Top Stories in June 2018: An Alternate Theory About 'The Staircase'

One of the highlights of my month—aside from reading WIRED.com every day, of course—was watching The Staircase on Netflix. The docu-series covers the 2001 death of Kathleen Peterson and the subsequent murder trial of her husband, Michael. Part of the reason the series resonated so deeply with me was because much of the case revolves around blood spatter evidence, and I watched it soon after I read an excellent two-part New York Times/Pro-Publica story by Pamela Colloff about the influence bloodstain pattern analysis had in a murder case in my home state of Texas. The Peterson case also relied heavily on the testimony of an expert in blood spatter analysis, a form of science that has come under scrutiny in recent years.

But while I held that story in my head during my viewing of The Staircase, something else flew in from the side door: a WIRED story by Jennifer Wood offering an alternate explanation of what happened that fateful night Kathleen died. Of course, a number of other science stories WIRED published this month captured my (and your) attention, including one by Adam Rogers about the development of an AIDS vaccination. Those stories, and more of the most-read of WIRED, below.