Sara Talpos

Michigan

Freelance Writer at Freelance

Senior Editor and Reporter at UNDARK

Reporter and editor @undarkmag / Occasional freelance writing / Former lecturer @UM_English

Articles

Interview: Why Autistic women have been overlooked for decades

2 weeks ago | popsci.com | Sara Talpos

Image: Getty Images This article was originally featured on Undark.
Interview: Why Autistic Women Have Been Overlooked for Decades

3 weeks ago | autism.einnews.com | Sara Talpos

It’s been more than 30 years since the award-winning film “Rain Man,” starring Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise, put a spotlight on autism — or, more specifically, on a specific type of autism characterized by social awkwardness and isolation and typically affecting males. Yet as far back as the 1980s, at least one prominent autism researcher wondered whether autism’s male skew might simply reflect the fact that autistic females were, for some reason, going undiagnosed.
Interview: Why Autistic Women Have Been Overlooked for Decades

3 weeks ago | undark.org | Sara Talpos

It’s been more than 30 years since the award-winning film “Rain Man,” starring Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise, put a spotlight on autism — or, more specifically, on a specific type of autism characterized by social awkwardness and isolation and typically affecting males. Yet as far back as the 1980s, at least one prominent autism researcher wondered whether autism’s male skew might simply reflect the fact that autistic females were, for some reason, going undiagnosed.
Authors of ‘In Covid’s Wake’ Detail How Pandemic Politics Failed Public

2 months ago | childrenshealthdefense.org | Sara Talpos

By Sara TalposIn March and April of 2020, more than 50,000 people in the U.S. died from the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. Doctors were forced to guess at which treatments might work, while hospitals reported shortages of face masks and other personal protective equipment. On March 19, 2020, California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, was the first to issue a statewide stay-at-home order. Most other states soon followed suit. For more than three years, the country remained under a .
Interview: Did Scientists and the Media Get Covid All Wrong?

2 months ago | undark.org | Sara Talpos

In March and April of 2020, more than 50,000 people in the United States died from the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. Doctors were forced to guess at which treatments might work, while hospitals reported shortages of face masks and other personal protective equipment. On March 19, California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, was the first to issue a statewide stay-at-home order. Most other states soon followed suit. For more than three years, the country remained under a .
How Elon Musk Blurs the Lines of Free Speech

2 months ago | truthdig.com | Sara Talpos

Over time, social media has evolved to function as something of a town square, where Americans come to chat, share information, and organize. Unlike actual town squares, however, these platforms are private enterprises mostly controlled by a handful of billionaires, and they have become powerful gatekeepers for information, including about public health. As private entities, technology behemoths like Meta and X are free to decide what content can and cannot appear on their sites.
Interview: How Elon Musk Blurs the Lines of Free Speech

Feb 14, 2025 | undark.org | Sara Talpos

Over time, social media has evolved to function as something of a town square, where Americans come to chat, share information, and organize. Unlike actual town squares, however, these platforms are private enterprises mostly controlled by a handful of billionaires, and they have become powerful gatekeepers for information, including about public health. As private entities, technology behemoths like Meta and X are free to decide what content can and cannot appear on their sites.
We May Be Eating Microbes Soon, and That’s a Good Thing

Feb 2, 2025 | motherjones.com | Sara Talpos

This story was originally published by Undark and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. As a teenager growing up in Nigeria, Helen Onyeaka was obsessed with microorganisms. The tiny lifeforms, which include bacteria and yeast, can be grown quickly and in huge quantities. Onyeaka wondered if that abundance could be harnessed to feed people in conflict zones where children were suffering from malnutrition, their distended stomachs a clear sign of protein deficiency.
Interview: Doctors Need Flexibility in Prescribing Opioids

Jan 31, 2025 | undark.org | Sara Talpos

About 8 years ago, Stefan Kertesz published a provocative commentary calling for the U.S. government to reconsider its response to the opioid epidemic. The epidemic was sparked by physicians who were over-prescribing pain medication, but those prescriptions leveled off around 2010 and then began to decline. Opioid-related deaths, however, continued to climb — driven not by prescription medications but by heroin and fentanyl.
Seeking new foods, scientists look to bacteria, algae and more

Jan 29, 2025 | salon.com | Sara Talpos

As a teenager growing up in Nigeria, Helen Onyeaka was obsessed with microorganisms. The tiny lifeforms, which include bacteria and yeast, can be grown quickly and in huge quantities. Onyeaka wondered if that abundance could be harnessed to feed people in conflict zones where children were suffering from malnutrition, their distended stomachs a clear sign of protein deficiency. "I used to dream microbes as food," she recently recalled.