Hundreds of emails and internal documents reviewed by WIRED reveal top lobbyists and representatives of America’s agricultural industry led a persistent and often covert campaign to surveil, discredit, and suppress animal rights organizations for nearly a decade, while relying on corporate spies to infiltrate meetings and functionally serve as an informant for the FBI.

The documents, mostly obtained through public records requests by the nonprofit Property of the People, detail a secretive and long-running collaboration between the FBI’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate (WMDD)—whose scope today includes Palestinian rights activists and the recent wave of arson targeting Teslas—and the Animal Agriculture Alliance (AAA), a nonprofit trade group representing the interests of US farmers, ranchers, veterinarians, and others across America’s food supply chain.

Since at least 2018, documents show, the AAA has been supplying federal agents with intelligence on the activities of animal rights groups such as Direct Action Everywhere (DxE), with records of emails and meetings reflecting the industry’s broader mission to convince authorities that activists are the preeminent “bioterrorism” threat to the United States. Spies working for the AAA during its collaboration with the FBI went undercover at activism meetings, obtaining photographs, audio recordings, and other strategic material. The group’s ties with law enforcement were leveraged to help shield industry actors from public scrutiny, to press for investigations into its most powerful critics, and to reframe the purpose and efforts of animal rights protesters as a singular national security threat.

The records further show that state authorities have cited protests as a reason to conceal information about disease outbreaks at factory farms from the public.

Zoe Rosenberg, a UC Berkeley student and animal cruelty investigator at DxE, says she’s hardly surprised that powerful private-sector groups are working to surveil the organization, but she finds their work with the police paradoxical. “If anyone should have the ear of law enforcement, it’s animal cruelty investigators exposing rampant violations of the law leading to real animals suffering and dying horrific deaths,” she tells WIRED.

Profiled by WIRED in 2019, DxE is a grassroots animal rights organization dedicated to nonviolent direct actions, including covert operations that often involve rescuing animals and documenting practices at factory farms that the group considers inhumane.

Rosenberg, 22, is facing charges in California for removing four chickens from a slaughterhouse in Sonoma County in 2023. In addition to minor charges such as trespassing, she was also hit with a felony count of conspiracy to commit those misdemeanors—a discretionary charge that Sonoma County’s prosecutor justified by portraying Rosenberg as a “biosecurity risk” in light of avian flu.

According to Rosenberg, DxE relies on biosecurity protocols that go “above and beyond” industry standards, including quarantining its investigators from birds for a full week before and after entering farms. “All of our investigators before entering a facility shower with hot water and soap and put on freshly washed clothes that have been washed thoroughly and dried on high heat to kill viruses and bacteria,” she says. “Everything is sanitized and then sanitized again upon leaving the facility.”

Rosenberg does not deny removing the chickens, which she named Poppy, Aster, Ivy, and Azalea. “Generally, if we feel an animal is going to die from neglect or maltreatment if we don’t remove them from the facility, then we feel that it is justified and necessary to step in to save their life,” she says. Her attorney, Chris Carraway, says that DxE tried reporting allegations of health violations at the facility to “the point of futility.” Rosenberg says reporting alleged violations often leads to getting bounced between offices; a “never-ending loop of no one agency wanting to take responsibility and enforce animal welfare laws.”

AI Found a ‘Magic Potion’ That Can Bring Dead Batteries Back to Life

By You Xiaoying edited by Andrea Thompson

A team of researchers in China has found a way to bring dead lithium-ion batteries back to life, potentially reducing both the amount of waste that’s quickly piling up from spent electric vehicle (EV) batteries and the need to produce as many new ones.

“The team’s work is revolutionary because it provides a new idea to reuse end-of-life batteries,” says Jiangong Zhu of Tongji University in Shanghai, who researches battery use in EVs and was not involved in the new study, which was published recently in Nature.

The amount of spent lithium-ion batteries that need disposal is expected to soar from an estimate of 900,000 metric tons this year to 20.5 million metric tons by 2040, according to a report released by the United Nations Development Program last September. As the world’s leader in deploying EVs, China is already handling 2.8 million metric tons of retired cells ever year, according to Huang Jianzhong, chairman of China Electronic Energy Saving Technology Association, a government-approved trade body.

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With consumer markets and waste piles both growing rapidly, Yue Gao, a chemist at Fudan University in Shanghai, and his colleagues anticipated a rising demand for longer-life lithium-ion batteries.

An EV battery usually reaches the end of its lifetime, or when its capacity drops below 80 percent of its original level, after about eight to 10 years. The battery accounts for around 40 percent of the cost of the entire vehicle.

Gao and his colleagues wanted to find a molecule that could replenish a dead cell by infusing it with lithium ions. But “we had no idea what kinds of molecules could do that job or what their chemical structures would be, so we used machine learning to help us,” says Chihao Zhao, a Ph.D. student at Fudan University, who is a member of Gao’s team but was not a co-author of the new study.

The researchers used an artificial intelligence model trained on the rules of chemistry. They fed it a database of electrochemical reactions and had it look for molecules that would meet their requirements, such as dissolving well in an electrolyte solution and being relatively cheap to produce. The model recommended three candidates, and the team identified one of them, a salt called lithium trifluoromethanesulfinate (LiSO₂CF₃), as ideal.

The researchers tested this lithium-ion salt by dissolving it in an electrolyte solution, which allows ions to pass between a cell’s positive and negative terminals. Gao likens this to giving a human patient an IV. “If we can give an injection to a sick person to help them recover,” he says, “why can’t we have a magic potion for drained batteries, too?”

Gao and his colleagues found that the chemical mixture could significantly prolong the lifespan of a lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery cell. An LFP battery that powers an EV can typically be charged and then discharged about 2,000 times before it is considered “dead” (when its capacity is below the 80 percent mark). By adding the electrolyte whenever the battery neared that threshold, the team was able to restore most of the cell’s capacity each time—and it carried on working almost as well as a new battery. By the end of the experiment, the cell regained 96 percent capacity after nearly 12,000 charge-discharge cycles.

A follow-up experiment showed the method also worked on NMC (nickel, manganese and cobalt) lithium-ion batteries, Gao says.

Fudan University is currently working with China-based battery-material maker Zhejiang Yongtai New Material to commercialize the method, according to a social media post published by Yongtai. Gao envisions a widespread system of “battery-boosting stations” where EV owners will be able to bring dead power sources to be rejuvenated.

The idea is “promising,” says Chenguang Liu of Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University in China, who researches battery materials and was not involved in the study. But he cites a few challenges. For example, the method will need to be made compatible with various battery chemistries—and the safety of the revived cells must be tested.

And EV power comes not from a single, simple cell but from a battery pack that can comprise hundreds or even thousands of cells, along with heat-control systems and other components. “We have only conducted experiments on cells, and we need to find a way to apply it onto a whole battery pack,” Gao says.

His team’s method is the closest thing yet to a “direct-recycling process” for EV batteries in China today, says Hans Eric Melin, an analyst of battery reuse and recycling and managing director of Circular Energy Storage, a London-based consultancy. (In China, some degraded EV batteries are currently used to power other products that require lower energy outputs, such as electric mopeds and energy storage stations. Others are crushed and shredded into industrial waste called “black mass,” from which valuable raw materials, such as lithium and graphite, can be harvested.)

Melin believes there could be commercial opportunities for the researchers’ proposal—though he says the market is likely to be small because the lifespan of an EV battery can be as long as 15 years. It will also require battery packs that are designed in a way to allow for injections of the electrolyte, he notes.

“The question,” he adds, “is whether the benefits are worth it if [the required changes] in some way interfere with other design aspects necessary for the battery’s performance.”

New research suggests that heightened solar activity shortens the lifespans of SpaceX’s Starlink satellites, and may send them careening back to Earth at greater velocities. Perhaps unintuitively, this could increase the risk of satellite debris making landfall. 

This preprint study, which has yet to undergo peer review, adds to a wealth of evidence showing that solar storms wreak havoc on Elon Musk’s Starlinks. Over the last several years, the frequency and intensity of these storms have increased as the Sun approaches solar maximum—the peak in its 11-year cycle. At the same time, the number of satellites orbiting Earth has skyrocketed, largely due to the rise of private megaconstellations like Starlink. 

A team of researchers led by Denny Oliveira from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center tracked reentries of Starlink satellites between 2020 and 2024. This period coincided with the rising phase of the current solar cycle, when solar activity ramps up ahead of the solar maximum, which occurred in October 2024.

Over the course of those five years, 523 Starlink satellites reentered Earth’s atmosphere. Oliveira and his colleagues analyzed the orbits of these satellites using a statistical technique that identifies patterns in how their rates of orbital decay and reentry change during periods of high solar activity.

The researchers found that geomagnetic activity—disturbances in the upper atmosphere triggered by solar eruptions—causes Starlinks to reenter Earth’s atmosphere sooner than expected. These satellites are designed to remain in orbit for roughly five years. But during bouts of severe geomagnetic storms, their lifespans may be reduced by 10 to 12 days, Oliveira told Gizmodo. 

He and his colleagues believe this happens because geomagnetic activity heats the atmosphere and causes it to expand. This increases drag on satellites, shortening their lifespans and causing them to lose altitude more quickly as they interact with the upper atmosphere. What’s more, atmospheric drag may increase the chances of satellite-on-satellite collisions, as the orbital models that guide collision avoidance measures don’t fully account for the effects of geomagnetic activity. The team’s findings are currently available on the preprint server arXiv.  

A difference of 10 to 12 days may not sound like a big deal, but it could make it nearly impossible for SpaceX to ensure that Starlink satellites return to Earth via controlled reentry, Oliveira explained. What’s more, his analysis shows that increased drag causes satellites to reenter at higher velocities, which he believes could raise the chances of debris reaching the ground.

This may seem counterintuitive, since increasing the velocity of an object during reentry generally increases the likelihood of total disintegration. But Oliveira posits that Starlinks falling at greater speeds may have a better chance of surviving reentry due to reduced atmospheric interaction. Further research will need to confirm this hypothesis, as the study did not directly assess debris risks.

Starlinks are designed to fully burn up during reentry, but that doesn’t always happen. In 2024, a 5.5-pound (2.5-kilogram) chunk of Starlink debris made landfall on a farm in Saskatchewan, New Scientist reported. In February of this year, SpaceX said it is possible for Starlink debris fragments to fall back to Earth, but claimed that this poses “no risk to humans on the ground, at sea, or in the air.”

There are now more than 7,500 Starlinks in orbit, according to Harvard University astronomer Jonathan McDowell, who tracks the constellation. Eventually, SpaceX hopes to quintuple the size of this fleet, with a goal of launching 42,000 Starlinks in total, according to Space.com. This is in addition to the thousands of other satellites currently orbiting Earth. 

“[This is] the first time ever in history that we have so many satellites in orbit at the same time,” Oliveira said. “So, now, we have satellites reentering pretty much every week. And possibly, in the next months or years, every day.” Understanding how changes in solar activity impact their lifespans and their reentries will be critical as Earth’s orbit becomes increasingly crowded.

A new study has found a startling link between chronic cannabis use and increased risk of cardiovascular disease—regardless of whether you smoke it or consume edibles. The finding challenges commonly held beliefs about the health impacts of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which many see as a relatively harmless drug—especially when ingested.

The study, published Wednesday, May 28 in the journal JAMA Cardiology, found that THC smokers suffer from significantly worse artery function than non-users. They observed the same effect in edible consumers, though their arteries were not as severely affected. In either case, vascular function was reduced by roughly half compared to those who do not use cannabis, according to a statement from the University of California, San Francisco.

“Scientifically, this THC result is really interesting but boy does it screw up the public health messaging,’” co-author Matt Springer, a cardiovascular researcher at UCSF, reportedly said to lead author and UCSF physician-scientist Leila Mohammadi when he saw the data. 

These results add to a growing body of evidence that suggests long-term weed use can lead to cardiovascular damage and life-threatening events such as heart attacks and strokes, though experts still lack consensus on its precise impacts. A 2024 study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association found that people who consume cannabis daily had a 25% increased risk of heart attack and a 42% increased risk of stroke compared to non-users.

For this new study, researchers investigated how cannabis impacts vascular function. To isolate the effects of chronic cannabis use, they recruited 55 otherwise healthy adults aged 18 to 50 who did not use any form of nicotine and were not frequently exposed to secondhand smoke. 

These participants were sorted into three groups: marijuana smokers, edible users, and non-users. Those in the two cannabis user groups reported taking the drug at least three times per week, either exclusively through smoking or edibles.  

To assess the participants’ vascular function, the researchers measured dilation of the brachial artery—located in the upper arm—to determine whether it could properly expand in response to increased blood flow. To that end, they used an inflatable forearm cuff to briefly block blood flow to the artery, then used ultrasound to measure its diameter before and after inflating the cuff. 

Matt Springer, a cardiovascular researcher at UCSF whose lab led the study, told Live Science that his test offers a “window into the future.” When blood vessels cannot fully dilate, he said, the risk of heart attack and other poor cardiovascular outcomes increases.

Participants who did not consume cannabis showed an average vessel dilation—represented as the percent change from the baseline measurement of artery diameter—of 10.4%. This value was significantly reduced among weed smokers and edible users, who showed an average vessel dilation of 6.0% and 4.6%, respectively. For reference, average values for brachial artery dilation in healthy individuals typically range from 8.0% to 15%. In a previous study, Springer’s lab found similarly reduced levels of vessel dilation among e-cigarette and cigarette smokers. 

To better understand how THC causes this change, the researchers ran lab tests to determine how endothelial cells—which form the linings of blood vessels and release nitric oxide to trigger dilation—responded to the participants’ blood samples. These tests revealed that the blood of chronic cannabis smokers inhibited nitric oxide production in the cells, which may explain why these participants showed reduced vessel dilation. 

This effect was not observed in edible consumers, however, suggesting that ingestible THC may impact arterial function via an entirely separate mechanism. Figuring out what that mechanism may be will require further research. What’s more, subsequent studies will need to reproduce these findings in a larger population to validate the results. 

Within the last several years, cannabis use among U.S. adults has reached new heights, according to the NIH’s National Institute on Drug Abuse. As such, investigating the health effects of THC is more important than ever before—especially as mounting evidence challenges perceptions of weed as a harmless high.