The race to crack battery recycling—before it’s too late

PLUS: The greening Arctic, how to make virtual parties fun, and the perils of #cottagecore. View this email in your browser  |  Manage newsletter subscriptions 11.30.20   CLIMATE CHANGE Beautiful Yet Unnerving Photos of the Arctic Getting Greener BY MATT SIMON Using tricked-out drones, scientists are watching vegetation boom in the far north. Their findings could have big implications for the whole planet.   GET WIRED PODCAST Was This Poker Player's Luck Too Good to Be True? BY MARK ROBINSON On this week's Get WIRED podcast, features editor Mark Robinson talks to writer Brendan Koerner about an unconventional poker player and the woman who called him out.   IDEAS A Mission to Make Virtual Parties Actually Fun BY GRETCHEN MCCULLOCH Let's be honest, Zoom birthdays and happy hours are bad. But an emerging type of platform known as "proximity chat" could offer a better option.   BLACK MASS The Race To Crack Battery Recycling—Before It's Too Late BY DANIEL OBERHAUS Millions of EVs will soon hit the road, but the world isn't ready for their old batteries. A crop of startups wants to crack this billion-dollar problem. GET WIRED The Cyber Week Sale is here. Now with free stickers! Get one year of WIRED for just $10 $5. Tech news and analysis you won't find anywhere else. Subscribe now.   DIGITAL CULTURE My Life Is Little House on the Prairie. I Blame TikTok BY EMMA GREY ELLIS Homesteading used to be a dream for another time. Then cottagecore happened.   RULES OF THE ROAD Ride-Hail Companies Are Making Life Harder for Scooters BY AARIAN MARSHALL Officials in many cities feel they couldn't rein in Uber and Lyft. Now they're being stricter with other innovative forms of transportation.   CLONE WARS All the Social Media Giants Are Becoming the Same BY ARIELLE PARDES Which major platform has a news feed, disappearing posts, private messaging, and a live broadcasting feature? That would be … all of them.   FICTION The Future of Work: 'The Long Tail' by Aliette de Bodard BY ALIETTE DE BODARD "Everyone onboard the scavenging habitat knew there was no correlation between the unreality and what lay underneath."   REWRITING HISTORY The Quest to Unearth One of America's Oldest Black Churches BY ANGELA WATERCUTTER First Baptist Church was founded in secret in 1776. It's been hidden under a parking lot in Colonial Williamsburg for decades—a metaphor for the failures of archaeology and American history.     This e-mail was sent to you by WIRED. To ensure delivery to your inbox (not bulk or junk folders), please add our e-mail address, wired@newsletters.wired.com, to your address book.   View our Privacy Policy Unsubscribe or Manage your newsletter subscriptions