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Undark Magazine @undark.org · 08/05/2026

Simard's "When the Forest Breathes" blends memoir, science, and politics as it revisits her research on underground fungal networks and the logging industry's impact on forest ecosystems.

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Book Review: An Impassioned Lament for Our Imperiled Wild Forests

Suzanne Simard's "When the Forest Breathes" is steeped in grief over the juggernaut of the modern logging industry.

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Undark Magazine @undark.org · 08/05/2026

Safety panels convened by food companies are described in regulations as reflecting scientific consensus. But Jennifer Pomeranz says studies have shown 100 percent of panel members are industry-paid or have industry conflicts of interest.

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Interview: Why Food Additives May Not Be FDA Reviewed

Jennifer Pomeranz discusses a decades-old loophole for putting new ingredients into the country's food supply.

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Undark Magazine @undark.org · 07/05/2026

Sylvia Fogel says studies show roughly 30 to 40 percent of autism parents report acute neurodevelopmental regression, and that those who experience regression have worse functional outcomes and higher rates of medical comorbidities.

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Interview: Sylvia Fogel on Rethinking Autism Research

The newly-appointed head of a government advisory committee on autism is ready to reshape federal priorities.

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Undark Magazine @undark.org · 07/05/2026

Spencer Kwabena Annor-Ampofo proposes community-based participatory research as one approach to building trust between Black and African communities and the medical establishment.

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Medicine Misses the Mark on African and Black Hair Health

Dermatologists lack the cultural knowledge to treat alopecia, or hair loss, in Black and African patients.

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Undark Magazine @undark.org · 07/05/2026

Charles Darwin's cousin Francis Galton coined the term "eugenics" in 1883. C. Brandon Ogbunu examines how scholars have compared Darwin's own racial views to Galton's — and why that distinction matters in the classroom.

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What I Learned from Teaching Darwin

Opinion | Charles Darwin’s books offer lessons for how to grapple with the current state of science and its complicated future.

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Undark Magazine @undark.org · 06/05/2026

United Kingdom pilot programs introduced AI tools to help asylum staff review interview material and retrieve policy faster, not to replace human officers.

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How AI May Reshape Humanitarian Decisions About Refugees

Opinion | AI-driven tools are being tested in systems for granting asylum to refugees and aiding displaced populations.

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Undark Magazine @undark.org · 06/05/2026

Oral phenylephrine is metabolized in the gut, meaning almost none of the active ingredient likely reaches the nose at the standard 10 milligram dose, according to researchers.

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A Decongestant Debate That Won’t Clear Up

Experts say a popular decongestant doesn’t work, and the relevant data is limited. Yet the drug remains on the market.

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Undark Magazine @undark.org · 06/05/2026

Parts of Shanghai have subsided by more than 6 feet, Bangkok by more than 5 feet, and Osaka and Tianjin by around 10 feet, according to climate adaptation researcher Robert Nicholls of the University of East Anglia.

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A More Troubling Picture of Sea Level Rise Comes Into View

Results from two major studies suggest tens of millions of people thought safe from coastal flooding are now at risk.

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Undark Magazine @undark.org · 05/05/2026

Benjamin Rome, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, said forthcoming research shows brand-name drug use in Medicare rose on "the order of 20-30% higher" than among privately insured adults after the 2024 cap.

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A 2022 Law May Be Quietly Helping People Stay on Their Meds

With a new yearly cap on drug costs, Medicare patients are experiencing lower bills and fewer disruptions.

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Undark Magazine @undark.org · 05/05/2026

The American Psychiatric Association, American Psychological Association, and American Medical Association all deny the validity of parental alienation syndrome, citing a lack of clear diagnostic criteria.

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When Scientific Debate Steps into Custody Cases

Many view parental alienation syndrome as a harmful and pseudoscientific concept. Why does an academic debate persist?

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Undark Magazine @undark.org · 05/05/2026

A Monsanto staffer's email described a related paper's process: "we would be keeping the cost down by us doing the writing, and they would just edit & sign their names." Borgert says the meaning isn't clear-cut.

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Interview: Christopher Borgert on an Infamous Glyphosate Paper

The pharmacologist gathered more than 60 researchers to push back on the retraction of a Monsanto-linked research paper.

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Undark Magazine @undark.org · 04/05/2026

Philip Cohen, a sociology professor at the University of Maryland, says the average number of babies women have over their lifetimes has not fallen: "It's still more than 2.0 for women aged 45."

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Amid Falling Birth Rates, Federal Family Planning Is Overhauled

Title X funding appears to be shifting away from contraception. Experts say that's unlikely to change fertility rates.

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Undark Magazine @undark.org · 04/05/2026

Close to a third of secondary schools in New Hampshire report having no athletic trainers on staff, despite a 2021 state law requiring trainers at collision and contact sporting events.

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Student Athletes Feel the Heat as States Adapt to Climate Change

Exertional heatstroke is a leading cause of death in high school sports. What should states do to prevent it?

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Undark Magazine @undark.org · 02/05/2026

The 2021 Fairy Creek protests, the largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history, involved blockades of old-growth logging roads. Simard's new book examines the contested politics that followed.

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Book Review: An Impassioned Lament for Our Imperiled Wild Forests

Suzanne Simard's "When the Forest Breathes" is steeped in grief over the juggernaut of the modern logging industry.

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Undark Magazine @undark.org · 01/05/2026

Sylvia Fogel, a Harvard Medical School instructor and practicing psychiatrist, has been appointed to chair the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee, a federal group that advises Health and Human Services on autism research.

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Interview: Sylvia Fogel on Rethinking Autism Research

The newly-appointed head of a government advisory committee on autism is ready to reshape federal priorities.

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Undark Magazine @undark.org · 01/05/2026

A 2019 study estimated North America had lost one-third of its birds since 1970, nearly 3 billion. In "The Return of the Oystercatcher," Scott Weidensaul surveys conservation efforts since the 1970s and spotlights successes.

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Book Review: The Case for Hope in Saving the World's Birds

In “The Return of the Oystercatcher,” Scott Weidensaul examines bird conservation successes as some populations rebound.

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Undark Magazine @undark.org · 01/05/2026

Near an electronic waste scrapyard in Accra, Ghana, researchers found chlorinated dioxin levels in eggs more than three times the already dangerous levels recorded in Tropodo, Indonesia.

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Plastic Pollution Is Bad Enough. Burning It Can Be Even Worse.

In places like Indonesia, plastic refuse is often burned in unregulated low-tech furnaces that pose grave health risks.

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Undark Magazine @undark.org · 01/05/2026

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has posted its first batch of whole measles genomes from viruses that spread in the U.S. last year. The data will show whether the country lost its measles elimination status, held since 2000.

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Inside the Effort to Sequence a Thousand Measles Genomes

Understanding the genetics of circulating viruses will determine if the U.S. loses measles elimination status this year.

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Undark Magazine @undark.org · 01/05/2026

Common hair loss causes reported by interviewees included hair straightening, tight hairstyles, and damaging products, practices shaped in part by historical Eurocentric beauty standards, the essay argues.

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Medicine Misses the Mark on African and Black Hair Health

Dermatologists lack the cultural knowledge to treat alopecia, or hair loss, in Black and African patients.

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Undark Magazine @undark.org · 30/04/2026

Ingredient labels don't list specific chemicals or compounds, Jennifer Pomeranz notes, terms like "corn oil" or "flavorings" can mask new additives the FDA has never reviewed.

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Interview: Why Food Additives May Not Be FDA Reviewed

Jennifer Pomeranz discusses a decades-old loophole for putting new ingredients into the country's food supply.

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Undark Magazine @undark.org · 30/04/2026

A legal opinion commissioned by the United Kingdom nonprofit Open Rights Group found that some aspects of the government's use of artificial intelligence in refugee cases is likely unlawful, writes researcher Mona Hedaya.

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How AI May Reshape Humanitarian Decisions About Refugees

Opinion | AI-driven tools are being tested in systems for granting asylum to refugees and aiding displaced populations.

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Undark Magazine @undark.org · 30/04/2026

Chemist Brett Pollard and colleagues found roughly 20 papers citing water safety standards attributed to the WHO and EPA that, according to the researchers, those agencies never produced.

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Scientific Journals Need Dedicated Fact-Checkers

Opinion | An additional layer of quality control could help academic publishers weed out problematic content before it propagates.

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Undark Magazine @undark.org · 30/04/2026

The Consumer Healthcare Products Association maintains that "the scientific evidence supports the drug as an effective nasal decongestant." An Food and Drug Administration advisory committee disagreed in 2023.

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A Decongestant Debate That Won’t Clear Up

Experts say a popular decongestant doesn’t work, and the relevant data is limited. Yet the drug remains on the market.

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Undark Magazine @undark.org · 30/04/2026

Reading Charles Darwin's "The Descent of Man" with students, C. Brandon Ogbunu reconsidered his view that the right response to Darwin's backward ideas on race and gender is simply to "get over them."

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What I Learned from Teaching Darwin

Opinion | Charles Darwin’s books offer lessons for how to grapple with the current state of science and its complicated future.

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Undark Magazine @undark.org · 29/04/2026

A JAMA Internal Medicine study found Medicare beneficiaries had a nearly 5 percentage point drop in cost-related medication disruption compared to privately insured adults after the Inflation Reduction Act's drug provisions took effect.

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A 2022 Law May Be Quietly Helping People Stay on Their Meds

With a new yearly cap on drug costs, Medicare patients are experiencing lower bills and fewer disruptions.

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Undark Magazine @undark.org · 29/04/2026

Families who gave DNA samples to the Colibrí Center for Human Rights say they were never notified the program had ceased — potentially in conflict with the consent forms they signed.

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A DNA Archive Built to Identify Missing Migrants Has Vanished

The Colibrí Center for Human Rights was a vital link between families and their missing loved ones. Now it's gone dark.

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Undark Magazine @undark.org · 29/04/2026

Joan Meier, professor of clinical law at George Washington University, says alienation claims roughly doubled the likelihood a woman would lose custody, per her 2020 Department of Justice-funded study.

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When Scientific Debate Steps into Custody Cases

Many view parental alienation syndrome as a harmful and pseudoscientific concept. Why does an academic debate persist?

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Undark Magazine @undark.org · 28/04/2026

Geographers Katharina Seeger and Philip Minderhoud of Wageningen University & Research report that corrected calculations show up to 37 percent more area and up to 68 percent more people will fall below sea level following 3.3 feet of rise.

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A More Troubling Picture of Sea Level Rise Comes Into View

Results from two major studies suggest tens of millions of people thought safe from coastal flooding are now at risk.

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Undark Magazine @undark.org · 28/04/2026

Six in 10 Title X clients have reported the program as their sole source of health care in a given year. A new federal funding notice reshapes the program away from contraception and toward fertility and family formation.

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Amid Falling Birth Rates, Federal Family Planning Is Overhauled

Title X funding appears to be shifting away from contraception. Experts say that's unlikely to change fertility rates.

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Undark Magazine @undark.org · 28/04/2026

Only six states, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and North Carolina, received full marks from the Korey Stringer Institute for heat safety policies protecting young athletes.

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Student Athletes Feel the Heat as States Adapt to Climate Change

Exertional heatstroke is a leading cause of death in high school sports. What should states do to prevent it?

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Undark Magazine @undark.org · 27/04/2026

Pharmacologist Christopher Borgert organized more than 60 researchers to contest the retraction of the 2000 paper, arguing the scientific basis for pulling it is thin and the ghostwriting evidence "not definitive."

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Interview: Christopher Borgert on an Infamous Glyphosate Paper

The pharmacologist gathered more than 60 researchers to push back on the retraction of a Monsanto-linked research paper.

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Undark Magazine @undark.org · 27/04/2026

A 2011 study found that a dog became sick after eating remains of a humpback whale euthanized with pentobarbital. Bald eagles have also been sickened or killed by pentobarbital-infused cattle — a key reason researchers sought alternatives.

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How to Euthanize a Whale

Finding ways to ease the suffering of beached whales has been a challenge. Whale experts may have found an answer.

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Undark Magazine @undark.org · 27/04/2026

A May 2025 editorial from three genetics societies estimated it would "take much more than a decade" to research the risks of germline genome modifications fully.

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The Push for Artificial Inheritance

Experts worry about the risks of editing genes in human embryos. New startups seem poised to throw caution to the wind.

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Undark Magazine @undark.org · 25/04/2026

Dalmeet Singh Chawla argues in a new opinion piece that academic publishers — some with profit margins rivaling major tech companies, per the piece, should fund dedicated fact-checking alongside peer review.

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Scientific Journals Need Dedicated Fact-Checkers

Opinion | An additional layer of quality control could help academic publishers weed out problematic content before it propagates.

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Undark Magazine @undark.org · 24/04/2026

In a small undergraduate study, most of 10 interviewees with hair loss had not sought medical care, some citing a belief that dermatologists lacked understanding of Black or Afro-textured hair.

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Medicine Misses the Mark on African and Black Hair Health

Dermatologists lack the cultural knowledge to treat alopecia, or hair loss, in Black and African patients.

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Undark Magazine @undark.org · 24/04/2026

Ingredient labels don't list specific chemicals or compounds, Jennifer Pomeranz notes that terms like "corn oil" or "flavorings" can mask new additives the FDA has never reviewed.

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Interview: Why Food Additives May Not Be FDA Reviewed

Jennifer Pomeranz discusses a decades-old loophole for putting new ingredients into the country's food supply.

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Undark Magazine @undark.org · 24/04/2026

The Pan American Health Organization has delayed its evaluation of U.S. measles elimination status until its annual meeting in November, partly because the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention needed more time for genomic analysis.

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Inside the Effort to Sequence a Thousand Measles Genomes

Understanding the genetics of circulating viruses will determine if the U.S. loses measles elimination status this year.

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Undark Magazine @undark.org · 24/04/2026

A 2020 report by the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, and the Royal Society found it "difficult to envision" a method to verify, before implantation, whether all embryo cells were properly edited.

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The Push for Artificial Inheritance

Experts worry about the risks of editing genes in human embryos. New startups seem poised to throw caution to the wind.

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Undark Magazine @undark.org · 23/04/2026

Pharmacists Randy Hatton and Leslie Hendeles have spent roughly two decades compiling evidence that oral phenylephrine performs no better than a placebo as a nasal decongestant.

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A Decongestant Debate That Won’t Clear Up

Experts say a popular decongestant doesn’t work, and the relevant data is limited. Yet the drug remains on the market.

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Undark Magazine @undark.org · 23/04/2026

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What I Learned from Teaching Darwin

Opinion | Charles Darwin’s books offer lessons for how to grapple with the current state of science and its complicated future.

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Undark Magazine @undark.org · 23/04/2026

The United Steelworkers union has called the proposed federal radiation standard revisions "a dangerous rewriting of radiation safety rules." 41 other organizations have also filed formal objections.

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The Nuclear Safety Protections in Federal Crosshairs

President Trump’s sweeping nuclear energy and weapons agenda has prompted revisions of longstanding radiation standards.

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Undark Magazine @undark.org · 23/04/2026

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The Push for Artificial Inheritance

Experts worry about the risks of editing genes in human embryos. New startups seem poised to throw caution to the wind.

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Undark Magazine @undark.org · 23/04/2026

A board member of the Colibrí Center for Human Rights says the organization has "shut down" and the DNA database may already have been destroyed. Legal experts say government intervention is unlikely.

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A DNA Archive Built to Identify Missing Migrants Has Vanished

The Colibrí Center for Human Rights was a vital link between families and their missing loved ones. Now it's gone dark.

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Undark Magazine @undark.org · 22/04/2026

Nearly 40% of total research on parental alienation appeared after 2016, according to a 2022 literature review, reflecting rapid growth in a deeply contested field.

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When Scientific Debate Steps into Custody Cases

Many view parental alienation syndrome as a harmful and pseudoscientific concept. Why does an academic debate persist?

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Undark Magazine @undark.org · 22/04/2026

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A More Troubling Picture of Sea Level Rise Comes Into View

Results from two major studies suggest tens of millions of people thought safe from coastal flooding are now at risk.

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Undark Magazine @undark.org · 22/04/2026

"If you just want to talk about males and females — go for it. But if you want to talk about the social factors that influence health, you are not going to get funded." — NIH staffer, speaking anonymously.

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The Future of Sex as a Biological Variable in Health Research

An executive order upended an NIH policy requiring researchers to account for both sexes in preclinical animal studies.

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Undark Magazine @undark.org · 22/04/2026

Clinically, patients harmed by prediction markets present the same pattern as those harmed by traditional gambling, escalating losses, secrecy, chasing losses, and relapse, according to addiction psychiatrist Timothy Fong.

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Prediction Markets Make a Bet Against Public Health

Opinion | Online prediction markets evade safeguards against gambling and risk normalizing addictive behaviors.

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Undark Magazine @undark.org · 21/04/2026

Children's bodies take longer to acclimate to heat and produce sweat, and they are more prone to dehydration, making them uniquely vulnerable as heat waves grow in intensity, length, and scope.

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Student Athletes Feel the Heat as States Adapt to Climate Change

Exertional heatstroke is a leading cause of death in high school sports. What should states do to prevent it?

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Undark Magazine @undark.org · 21/04/2026

Replanted post-logging plots, rows of monocultural seedlings in plastic tubes, are what Simard calls "cellulose cemeteries." She argues they fail as carbon sinks and fire buffers alike.

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Book Review: An Impassioned Lament for Our Imperiled Wild Forests

Suzanne Simard's "When the Forest Breathes" is steeped in grief over the juggernaut of the modern logging industry.

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