The nature-vs.-nurture debate rages on, probably always will, but this round (this decade?) goes to team nurture: The main cause of Parkinson’s might be environmental. I don’t mean to sound flip. This is astonishing. Parkinson’s is the second most common neurological disease in the US. And often a death sentence. For a long time we thought it was genetic. It seems we thought very, very wrong.
God—how many years, and lives, are wasted on bad, trendy, politically convenient science? It’s not supposed to be political, but of course it is; everything is. We study what we want to know, and what we want to know is determined by—our environment! Was the Human Genome Project “good science,” or was it just a product of the times? Can it be both? Back then the secrets were thought to be in here. Now they’re thought to be out there. Who’s right?
Sorry, am I making sense? David Ferry makes a lot more sense in his riveting piece. It’s about Parksinson’s (and something called an “exposome”). It’s also about who determines our fate. Obviously, our natures run our lives. Until you realize that, just maybe, they don’t.
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Story originally published in June 2023 |
Like many young adults just beginning to comprehend their place in time, I spent my late twenties slowly gathering genealogical information about my family, including, especially, my paternal grandfather. At 92, one of his favorite pastimes is laughing about what his uncles and great uncles got up to in the south side of Chicago, and he’s always grateful for any relics I can dig up. There is some information about his past, however, that I may never be able to uncover. That’s because his Air Force personnel record is likely one of 17,517,490 military files that burned to ash in a blaze at the National Personnel Records Center in Saint Louis in 1973.
Fifty years later, writer Megan Greenwell revisited the seemingly normal workday before flames raced down the aisles of the NPRC in an attempt to figure out what went wrong. She also sought out her own grandfather’s files and experienced firsthand the historical and psychological effects of one of the most devastating archival disasters in US history. Greenwell’s investigation is one of my favorites for the way she turns a relatively unknown, decades-past event into something that touches every one of us. This week, I’d love to hear archival success stories about your own family members and ancestors. Send them to samantha_spengler@wired.com or comment below the article.
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With support from Microsoft, Stripe, and Shopify, Running Tide billed itself as on the cutting edge of carbon removal. In the end, it resorted to dumping thousands of tons of wood chips in the sea. |
As the US government rapidly merges data from across agencies in service of draconian immigration policies, citizens increasingly risk being caught up as well. |
Retatrutide, originally developed by Eli Lilly, has found a loyal fan base—even though clinical trials of the drug still haven’t finished. |
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I really like Reddit. It’s is a place where you can be reminded that a lot of us are more similar than we think. Unless, of course, you’re a bot. Last week, Kat Tenbarge wrote about how the beloved platform is being overrun by AI slop. In the comments, WIRED readers called out rampant transphobia on the site and grumbled about ChatGPT’s appropriation of the em dash. One reader pointed out that even before AI took over the platform, Reddit may not have been what we thought it was: “Reddit (and everywhere else) is at the heart of it a content distribution machine, not a conversation. People who post aren't looking to make friends, they're looking to make money more often than not,” they said.
Tell us about your favorite WIRED stories and magazine-related memories. Write to samantha_spengler@wired.com, and include “CLASSICS” in the subject line. |
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