Undark Magazine

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Some companies are shifting to liquid natural gas or methane propellants, but researchers say key questions remain.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

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.