Angry Nerd used to love binge-watching scary movies on Halloween. But when directors started swapping classic fake blood for CG gore, the authenticity of it all went out the window. What happened to the squibs of Karo syrup and red food coloring that could splatter, squirt, and spray with frightening realism?

How do we end poverty? Design for the developing world? Eradicate polio? Those are the kind of questions that Bill Gates, guest editor of WIRED's December issue, wants to answer. We're looking at how technology and science can invent a better world—with an interview with Bill Gates and President Bill Clinton, a guiltless gift guide, prototypes of planet-saving gadgets, and a few glow-in-the-dark mosquitos. Online and on Tablets: 11.12.13 On Newsstands: 11.19.13

Early technology to enable the channel-surfer.

It’s an outdoor version of the claw game, but with fast, low flying helicopters as the claw and Christmas trees as the prize. At the Hunter Family Farm in Olympia, Wash., helicopter pilots fly across nearly 400 acres, picking up bundles of trees and transporting them, so they can be processed and loaded for your holiday pleasure.

Seeing carnage through a character’s eyes used to mean something. Nowadays, Hollywood is wasting POV shots in sci-fi films like Vin Diesel’s Riddick. Angry Nerd explains why these fancy-schmancy first-person perspectives are failing, and he issues the Tinseltown execs an ultimatum.

As the largest producer and consumer of milk in the world, India faces a serious problem when it comes to off-grid dairy farmers. In this World Economic Forum discussion, Promethean Power Systems co-founder Sam White describes his approach to ensuring that milk is properly refrigerated and not spoiled by bacteria.

A kick-ass lady protagonist? Check. Greek mythology? Check. Comic book source material? Check. Wonder Woman has all the ingredients for a hit TV series. So…where is it?

They’ve resurrected RoboCop and we can’t figure out why. Actor Joel Kinnaman has a big helmet to fill, and considering all of the outrageous changes that have been made to the reboot, Angry Nerd is doubtful that the new cyborg will live up to the task.

It’s excruciatingly dull and doesn’t even feature the most important awards on the telecast—highlighting best actor over best scientific and technical achievement? The nerve! Angry Nerd offers advice on how to improve this year’s Oscar awards ceremony.

Pertinent question about the Mr. Peabody and Sherman cartoon: Why? It's a half-century-old cartoon with no brand recognition. But more to the point, all these expensive reboots tend to take away the things that made the original kids' shows…weird.

You know it’s for “short shorts,” but what are the chemical compounds that actually make up the no-shave follicle-removing cream? A handful of skin repair agents and hair removal ingredients intended to leave skin soft and silky smooth.

And on the eighth day, we got apps. Fxguide’s Mike Seymour details the how the upcoming blockbuster, Noah, was able to control the mechanics of a giant custom rain machine in a studio that size of two football fields with the use of a single iPad app.

There’s a massive publishing gap in the books that Game of Thrones is based off of, and Angry Nerd is concerned that the show could catch up to the plot before the next book is out. But, one simple solution could solve everything.

In this episode of Teen Technorati, the 40 finalists are split up into teams and tasked with building a bridge made out of LEGO. Only one team emerges as the winner, but during the challenge the finalists’ leadership and problem-solving skills begin to surface. Plus, fellowship hopefuls Ishaan Gulrajani, Lucy Guo, Darby Schumacher, and Catherine Ray explain the concepts behind their individual Thiel projects.

Creating a memorial from the ruins of 2,983 lives: that's the difficult task faced by the creators of the 9/11 Museum. On the eve of its opening, we speak with director Alice Greenwald and designer Jake Barton about how to commemorate a tragic experience without recreating it. Music: "Sun Will Set" written performed by Zoe Keating From the album - One Cello x 16: Natoma (c) 2005 020202 Music (ASCAP). All rights reserved

Seventeen-year-old Catherine Ray just received a $100,000 Thiel Fellowship. Armed with a B.S. in computational physics, the mathematics whiz is planning to fix everything that’s wrong with wheelchairs. Get to know the teen technorati.

At BizCon 2014, Tumblr CEO and co-founder David Karp sat down with WIRED senior writer Steven Levy to talk about why he doesn’t regret the Yahoo! sale, how his platform empowers creators, and the importance of enabling users.

A fully functional portable computer that weighs in at only 29 lbs.? Now we’re talking. With features like word processing and a calculator, the 1984 LCD-286 PC computer was like carrying a filing cabinet with you on the go.

Award-winning author James Bamford spent three days interviewing Edward Snowden in Moscow. He emerged with an indelible portrait of the elusive whistleblower, one that sheds new light on exactly what led Snowden to decide to leak tens of thousands of top-secret documents. Also in this month's issue: A new scientific effort to understand nutrition and health plus a riveting profile of Sin City auteur Frank Miller.

The Indie Machines’ Erik Beck and Justin Johnson are here to destroy your electronics—all in the name of science. Watch as they put each gadget through a 3-part destruction test, like taking a sledgehammer to a Nintendo Game Boy and dropping a cinder block on an iPad.

In the upcoming thriller Before I Go to Sleep​, Nicole Kidman stars as a woman who's grappling to remember what happened in her past. The amnesia plot line works, as it does for every film centered around memory loss, because it puts the protagonist on the same level as the viewer. Angry Nerd explains why.

Dinosaur. Treasure Planet. Home on the Range. For years, Disney Animation churned out duds. Then Pixar's masterminds took over and we got blockbusters like Wreck-it-Ralph and Frozen. In the November issue, WIRED senior editor Caitlin Roper talks to Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios' Ed Catmull and John Lasseter about their latest film, Big Hero 6, which proves the magic is here to stay. Also this month: what's inside a flu shot; the NBA's money ball moment; the future of AI.

Watching video on the go just got easier with the portable VHS player Rampage VBP1000. With a built-in dual stereo and a battery life of up to 50 minutes, you can watch (part of a) movie anywhere, anytime.

Few Hollywood directors can match Christopher Nolan’s ambition, skill, and mind-bending story sense. For our December issue, the man behind Memento, Inception, the Dark Knight trilogy, and Interstellar brings his formidable talents to WIRED as our guest editor.

Weta Digital was behind the striking effects in two of this year's big-franchise films: “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes”—which picked up an Oscar nomination for best visual effects—and “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.” Mike Seymour takes an exclusive look at the impressive, large-scale battle sequences that Weta designed for the final installment in The Hobbit trilogy.

The male orgasm is an explosive affair, but the female orgasm? Now, that’s a different story. Find out what’s really going down when a woman gets off.

Wired Senior Editor Peter Rubin and his wife Kelli love TV, movies, and games but don’t always see eye to eye. They both think Amy Schumer’s feminist comedy is bold and important but Peter wants to see her push the envelope even further.

THE BIGGEST APPLE developer event of the year kicked off this morning at Moscone Center in San Francisco. WIRED’s David Pierce attended the WWDC keynote, and he gives us a quick recap on all the news. There are enhancements coming to Apple’s desktop OS, it’s iOS software, and a big update to the three-months-old Apple Watch that includes support for native apps.

Two hackers have developed a tool that can hijack a Jeep over the internet. WIRED senior writer Andy Greenberg takes the SUV for a spin on the highway while the hackers attack it from miles away.

Electric personal transportation devices (aka “rideables”) are everywhere. We’re seeing them under everyone from Justin Bieber to J.R. Smith to Casey Neistat, but are any of them worth a damn? We put four of the most promising rideables to the test and I’ve got the scars to prove it. -Brent

A look at Oculus Story Studio's first virtual reality short film, "Henry" an animated porcupine who loves hugs.

Scientists don't know exactly how the larva of the Reclinervellus nielseni wasp mind-controls spiders into building a special web to protect it but they do know that they eat their hosts and steal their webs.

Ocean Currents Create Garbage Patches.

I have been part robot since May. I've learned a lot about how robotic and human co-workers have to adjust to get along in the office of the future while piloting my $2500 Double telepresence robot. Here are my rules of robot human workplace interaction.

Namib desert beetles live in an area with little ground water, so how is it that they have no trouble finding H2O? Find out how the resourceful insects use their wing scales to absorb water droplets from fog, and how we can use them as a model for combating water shortages.

Dr. Euan Ashley and his team are gathering DNA samples from the most elite endurance athletes on the planet to find the genetic reasons that they are so fit.

It turns out emotions are complex (surprise!), and sometimes words just can’t do justice in expressing them. Cove, a new app, helps translate feelings into music.

Travelling through hyperspace ain’t like dusting crops. Neither is making movies. In preparation for Star Wars: Episode VII, WIRED’s Editor in Chief Scott Dadich sat down with J.J. Abrams to discuss his trajectory from awestruck super fan to the director of The Force Awakens. Also this month: Transforming the Pentagon with Silicon Valley, how India’s decision on energy can affect the entire planet, the amazing products to give and get this holiday season, plus more.

Find out how human bones inspired the Eiffel Tower through the design principle of structural hierarchy.

Massive images of the worlds endangered species were projected onto the Empire State Building to call attention to the upcoming release of Discovery's documentary, Racing Extinction.

Joshua Foer can remember anything, including the first 100 digits of Pi. The former U.S.A. Memory Champion explains how he—and you—can memorize anything using the major system technique, which converts numbers into words and images.

As the NFL begins to address the existential problems that brain trauma pose, see how innovations in protection, impact monitoring, and training techniques are being developed to protect players.

We caught up with fans who lined up for tickets nearly two weeks before the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. From keeping your job to keeping your marriage, the cosplay-dressing superfans break down the rules to waiting in line.

Until truly great natural-recognition gesture tech catches on and we get RFID chips embedded in our forearms, smart rings could be the closest thing to truly seamless wearable technology.

Facebook just expanded the “Like” button with a feature it calls Reactions---six animated emoji the company hopes will let users to respond with more emotional nuance to the posts in their news feeds.

These skydivers are no ordinary adrenalin junkies. In the National Championships of Canopy Piloting competitors fly swoop in inches above the ground at close to 100 miles per hour. It’s an extremely technical sport that punishes any tiny mistakes.

Google wants to give you a way of using an app without actually downloading it. It's called Instant Apps and Google says it'll be available in a few months.

Inside the massive Siemens train factory near Sacramento, Ca, building one of the most advanced, and fastest, trains in the US.

Mike Seymour sits down with "Independence Day: Resurgence" director Roland Emmerich and discusses the astonishing visual effects used in his newest picture, as well as the revolutionary new N-Cam system.

A workout with the social media-powered November Project San Francisco tribe who explain the bounce, dropping verbals, and the dreaded "We Missed You."