UNDARK

The name Undark comes from a historical blend of science and business that led to the creation of a radium-infused product known as Undark, which was both fascinating and, as later research revealed, harmful and dangerous. We choose this name to indicate to our readers that our magazine will delve into science not merely as an impressive spectacle, but as a complex, sometimes controversial, and at times unsettling aspect of human culture.

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The Dangerous Illusion of Climate Resilience

1 day ago | undark.org | Peter Sutoris

Throughout the past few decades, discussions about how to address climate change have become dominated by two broad categories of response: adaptation, or adjusting to the realities of a warmer, more volatile planet; and mitigation, or reducing greenhouse gas emissions to prevent further warming.
Come-Gimme! Why Do We Shrug When Apes Cross the Language Barrier?

6 days ago | undark.org | Michael Erard

In many Western societies, parents eagerly await their children’s first words, then celebrate their arrival. There’s also a vast scientific and popular attention to early child language. Yet there is (and was) surprisingly little hullabaloo sparked by the first words and hand signs displayed by great apes. As far back as 1916, scientists have been exploring the linguistic abilities of humans’ closest relatives by raising them in language-rich environments.
EPA Plans to Stop Collecting Emissions Data From Most Polluters

1 week ago | undark.org | Sharon Lerner

The Environmental Protection Agency is planning to eliminate long-standing requirements for polluters to collect and report their emissions of the heat-trapping gases that cause climate change. The move, ordered by a Trump appointee, would affect thousands of industrial facilities across the country, including oil refineries, power plants, and coal mines as well as those that make petrochemicals, cement, glass, iron, and steel, according to documents reviewed by ProPublica.
Book Review: How Plagues Are Intertwined With Social Justice

1 week ago | undark.org | Ramin Skibba

It seemed unthinkable. What began as a few coronavirus cases in Wuhan, China, quickly spread throughout the country and to every corner of the world. Global society ground to a halt as governments sought to stem Covid-19’s relentless advance. All told, some Americans have died to date, life expectancy plummeted by nearly three years from 2019 to 2021, and student test scores dropped precipitously, while the global death toll grimly ramped up to more than 7 million people.
For Health Apps, Questions Over Privacy and Efficacy

2 weeks ago | undark.org | Claudia Lopez Lloreda

In recent years, health apps have seen an explosion in development and usage: Today, there are about 350,000 apps available to help people with everything from tracking weight, to finding a therapist, to helping identify skin lesions.
Trends in Melatonin Use Alarm Child Sleep Experts

2 weeks ago | undark.org | Michael Schulson

Two years ago, at a Stop & Shop in Rhode Island, the Danish neuroscientist and physician Henriette Edemann-Callesen visited an aisle stocked with sleep aids containing melatonin. She looked around in amazement. Then she took out her phone and snapped a photo to send to colleagues back home. “It was really pretty astonishing,” she recalled recently. In Denmark, as in many countries, the hormone melatonin is a prescription drug for treating sleep problems, mostly in adults.
In Western Wildlife, Bird Flu Deaths Highlight Uncertainties

2 weeks ago | undark.org | Kylie Mohr

Last fall, a Clallam County, Washington, resident spotted a young male cougar walking slowly through a field on the northern edge of the Olympic Peninsula. It was the middle of the day — a clear sign that something was off — and he was also skinny and weak, dragging his matted tail in the mud. The resident called a Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, or WDFW, game warden and Mark Elbroch, puma director of Panthera, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting wild cats globally.
Amid NOAA Cuts, Scientists Warn of Weather and Climate Risks

3 weeks ago | undark.org | Joshua Cohen

In 1807, President Thomas Jefferson founded the nation’s first scientific agency. It was tasked with surveying the coasts of the United States. Roughly 60 years later, a national weather bureau was created, and a fish and fisheries commission soon followed. The focus of these three agencies was eventually brought together in 1970 as part of the new National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA.
To Curb Online Sexual Abuse of Children, Experts Look to AI

3 weeks ago | undark.org | Rod McCullom

Amanda Todd was 15 years old when, in September 2012, she uploaded a nearly nine-minute video to YouTube that detailed years of cyberbullying, harassment, and extortion. The abuse left her traumatized and depressed, Todd said. As a result, she turned to self-medication with drugs and alcohol, and, eventually, self-harm and cutting. The British Columbia high school student took her own life about one month later.
Book Review: The Dazzling Complexity of the Frozen World

3 weeks ago | undark.org | Jaime Herndon

It’s an iconic image: A polar bear perched on a lone ice cap, drifting at sea. Is that the fate climate change has in store for this powerful Arctic inhabitant? In 2004, the discovery of a fossil polar bear jaw on Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago, suggested another possibility. The fossil came from a bear that had lived between 110,000 and 130,000 years ago, an era that was warm — even warmer than today.