Covid's Delta variant has warped our risk perception

PLUS: The SMART Health Card Is Not a Vaccine Passport—Kinda, and more

View this email in your browser  |  Manage newsletter subscriptions 08.08.21   PLAINTEXT | 8-MINUTE READ The SMART Health Card Is Not a Vaccine Passport—Kinda BY STEVEN LEVY Plus: The man behind the cryptographic technique, the danger in calculating risks, and fries worth a small fortune.   MYCOPROTEIN | 5-MINUTE READ Watch Out, Beyond Burgers—the Fungi Renaissance Is Here BY MATT REYNOLDS, WIRED UK While the popular plant-based meats grab all the headlines, a much more humble foodstuff is poised to lead the next wave of alternative proteins.   RABBIT HOLES | 4-MINUTE READ If YouTube Algorithms Radicalize Users, Data Doesn't Show It BY JOHN TIMMER, ARS TECHNICA New research tracking people's behavior on the platform found that most don't go down those ever-deepening rabbit holes.   IDEAS | 5-MINUTE READ The Delta Variant Has Warped Our Risk Perception BY GREGORY BARBER Gone are the easy, thoughtless choices of hot vax summer. Making decisions that balance safety and sanity just got a lot more complicated. GET WIRED Summer Sale! Ending Soon: Get WIRED for $10 $5. You can't see into the future, but you can subscribe to WIRED. Subscribe now.   ODDBALL | 4-MINUTE READ A Failed Star Called 'The Accident' Puzzles Astronomers BY JONATHAN O'CALLAGHAN The brown dwarf isn't a star and it's not a planet. But it's illuminating the murky borderlands that separate the two.   BEST BUDS | 5-MINUTE READ How to turn Online Friends Into IRL Ones BY LISA KANAREK If you're struggling to make new friends, you're not alone. But tech and little tenacity can help you can find—or build—community. Here's how.   DEALS | 3-MINUTE READ The 13 Best Weekend Deals on TVs, Laptops, and Vibrators BY GEAR TEAM We've scoured the internet for the best deals to keep you entertained during quarantine part two. From the Archive The Teens Who Hacked Microsoft's Videogame Empire—And Went Too Far BY BRENDAN I. KOERNER Among those involved in David Pokora's so-called Xbox Underground, one would become an informant, one would become a fugitive, and one would end up dead. How to Trick Your Brain into Remembering Almost Anything BY MATT REYNOLDS, WIRED UK Four-time USA Memory Champion Nelson Dellis and psychological scientist Julia Shaw explain how to boost your memory skills.     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   Copyright © Condé Nast 2021. One World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007. All rights reserved.