I'm just curious what the important, ongoing stories a well-informed hacker should be following in STEM - I'm hoping I can get a list going in this thread.

I think the development of LLMs and AI is near the top of my list (kind of an obvious one), although I'm not sure if there's some specific stories I should be following in that space.

I've also been following Starship progress over the past few years, and the Artemis missions are interesting as well.

Fusion research and neural implants also seem like areas worth looking into.