Make sure your party is a hit from the moment your guests walk through the door with this expert-led holiday home scenting advice. All products featured on WIRED are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links. You've got the snacks and drinks, the music and the mood lighting, but how do you create a truly festive atmosphere? When a guest walks in the front door, they assess the general vibe with multiple senses simultaneously.

The host of "Top Chef" and "Taste the Nation" has sampled--and judged--dishes from around the country and the world. How did she develop her discerning palate? Padma Lakshmi is unquestionably a woman of taste. As a host of the beloved food-competition series "Top Chef" and the star of the culinary docuseries "Taste the Nation," she's spent nearly two decades artfully conveying--and critiquing--flavors and aromas for an audience. Before that, she was a fashion writer and model, cultivating her own sense of what's worth wearing and seeing. And she isn't done evolving: she's recently begun performing standup comedy, an art form with a notoriously steep learning curve.

Look at the big picture instead. Why focusing on the energy system and large companies is more important than policing individual behavior. Picture it: I'm minding my business at a party, parked by the snack table (of course). A friend of a friend wanders up, and we strike up a conversation. It quickly turns to work, and upon learning that I'm a climate technology reporter, my new acquaintance says something like: "Should I be using AI? I've heard it's awful for the environment." We did the math on AI's energy footprint.

We drank adaptogen drinks for weeks, and taste-tested with a trained sommelier. All products featured on WIRED are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links. The best adaptogen drinks promise not just to wake you up in the morning, but offer focus and clarity and maybe even a warm wash of well-being. A different drink might tuck you gently in at night, or sub in for alcohol as a mindful party drink. I've spent months trying some of the most popular functional drinks on the market, bedding down with kava or tryptophan-laced xicha morada, and waking up with caffeine and L-theanine. Many of the new school of nootropic and functional drinks are like kissing cousins of mushroom coffee, except in refreshing soda form. Functional sodas might be chockablock with mushroom adaptogens such as reishi and cordyceps, alongside traditional home anxiety remedies such as ashwagandha or L-theanine. I both logged the effects of each soda, and held a large taste test with Portland, Oregon, sommelier Sami Gaston, owner of an excellent wine bar and shop called Bar Diane and Negociant, respectively--to determine how happy you'd be to drink them even if they didn't help you focus better on endless spreadsheets or the hunt for a job. Also check out WIRED's guide to mushroom gummies, or take your wellness in powdered form with the best greens powders and the best protein powders .

Neighbors complained about noise, security guards, and hordes of traffic. An unlicensed school named after the Zuckerbergs' pet chicken tipped them over the edge. The Crescent Park neighborhood of Palo Alto, California, has some of the best real estate in the country, with a charming hodgepodge of homes ranging in style from Tudor revival to modern farmhouse and contemporary Mediterranean. It also has a gigantic compound that is home to Mark Zuckerberg, his wife Priscilla Chan, and their daughters Maxima, August, and Aurelia. Their land has expanded to include 11 previously separate properties, five of which are connected by at least one property line. The Zuckerberg compound's expansion first became a concern for Crescent Park neighbours as early as 2016, due to fears that his purchases were driving up the market. Then, about five years later, neighbors noticed that a school appeared to be operating out of the Zuckerberg compound. This would be illegal under the area's residential zoning code without a permit.

The AI Song Contest was founded with the aim of showcasing the potential of human-AI co-creativity in the songwriting process. Now in its sixth year, the competition will conclude on 16 November with a live show in Amsterdam. From all the entrants, the jury have selected their top ten songs. The live event will feature performances from the ten finalists, and you will be able to watch on YouTube here . Listen to the songs and vote for your favourite.

Is Trump losing patience with Putin? Will sanctions against Russian oil giants hurt Putin? Russian forces have spread rapidly through Pokrovsk, the city in Ukraine's east where the warring sides have concentrated their manpower and tactical ingenuity during the past week, in what may be a final culmination of a 21-month battle. Geolocated footage placed Russian troops in central, northern and northeastern Pokrovsk, said the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a Washington-based think tank. It set its sights on the city almost two years ago, after capturing Avdiivka, 39km (24 miles) to the east.

Collins dictionary lexicographers chose'vibe coding' after spotting a sharp rise in its usage. Collins dictionary lexicographers chose'vibe coding' after spotting a sharp rise in its usage. 'Vibe coding' beats'clanker' to be Collins dictionary's word of the year AI-inspired word joins'biohacking', 'Henry' and'broligarchy' on tech-heavy 2025 list "Vibe coding", an emerging software development that turns natural language into computer code using artificial intelligence, has been named Collins dictionary's word of the year for 2025. Lexicographers at Collins monitor the 24bn-word Collins Corpus, which draws from a range of media sources, including social media, to create the annual list of new and notable words that reflect our ever-evolving language . They chose vibe coding as word of the year after observing a huge increase in usage since its first appearance in February.

'Vibe coding' named word of the year by Collins Dictionary If you've ever wanted to create your own computer program but never learnt how to code, you might try vibe coding. Collins Dictionary's word of the year - which is confusingly made up of two words - is the art of making an app or website by describing it to artificial intelligence (AI) rather than by writing programming code manually. The term was coined in February by OpenAI co-founder Andrej Karpathy, who came up with the name to represent how AI can let some programmers forget that the code even exists and give in to the vibes while making a computer program. It was one of 10 words on a shortlist to reflect the mood, language and preoccupations of 2025. By giving an AI tool a simple description such as make me a program that schedules my weekly meals, people can use vibe coding to make basic apps without any previous programming knowledge.

Tokyo police plan to introduce a system that uses generative artificial intelligence to automatically transcribe consultation audio and generate summaries so they can more swiftly respond to stalking cases that may escalate into serious crimes. The Metropolitan Police Department plans to create a system to document consultations using generative artificial intelligence to swiftly respond to stalking cases that may escalate into serious crimes, sources said Wednesday. The MPD also plans to deploy autonomous drones to quickly assess the extent of damage in the event of a disaster. The police department included related expenses in its budget request for the next fiscal year. As the police deal with a large number of consultations on a daily basis, it takes time to sort through them and create corresponding documents.