‘How’s the Air?’ Using AI to Track Coal Train Dust
In a sloping backyard in Vallejo, California, Nicholas Spada adjusted a piece of equipment that looked like a cross between a tripod, a briefcase, and…
Articles by Undark
Keeping the Lights On at Ukraine’s Research Nuclear Reactor
In the pre-dawn hours of March 6, 2022, a Russian rocket struck a large, white-and-gray-sided building in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. Although the…
Keeping the Lights On at Ukraine’s Research Nuclear Reactor
In the pre-dawn hours of March 6, 2022, a Russian rocket struck a large, white-and-gray-sided building in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. Although the…
Wanted (by Scientists): Dead Birds and Bats, Felled by Renewables
“This is one of the least smelly carcasses,” said Todd Katzner, peering over his lab manager’s shoulder as she sliced a bit of flesh from…
Tracing the Flow of Forever Chemicals Into Waterways and Wildlife
Martha Spiess, a retired veterinarian, began testing streams and ponds in Brunswick, Maine, after hearing that per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFASs, had contaminated farms…
Mexican farmers and scientists share a mission: saving a wetland
On the southern edge of Mexico City, on a patch of land surrounded by water, a farmer and a scientist recently inspected rows of small…
I Helped Pen the UN Climate Report. Here’s Why It Gives Me Hope.
On April 4, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released the final installment of its Sixth Assessment Report, an epic synthesis of science…
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…
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…