Non-profit & editorially independent. Exploring science as a frequently wondrous, sometimes contentious, and occasionally troubling byproduct of human culture.
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23 Oct 2024
đź’‰ Vaccines have transformed public health, but their journey is far from over.
Join us for a 4-week deep dive into the past, present, and future of immunization, curated from our extensive archive.
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In Liberty Canyon, the problem is not just traffic. It is what traffic has cut off: animals, territory, and the genetic future of Southern California’s mountain lions.
An excerpt from Ryan Huling’s “The Hidden Nations of Animals” examines the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing, a bridge designed for wildlife over California’s 101 freeway.
Read the excerpt.
🔗: undark.org/2026/06/12/califo…
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Jun 10
In 1928, Bell Telephone Laboratories asked Karl Jansky to investigate the static interfering with its transatlantic phone system.
After more than a year of work, Jansky traced one persistent hiss to the sky, toward Sagittarius, where the center of the Milky Way sits.
In our review of Emma Chapman’s “The Echoing Universe,” Sarah Scoles looks at how radio astronomy has helped reveal parts of the universe that visible light cannot.
Read the review.
🔗: undark.org/2026/06/05/book-r…
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Jun 10
Some experts say the tests, which can spot multiple kinds of cancer, aren’t yet sensitive enough to be widely used.
undark.org/2026/06/08/liquid…
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Jun 3
In January 1967, 14-month-old Ross Otto Hambrick and 16-month-old Victor King died at a hospital in Washington, D.C. Both were part of a clinical trial on an experimental RSV vaccine, and almost all of the participants in that arm of the trial, including Ross Otto and Victor, were from working-class Black families.Â
undark.org/2023/10/09/rsv-va…
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Jun 3
Those safer vaccines received regulatory approval in 2023. But the boys' story had never been told — and members of their own families had no idea their children had become the subject of global scientific attention.
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Jun 3
An Undark investigation in 2023 helped uncover some of that history. Now, the families have filed suit against the U.S. government, with representation from Ben Crump and other civil rights lawyers.Â
You can read the suit here, and listen to the press conference at this link: undark.org/wp-content/upload….
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May 22
The International Rescue Committee has been testing AI chatbots through its Signpost platform, which gives displaced people practical information in multiple languages, the Associated Press reported. More sensitive questions are referred to the human staff.
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May 21
A 2024 analysis commissioned by AARP estimated 3.2 million Medicare Part D enrollees would benefit from the $2,000 cap in 2025, saving an average of $1,500.
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May 20
Our committee has no statutory authority with respect to vaccines or vaccine policy," Sylvia Fogel, the new chair of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee, tells Sara Talpos.
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May 19
In Northern England, 75 percent of those convicted of offenses related to raptor persecution since 2009 have been connected with the bird-shooting industry, Scott Weidensaul writes 68 percent of them are gamekeepers.
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May 19
In 2024, 178 large whales washed up on United States shores, many already dead. Since 2014, potassium chloride has been used to euthanize more than 30 large whales in the U.S. f.mtr.cool/gsjncqavuo
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May 18
Since President Donald Trump returned to office, more than a dozen Title X grantees have had grants frozen, forcing some health centers to stop services, lay off staff, or close.
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May 15
"A world that works for birds, in all their complexity of movement and ecological need, will work for everything else, including people," writes Scott Weidensaul in his new book on bird conservation.
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May 15
"I basically threw everything and the kitchen sink at it," veterinarian Craig Harms said of his 2009 attempt to euthanize a North Atlantic right whale. The experience pushed him to develop a new method. f.mtr.cool/qwekuwsodi
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May 14
In Jordan, aid distribution has relied in part on the Vulnerability Assessment Framework, which ranks households by factors like income, debt, health, and caregiving. It is not AI, but it is the kind of structured system AI tools are now entering.
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May 14
It took more than 30 years after early evidence of harm before the FDA's revocation of partially hydrogenated vegetable oil's GRAS status fully took effect in 2023, Jennifer Pomeranz notes.
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May 13
CDC data indicate that profound autism cases involving nonverbal or minimally verbal individuals needing 24/7 care, roughly doubled from 2000 to 2016, accounting for 26 percent of autism cases, says new IACC chair Sylvia Fogel.
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May 13
📲🗞️Get the latest insights on science and society from Undark, now on @AppleNews.
Click the link to follow and never miss a story:Â
apple.news/TefVi86SeSkOJPBpj…
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May 13
Charles Darwin had no formal training in natural history — only incomplete studies in medicine and theology. C. Brandon Ogbunu asks what that model of curiosity means for science in 2026. f.mtr.cool/mdfspvvfih
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