The ten most-read Vox Future Excellent tales of 2025

[ad_1] As Future Perfect has in previous years, we’re spending this vacation season rounding up our most-read tales of 2025 — a fast approach to see what landed with you whenever you had the entire web to select from.

Wanting over the record, two themes dominated. One is extremely on a regular basis: what we eat and drink, what we do with our minds, and what’s taking place to our our bodies. The opposite is big-picture: the rising energy of the tech business, and the dangers that include being intelligent primates with CRISPR.

If there’s a throughline to the tales beneath, it’s skepticism minimize with curiosity. You’ll click on for fluffy wolves, certain — and did you ever click on — however you’ll keep for the uncomfortable questions on incentives, ethics, and unintended penalties. Listed below are the ten tales you learn probably the most in 2025.

1) These fluffy white wolves explain everything wrong with bringing back extinct animals by Marina Bolotnikova What can I say? Cute, fluffy wolves, particularly these with a Video games of Thrones family tree, will all the time win the algorithm. Marina used Colossal Biosciences’ gene-edited canids — the pups Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi, principally grey wolves with a handful of dire-wolf traits — to puncture the hype around “de-extinction,” skeptical quotes very a lot meant.

“De-extinction,” it seems, isn’t resurrection; it’s engineering, with all of the messiness that suggests. The welfare prices are actual (failed embryos and surrogate animals), and the conservation logic can get twisted. If we persuade ourselves we are able to “convey species again,” it will get simpler to tolerate shedding them — and simpler for policymakers to deal with extinction as a PR drawback as an alternative of an ethical one.

2) You’re being lied to about protein by Marina Bolotnikova In 2025 protein turned much less a nutrient than a persona attribute, which is why it was satisfying to see a narrative grounded in physiology crack the highest of the record. Marina walks by way of what the proof suggests: the advisable every day allowance is about 0.36 grams per pound of physique weight per day for many adults, whereas muscle-building advantages are inclined to high out round 0.73 grams per pound. Past that, you’re largely paying for “excessive protein” branding. Proof beats influencer math.

3) The decline of drinking, explained in one chart by Bryan Walsh Hey, I do know that man. This story comes from the Good News newsletter , which I launched this 12 months, and it’s the right instance of the form of optimistic development information I’m all the time searching for. Gallup reports that 54 p.c of Individuals say they drink, the bottom degree because the ballot started in 1939, whereas teen declines are even steeper . In 2024, 42 p.c of twelfth graders reported ingesting previously 12 months, down from 75 p.c in 1997. Binge ingesting has fallen too. Well being considerations are clearly a part of it, particularly as evidence mounts that even “reasonable” ingesting isn’t protecting. The one catch is social: much less alcohol is nice; less socializing isn’t . Nonetheless, your liver might be grateful.

4) The broligarchs have a vision for the new Trump term. It’s darker than you think. by Sigal Samuel Sigal’s argument, made within the quick wake of January’s presidential inauguration, is that the tech-to-Trump alignment extends past simply taxes or deregulation. It’s actually about worldview: a winner-take-all ideology that valorizes domination, flirts with anti-democratic concepts, and treats society as one thing you possibly can rebuild — or exit — like an app. She traces the mental ecosystem behind the “broligarch” second, from Peter Thiel-style energy politics to the network-state dream of personal, corporate-run governance. The unsettling half isn’t that they've affect; it’s what they wish to do with it.

5) How meditation deconstructs your mind by Oshan Jarow Meditation tales are inclined to do nicely for one huge purpose: everybody’s pressured. However Oshan’s piece goes past the same old “mindfulness lowers cortisol” style. He explores a more moderen scientific framework that treats the mind as a prediction machine — continuously producing fashions of actuality, then updating them. In that view, practices like centered consideration and open monitoring don’t simply calm you down; they'll loosen your grip on inflexible psychological “priors,” together with the story you inform about who you're. That may scale back struggling, even when in some instances, it might really feel destabilizing. Which, in a way, can also be a form of honesty.

6) This little-known company is a major funder of right-wing politics. You’ve probably eaten their chicken. by Kenny Torrella Kenny’s piece is a reminder that “vote together with your pockets” is difficult when the provision chain bringing dinner to your desk is invisible. Mountaire Farms produces roughly 1 out of each 13 chickens eaten within the US, but most shoppers have by no means heard the identify. The story follows how Mountaire CEO Ronald Cameron has develop into a serious drive in right-wing politics, donating round tens of tens of millions since 2014 — a lot of it to Trump-aligned teams and hard-right causes.

7) The Ozempic effect is finally showing up in obesity data by Bryan Walsh For many years, US weight problems charges have been a grim one-way chart. In 2025, there was lastly a touch of reversal. Gallup found self-reported weight problems falling by almost 3 share factors, to 37 p.c — the primary sustained drop because the index started. The apparent suspect is GLP-1 medication like Ozempic and Wegovy: greater than 12 p.c of adults instructed Gallup they’d taken a GLP-1 in mid-2025, up from below 6 p.c in early 2024. Caveats matter (self-report, value, unequal entry, adherence, long-term results). However it’s laborious to not see this as the beginning of a greater new period in how we take into consideration weight.

8) The terrifying reality behind one of America’s fastest-growing dairy brands by Kenny Torrella The ultra-filtered dairy model Fairlife sells a protein-boosted model of milk — and a sheen of moral reassurance. Kenny lays out why that reassurance has repeatedly been challenged by undercover investigations alleging extreme abuse at provider farms, plus lawsuits accusing Fairlife of deceptive humane-treatment claims. The bigger level is structural: industrial agriculture is extraordinarily good at producing distance — between shoppers and animals, and between model guarantees and the circumstances that make merchandise low cost.

9) “A whole new thing that could end the world” by Kelsey Piper Properly, this was fairly the way in which to begin off 2025. Mirror micro organism — organisms constructed from “right-handed” variations of the molecules life makes use of — might, in concept, behave just like the worst invasive species conceivable. They could possibly be laborious for different life to digest, tough for immune methods to acknowledge, capable of unfold unchecked. The five-alarm warning that Kelsey writes about was so hanging partly as a result of most of the scientists sounding the alarm are near the analysis itself. Kelsey’s key transfer is holding two concepts without delay: the danger is actual, and we’re not doomed by default. Mirror life remains to be far off — which implies we've time to construct norms and safeguards earlier than the lab work will get forward of the guardrails.

10) “25 things we think will happen in 2025” by the Future Excellent crew Our annual predictions bundle is the closest we come to turning an editorial assembly right into a spectator sport. The format for 2025 was easy: 25 forecasts, every with an specific chance, spanning tariffs, Ukraine, Iran, H5N1, and some cultural curveballs. This 12 months we partnered with the net forecasting platform Metaculus , so our guesses needed to share oxygen with outdoors forecasters — and our overconfidence had fewer locations to cover. And sure: we make ourselves revisit it on the finish of the 12 months. Take a look at the outcomes on December 31, and our 2026 predictions on the primary of the 12 months.

Bonus: “How to make the hardest choices of your life,” by Sigal Samuel As it's possible you'll know, Vox launched a membership program this 12 months. ( Join now , and we’ll reward a membership to a reader who can’t afford one.) And when it got here to the Future Excellent tales that motivated individuals to develop into Vox members, this piece from Sigal was far and away the winner. A variety from her good Your Mileage May Vary column — which imagines what an recommendation column may be like if it was written by a crew of the neatest ethicists on Earth — this story supplies a easy query for making probably the most tough decisions you’ll ever face: who do you wish to be? I can’t think about a greater story to revisit as we enter a brand new 12 months — and when you've got a query you wish to undergo Sigal, send it here .

A model of this story initially appeared within the Future Perfect publication. Sign up here !

You’ve learn 1 article within the final month

Right here at Vox, we're unwavering in our dedication to protecting the problems that matter most to you — threats to democracy, immigration, reproductive rights, the setting, and the rising polarization throughout this nation.

Our mission is to offer clear, accessible journalism that empowers you to remain knowledgeable and engaged in shaping our world. By turning into a Vox Member, you straight strengthen our potential to ship in-depth, unbiased reporting that drives significant change.