On June 25, the Planetary Society's LightSail 2 hitched a ride into orbit on board SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket. The solar sail is propelled only by sunlight, and its technology holds promise for early detection of major events in space, as well as travel across vast distances. To find out more, WIRED's Daniel Oberhaus spoke with Planetary Society CEO, Bill Nye.

Marine biologist Shanee Stopnitzky is on a mission to spend as much time under the ocean's surface as possible. To achieve her goal, she bought two used and broken submarines, and is fixing them up, making them functional again, learning as she goes.

Biohacker Michael Laufer recently had a 512GB drive implanted in his leg, which can store data, stream music or movies, and power a hot spot and mesh network. It's called the PegLeg, and WIRED's Daniel Oberhaus spoke with Laufer about the device and the field of biohacking.

WIRED25 is coming back! Following the enormous success of last year’s celebration, WIRED returns to San Francisco this fall with four more days of inspiring events featuring the ideas, innovations and icons working to build a better future. Join us.

Artist Alexa Meade paints on people to make them look like paintings of people. She's developed a style that flattens 3 dimensional objects into what at first appears to be a 2D image. See more at https://alexameade.com

Bar-headed geese are the SR-71's of the avian world, soaring to 26,000 feet. To learn how their bodies function so well at altitude researchers raised a gaggle of geese, introduced them to a wind tunnel, strapped tiny masks to their beaks and sensor packs on their backs.

Ever wonder why we pronounce words differently than we did 100 years ago? Dialect coach Erik Singer breaks down four of the most mind-blowing facts we know about human language.

PuckerButt Pepper Company founder Ed Currie is on a mission to create the world's hottest peppers. Ed is the evil genius who brought the world the Carolina Reaper, one of the hottest hot peppers in existence; but he's not stopping there.

Dean, Stephen O. (Stephen Odell), 1936-

Matubayasi, Norihiro

Knipe, Phillip John, author

Rahman, Mohammad Mahbubur, author

Scherer, P. O. J. (Philipp O. J.), author

Watson, Bruce, 1953- author

Williams, Jeffrey H. (Jeffrey Huw), 1956- author

Attard, Phil, author

Flores Castillo, Luis Roberto, author

Yates, Lyn, 1949- author

Vargaftik, N. B., author

Feather, Norman, author

Takigawa, Noboru, 1943- author

Singh, Devraj, author

Wolf, Roger, author

Yoshida, Sanichiro, author

Hewitt, Paul G., author

Willmott, Phil (Phil R.), author

Heelan, Patrick A., author

Heelan, Patrick A., author

The Library of Congress has acquired the archive of photographer Shawn Walker and his collection of photos, ephemera and audio recordings representing the influential Kamoinge Workshop based in Harlem, the Library announced today.

Founded in New York City in 1963, the Kamoinge Workshop is a collective of leading African American photographers, such as Anthony Barboza, Louis Draper, Adger Cowans, Albert Fenner, Ray Francis, Toni Parks, Herb Randall, Herb Robinson, Beuford Smith and Ming Smith. Walker is a founding member and also served as an archivist, helping to preserve the group’s history.

The Shawn Walker archive contains nearly 100,000 photographs, negatives and transparencies depicting life in Harlem — a pivotal crossroad of African diaspora culture — between 1963 and the present. The Kamoinge collection — generously donated by Walker — consists of nearly 2,500 items, including prints by Kamoinge members such as Barboza, Draper, Smith and others. The Library of Congress worked with the Photography Collections Preservation Project to acquire both the Walker archive and the Kamoinge collection with an electronic finding aid. These materials will join the Library’s other important collections of photography by African Americans such as Gordon Parks, Robert McNeill, Roland Freeman, Dawoud Bey and Walker’s mentor, Roy DeCarava.

Click here for more information.

Mattone, John

Pringle, Tim, 1959-

Solinger, Dorothy J

Schmeisser, Wilhelm, author

Sengupta, Debashish, author

Schedlitzki, Doris, author

Tallodi, Timea, author

Kvalnes, Øyvind, author

Styhre, Alexander

Barrett, Richard, 1945- author

Schienle, Kathleen

Hayashi, Shawn Kent

Détrie, Philippe, author

Perez, Patti, 1967- author