Are microbes the future of recycling? It’s complicated
Since the first factories began manufacturing polyester from petroleum in the 1950s, humans have produced an estimated 9.1 billion tons of plastic. Of the waste…
Articles by Undark
Undone Science: When Research Fails Polluted Communities
It was nearly 30 years ago when Debbie Blackburn and her husband Scott bought a boxy, postwar house six blocks from the Ohio River in…
Of Science, Fear, and Nuclear Radiation
For Andrew Maidment, the chief of physics for the Department of Radiology at the University of Pennsylvania, it was one of the oddest phone calls…
For Cement’s Massive Carbon Footprint, Some Concrete Steps
On a scorching July morning at a testing facility outside of Paris, a cadre of scientists, engineers, and architects wearing hard hats and safety goggles…