How to escape from an erupting volcano

PLUS: How GitHub became a Covid-19 archive in China, and this year's WIRED25 lineup. View this email in your browser  |  Manage newsletter subscriptions  09.13.20 We hope you enjoy this special edition of our Longreads newsletter. Sign up to get our best longform features in your inbox every week. SIGN UP Imagine you traveled back in time to the Roman town of Pompeii. And imagine you just so happened to get there on the day of the famous volcanic eruption. Your situation might seem hopeless! But it's not. With the help of a little hindsight and a lot of science, Cody Cassidy explains how you can get yourself to safety. Cassidy, author of And Then You're Dead and Who Ate the First Oyster, is a master of explaining how things work in a simple, funny, yet scientifically thorough fashion. "I like learning bone-dry engineering principles like 'dynamic similarity' when they answer whether I could outrun a Tyrannosaurus rex," he says. (Yes, he has also written a very thorough treatise on how you might escape from various dinosaurs.) "And the science of a magma's viscosity can be used to determine the proper escape routes from an erupting volcano. The science writing I like doesn't dumb science down, it makes it understandable and entertaining." Sarah Fallon | Deputy Editor, WIRED   BACKCHANNEL How to Escape From a Volcano Eruption BY CODY CASSIDY If you had been in Pompeii in 79 AD, you might have tried to hunker down or escape by sea. This would be a mistake. But there is a way to safety.   BACKCHANNEL In China, GitHub Is a Free Speech Zone for Covid Information BY YI-LING LIU As coronavirus news was increasingly trapped behind the Great Firewall, the programming platform became a refuge from censorship. It may not last long.   WIRED25 Meet This Year's WIRED25: People Who Are Making Things Better BY GRAHAM HACIA The scientists, technologists, artists, and chefs who are standing between us and species collapse.   IDEAS 44 Square Feet: A School-Reopening Detective Story BY DAVID ZWEIG Schools—but not public health officials—across the US are making it a rule: Every student needs to have 44 sq. ft. of space. I tried to find out why.   OPINION Ad Mergers Won't Save Journalism. Strict Merger Rules Would BY DANIEL HANLEY The abandoned Taboola-Outbrain chumbox merger illustrates the need for bright-line rules to give media companies a fighting chance.   OPINION Stop Yelling About a Rushed Vaccine, and Start Planning for It BY WALID GELLAD Public health experts should spend less time criticizing emergency authorization and more time discussing how to ensure the process works.     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