Gallery: WIRED's Top Science Stories of the Year
Eye of Science/Science Source01SciSource-BS8236-660x569
[__The Incredible Critter That’s Tough Enough to Survive in Space__](https://www.wired.com/2014/03/absurd-creature-week-water-bear) This edition of our Absurd Creature of the Week column features one of our favorites creatures ever: the tardigrade. Also known as the water bear, this exceedingly tiny critter has an incredible resistance to just about everything. Go ahead and boil it, freeze it, irradiate it, and toss it into the vacuum of space — it won’t die.
Nick Stockton/WIRED02Shingles-660x495
[__Why Your Cat Thinks You’re a Huge, Unpredictable Ape__](https://www.wired.com/2014/10/cat-thinks-youre-huge-unpredictable-ape) Even though we feed them, clean up after them, and pet them, veterinarian Tony Buffington says that few of us know how to listen to our cats. This makes things more frustrating for them than for us—because no matter how much we love them, cats are our captives, domesticated aliens with no way of explaining their customs, or of interpreting ours.
Google Maps03street-view-spyglass-660x463
[__The Huge, Unseen Operation Behind the Accuracy of Google Maps__](https://www.wired.com/2014/12/google-maps-ground-truth) Since the 90's we’ve gone from glove boxes stuffed with paper maps to floorboards littered with Mapquest printouts to mindlessly obeying our phones. The maps on our phones are packed with far more data than you may realize. Here's how the Google Maps team assembles and refines their maps with a combination of algorithms and manual labor.
Sarah Zukoff/Flickr04corn-rootworm
[__Voracious Worm Evolves to Eat Biotech Corn Engineered to Kill It__](https://www.wired.com/2014/03/rootworm-resistance-bt-corn) One of agricultural biotechnology’s great success stories may become a cautionary tale of how short-sighted mismanagement can squander the benefits of genetic modification. After years of predicting it would happen, farmers and regulators — scientists have documented the rapid evolution of corn rootworms that are resistant to Bt corn.
Steffen Richter, Harvard University05Dark-Sector-Sunrise--BICEP2-660x439
[__How the Biggest Scientific Discovery of the Year Was Kept a Secret__](https://www.wired.com/2014/03/secret-bicep-inflation) The huge announcement in March about the discovery of echoes from the earliest fraction of a second after the Big Bang was later thrown into question by the scientific community. One reason this happened in this painfully public way is because the team that did the work managed to keep it secret before the announcement.
ESO/MPE/M. Schartmann/L. Calçada06centralblackhole
[__Scientists May Get Best View Yet of a Black Hole in Action__](https://www.wired.com/2014/03/black-hole-snack-time) Telescopes all over the world are turning to our galaxy’s center, and for the first time ever astronomers may have a front-row look at a supermassive black hole consuming a gas cloud. What they see may help them solve a decades-old puzzle about why our galaxy’s central black hole is so quiet.
Getty07sleepy-660x456 (1)
[__What’s Up With That: Why Does Sleeping In Just Make Me More Tired?__](https://www.wired.com/2014/07/whats-up-with-that-why-does-sleeping-in-just-make-me-more-tired) We’ve all been there: It’s been a long week at work, so Saturday morning, you sleep in. But when you finally wake up, your limbs feel like they’re filled with sand, your brain is fuzzy and you have faint headache. If too little sleep is a problem, then why is more sleep a terrible solution? Find out in the year's most popular edition of What's Up With That.
Petri et al./Proceedings of the Royal Society Interface08psilocybin-networks-660
[__How Magic Mushrooms Rearrange Your Brain__](https://www.wired.com/2014/10/magic-mushroom-brain) Our most popular Science Graphic of the Week illustrated a new way of looking at brain activity that may give insight into how psychedelic drugs alter consciousness. Researchers analyzed fMRI scans of 15 people after being injected with psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, and mapped the results.
Jason Bourque, Florida Museum of Natural History09giant-snake-illustra
[__The 2,500-Pound Snake That Devoured Gigantic Crocodiles__](https://www.wired.com/2014/05/absurd-creature-of-the-week-the-2500-pound-snake-that-devoured-gigantic-crocodiles) Sixty million years ago, in the swampy waters of what is now Colombia, there lurked a giant serpent, by far the biggest snake that ever lived. At nearly 50 feet long and 2,500 pounds, titanoboa was so big, it pushed the boundaries of being able to exist on land and remain in accordance with the laws of physics.
ESA/ROSETTA/PHILAE/CIVA1015756945086-ac248055ee-h-1
[__Tomorrow, a Spacecraft Will Try to Land on a Comet for the First Time Ever__](https://www.wired.com/2014/11/rosetta-philae-attempt-comet-landing) Anticipation of one of the most spectacular scientific accomplishments of the year made this post popular.
WIRED11ut-interstellarOpener-f
[__How Building a Black Hole for Interstellar Led to an Amazing Scientific Discovery__](https://www.wired.com/2014/10/astrophysics-interstellar-black-hole) Kip Thorne looks into the black hole he helped create and thinks, “Why, of course. That's what it would do.” This particular black hole is a simulation of unprecedented accuracy. It appears to spin at nearly the speed of light, dragging bits of the universe along with it. (That's gravity for you; relativity is superweird.)
Maurico Alejo12ff-lovehacker2-large
[__How a Math Genius Hacked OkCupid to Find True Love__](https://www.wired.com/2014/01/how-to-hack-okcupid/) Mathematician Chris McKinlay was one of about 40 million Americans looking for romance through websites like Match.com, J-Date, and e-Harmony, and he’d been searching in vain since his last breakup nine months earlier. He’d been approaching online matchmaking like any other user. Instead, he realized, he should be dating like a mathematician.
Mathew Scott13ff-holmes-large
[__This Woman Invented a Way to Run 30 Lab Tests on Only One Drop of Blood__](https://www.wired.com/2014/02/elizabeth-holmes-theranos) Phlebotomy. Even the word sounds archaic—and that’s nothing compared to the slow, expensive, and inefficient reality of drawing blood and having it tested. Elizabeth Holmes envisioned a way to reinvent old-fashioned phlebotomy and usher in an era of comprehensive superfast diagnosis and preventive medicine.
Olena Shmahalo / Quanta Magazine; original courtesy of Terence Tao14ErdosTao-Main-660
[__Mathematicians Make a Major Discovery About Prime Numbers__](https://www.wired.com/2014/12/mathematicians-make-major-discovery-prime-numbers) This story from Quanta Magazine about the first major advance in 76 years in understanding how far apart prime numbers can be, proves once again that our readers love math.
John Bush15bouncing-droplet (1)
[__Have We Been Interpreting Quantum Mechanics Wrong This Whole Time?__](https://www.wired.com/2014/06/the-new-quantum-reality) The idea that nature is inherently probabilistic—that particles have no hard properties, only likelihoods, until they are observed—is directly implied by the standard equations of quantum mechanics. But now a set of surprising experiments with fluids is fueling interest in an almost forgotten version of quantum mechanics.
NASA163d-lifeinspace3-f
[__An Astronaut Reveals What Life in Space Is Really Like__](https://www.wired.com/2014/11/marsha-ivins) "There’s no way to anticipate the emotional impact of leaving your home planet," says Astronaut Marsha Ivins. "You look down at Earth and realize: You’re not on it. It’s breathtaking. It’s surreal... But I’ve spent a total of 55 days in space, over the course of five missions, and I’ve learned that being out there isn’t just a series of breathtaking moments."
Stuart Dee/Getty17traffic-jam-getty-660x440
[__Building Bigger Roads Actually Makes Traffic Worse__](https://www.wired.com/2014/06/wuwt-traffic-induced-demand) This edition of What's Up With That explains how adding more lanes to a congested route can make traffic there worse rather than better.
John Spink / AP / Atlanta Journal Constitution18Gil Mobley
[__Ebola Explained: What You Should and Shouldn’t Worry About__](https://www.wired.com/2014/10/ebola-virus-infection-transmission-death-explained) We've had a few cases of Ebola here in the US, but it's still very unlikely to cause a major outbreak here. But people are still worried, so to help with those lingering fears, we’ve taken a closer look at what the virus does in the human body, from transmission to infection to illness and death.
Kamil Porembinski/Flickr19paper-book660
[__Why the Smart Reading Device of the Future May Be … Paper__](https://www.wired.com/2014/05/reading-on-screen-versus-paper) Why do traditional paper books remain so popular, especially for deep, immersive reading? Are some people simply too stubborn and nostalgic to adapt to new technologies? Perhaps it's because paper books are themselves a highly sophisticated technology, one that's uniquely good at stimulating focus and concentration.
NASA20lunar-eclipse-ft
[__Total Lunar Eclipse Turns the Moon Blood Red__](https://www.wired.com/2014/04/live-lunar-eclipse-nasa-slooh) In April, the Earth, moon, and sun aligned just right to put on a celestial show known as a total lunar eclipse. Though many of you, depend on where you were, could have just looked up to catch the event, more than 300,000 of you chose to watch live feeds of the eclipse with us.
