Adaptations to an Older World Hinder Us From Saving This One
Awareness of the cognitive biases we all hold will help in the search for solutions to global environmental problems. Picture a New Yorker-style cartoon of…
Articles by Undark
What Does ‘Recyclable’ Really Mean?
Most of the products in the typical kitchen use plastics that are virtually impossible to recycle. The film that acts as a lid on Dole…
Can a ‘Net-Zero’ World Lead to True Sustainability?
Throughout history, human societies have relied on technological progress to solve their challenges. In technology’s early days, this worked well. It is hard to dispute,…
Testing the Waters: Scotland Surges Ahead on Ocean Power
By a quirk of geography, the Orkney islands, located off the northern tip of Scotland, are unusually well positioned to bear witness to the ocean’s…
‘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…
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…