustrating, but at least it helps answer the big WHY of it all. [The Verge]
__Here We Go Again: The Work From Home vs. Work at Office Debate
__Re-igniting the debate from earlier this year when Marissa Mayer did the same with Yahoo!, HP’s Meg Whitman bucked the company's long-held pro-remote working policy this week. HP’s move is arguably bigger -- affecting 300,000ish employees -- and it bucks the egalitarian HP Way. [GigaOM]
Does the “water cooler effect” and working together in person really help innovation? Or are people who work remotely more productive? The problem is, both sides are right: The real challenge is understanding "what type of thinking workers want to do, not where to do it." If you've got an opinion, we wanna hear it...
Brent Rose is an actor and a freelance contributor at WIRED, Gizmodo, Outside Magazine, Men's Journal, and others. Follow him on Twitter: @brentrose.
