Our Favorite Stories Of 2022
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Reason: Literally the entirely matter wrong amongst dogs is that they don’t live long enough. Jess dived into how scientists are working to change that … together with how their go is even so another mode dogs could aid us humans. I fell in dearest with this story even earlier seeing the fine art, just that function shouldn’t be missed.
Allison Arieff
Editorial manager, impress
Reason: This story by the historian Margaret O’Mara is a fascinating merely somber historical look back at how women became marginalized inward the tech industry equally it increasingly morphed more than together with more into an insider-y boys’ lodge. Over the decades, funding in addition to back up haven’t necessarily gone to the best as well as brightest merely to the almost good-connected. O’Mara shows how the job of sex in tech isn’t and so much a STEM job or a pipeline job every bit a money problem. “The tech industry loves to talk almost how it is changing the Earth,” she writes. “Yet retrograde, gendered patterns too habits have long fueled tech’sec extraordinary moneymaking motorcar. Breaking out of them power ultimately be the virtually innovative act of all.
Melissa Heikkilä
Senior reporter, AI
Reason: This serial is a must-read on the AI manufacture’sec murky practices that repeat the patterns of colonial history. Our sometime senior editor for AI Karen Hao spoke to communities around the globe to investigate how AI is creating a colonialist global club, from South Africa’s individual surveillance motorcar to the AI manufacture’sec exploitative undertaking practices inwards Venezuela. It also offers stories of resistance and promise, together with introduces us to the gig workers inwards Indonesia fighting dorsum against algorithms together with an Indigenous twain inwards New Zealand revitalizing their linguistic communication amongst the help of AI
Juliet Beauchamp
Engagement editor
Reason: Abby’s reporting on digital civilisation is ever superlative-notch, simply this particular storey sticks out every bit a favorite of mine. Yes, you will notice out how to get pals with your neighborhood crows. Importantly, though, this story is well-nigh the ability of social media algorithms in addition to how distinctly online trends interpret IRL (spoiler warning: they’re not always successful). And honestly, it made me express joy
Tanya Basu
Senior reporter, humans together with engineering
Story: The struggle for “Instagram face up”
Reason: Online beauty filters power appear similar a fluffy subject on the surface—simply they can accept a huge affect on how we opinion ourselves. Tate’sec piece here is on the conflict between platforms’ attempts to ensure people’s rubber in addition to the gigantic involve for these filters. What has stayed with me nearly her reporting: the filters that build inwards deformation are the ones that ofttimes go viral. When you lot think nigh how those filters tin can touch on how nosotros run into ourselves as well as our world, it’s really listen boggling, and the separation between physical as well as virtual becomes all the more than blurred as AR comes to play. It’s a slice that is forthwith disturbing too enlightening without beingness preachy. Tate’s operate inwards this surface area is singular too of import, and she’sec a swell take through this messy world.
Rachel Courtland
Commissioning editor
Story: Inside the experimental earth of brute infrastructure
Reason: I never actually idea most how much roads take fractured our landscapes in addition to ecosystems until I read freelance reporter Matthew Ponsford’s feature, for the urbanism effect of the magazine. For years, researchers have been trying to see if they tin assist wildlife literally cross the road, past edifice bridges in addition to other forms of infrastructure. Do these strategies function? Turns out that enquiry is harder to answer than y’all might look
Story: How mobile coin supercharged Kenya’sec sports betting addiction
Reason: Maybe it shouldn’t be too surprising that a engineering that has made it vastly easier to act coin around has likewise made it a lot easier to run a risk it all away. But Jonathan Rosen’sec dispatch from Kenya does more than just bespeak out an underreported facial expression of the mobile coin ecosystem. It shows how Kenyans are grappling with the job—together with fighting dorsum.
Rhiannon Williams
Reporter
Story: Technology that lets us mouth to our dead relatives has arrived. Are nosotros make?
Reason: This slice is such a sensitive exploration of grief together with our willingness to test the technological limits of whether nosotros tin endeavor to replicate the centre of a loved ane, knowing it’sec never going to quite live the same. It’sec as well a brave confrontation of the inherent risks that come up alongside loving our friends as well as family unit, together with a rattling human being reminder of why those risks are worth taking.
Eileen Guo
Senior reporter, investigations
Story: What happens when you lot donate your trunk to scientific discipline?
Reason: Sometimes the best stories answer questions y’all didn’t fifty-fifty know you lot had, as well as Abby’sec beautifully written storey on body farms is a perfect example. It treats a theme that nosotros don’t mouth well-nigh plenty—decease together with, more specifically, our dead bodies—amongst a actually difficult-to-rest mix of curiosity, compassion, in addition to swell attending to item. This was such a please to read, together with if you lot missed it the starting time fourth dimension about, I highly recommend it immediately!
Abby Ivory-Ganja
Senior appointment editor
Story: Who’s responsible for climate alter? Three charts explain.
Reason: I learned and then much from Casey Crownhart’second stellar climate reporting this yr, simply I experience this slice nigh who is responsible for climate modify volition stick alongside me long past 2022. She does such an amazing task of contextualizing the big, big problems ahead of us, and inwards this case behind us, without making it experience completely doom-y. (Her newsletter The Spark is ever a keen read, likewise.
Tate Ryan-Mosley
Senior reporter, tech policy
Reason: One of my favorite stories this year was the Worldcoin investigation past Eileen together with Adi. The reporting on this storey was so substantial together with took a hard look at the predatory data extraction practices that so many companies are guilty of. I actually appreciated the truly global range of this storey, too the writers’ examination of how the company’sec altruistic crypto-enthusiasm compared amongst the lamentable reality of its implementation.