Dec 22, 2025

TECHNOLOGY

Restricting Loans for Health Care Workers Should Outrage Us All

Among coming changes to the federal student loan system are different caps for those pursuing graduate versus professional degree programs — a classification that would notably exclude allied health p...

Uzma RentiaUndark MagazineDecember 22, 2025

Latest in Technology

Technology

People are getting their news from AI – and it’s altering their views

Even when information is factually accurate, how it’s presented can introduce subtle biases. As large language models increasingly bring people the news, this bias is a looming problem....

Adrian Kuenzler, Scholar-in-Residence, University of Denver; University of Hong KongThe Conversation12/19/2025

Technology

I study rat nests − here’s why rodents make great archivists

An archaeologist reveals what she learned from sifting through a 200-year-old rat nest recovered from a historic Philadelphia home....

Alexandria Mitchem Hansen, Ph.D. Candidate in Anthropology, Columbia UniversityThe Conversation12/19/2025

Technology

Interview: How the U.S. Government Monitors Vaccine Safety

Amid an overhaul in federal health policy, biostatistician Jeffrey Morris published a new paper assessing the country’s vaccine safety surveillance system. Undark sat down with Morris to discuss how t...

Sara TalposUndark Magazine12/19/2025

Technology

With wolves absent from most of eastern North America, can coyotes replace them?

Wolves and coyotes feed on similar things – but their diets aren’t identical. A researcher studied predator diets to investigate their differences....

Alex Jensen, Postdoctoral Associate - Wildlife Ecology, North Carolina State UniversityThe Conversation12/18/2025

Technology

Why it’s so hard to tell if a piece of text was written by AI – even for AI

There are several methods for detecting whether a piece of text was written by AI. They all have limitations – and probably always will....

Ambuj Tewari, Professor of Statistics, University of MichiganThe Conversation12/18/2025

Technology

There’s little evidence tech is much help stopping school shootings

The $4 billion school security industry can’t back up claims for its tech. The silver lining: That’s partly because there aren’t enough shootings to study....

Emily Greene-Colozzi, Assistant Professor of Criminology and Justice Studies, UMass LowellThe Conversation12/18/2025

Technology

‘This year nearly broke me as a scientist’ – US researchers reflect on how 2025’s science cuts have changed their lives

US science lost a great deal in 2025, including tens of billions of dollars of federal funding, entire research agencies and programs, and a generation of researchers....

Carrie McDonough, Associate Professor of Chemistry, Carnegie Mellon UniversityThe Conversation12/18/2025

Technology

Trump Supporters Distrust Science. We Need New Ways to Engage.

The American scientific system was once the envy of the world. But shifts in grant funding, the closure of research centers, and attacks on universities mean our national research enterprise can no lo...

Paul M. SutterUndark Magazine12/18/2025

Technology

What Anti-Vaccine Policies Could Mean for Autoimmune Diseases

A new study identifies the link between Epstein-Barr virus and lupus, an autoimmune disease which predominantly affects women. The finding raises the possibility that a vaccine against the virus could...

Giamila FantuzziUndark Magazine12/17/2025

Technology

Trump’s second term is reshaping US science with unprecedented cuts and destabilizing policy changes

The Trump administration is rewriting the 80-year-old American social contract for science research....

Kenneth M. Evans, Fellow in Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy, Baker Institute for Public Policy, Rice UniversityThe Conversation12/17/2025

Technology

Hacked phones and Wi-Fi surveillance have replaced Cold War spies and radio waves in the delusions of people with schizophrenia

The delusions of people with thought disorders have had consistent themes of persecution for decades. But new technology provides fresh material for the content of delusions....

Alaina Vandervoort Burns, Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, University of California, Los AngelesThe Conversation12/17/2025

Technology

Gazing into the mind’s eye with mice – how neuroscientists are seeing human vision more clearly

It was once believed that mice had relatively poor vision. Turns out mice are far from blind – and studying how their vision is shaped by their environment and behavior can clarify the same in people....

Bilal Haider, Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of TechnologyThe Conversation12/16/2025

Technology

The next frontier in space is closer than you think – welcome to the world of very low Earth orbit satellites

The closer to Earth a satellite flies, the clearer a picture it can take of the surface. But low-flying satellites also have to deal with atmospheric drag....

Sven Bilén, Professor of Engineering Design, Electrical Engineering and Aerospace Engineering, Penn StateThe Conversation12/16/2025

Technology

How Much Water Do AI Data Centers Really Use?

You may have seen estimates of how much water a ChatGPT prompt uses, including the statistic that writing an email with AI consumes an entire bottle of water. But calculating such a figure is more com...

Molly TaftUndark Magazine12/16/2025

Technology

How are dark matter and antimatter different?

Normal matter – which makes up everything we see and touch – isn’t the only type of matter present in the universe....

Dipangkar Dutta, Professor of Nuclear Physics, Mississippi State UniversityThe Conversation12/15/2025

Technology

Science has always been marketed, from 18th-century coffeehouse demos of Newton’s ideas to today’s TikTok explainers

Science has always been part of a marketplace of ideas, where claims vie for audiences, resources and belief, and where power, persuasion and status shape which ideas are heard, trusted or forgotten....

Beth DuFault, Assistant Professor of Marketing, University of PortlandThe Conversation12/15/2025

Technology

Amid a Satellite Boom, Scientists Warn of Emissions Risks

With hundreds of satellites launched each year and tens of thousands more planned, scientists are increasingly concerned about an emerging problem: emissions from the fuels burned in launches and from...

Jon GertnerUndark Magazine12/15/2025

Technology

What’s at stake in Trump’s executive order aiming to curb state-level AI regulation

In the absence of comprehensive federal AI regulation, states have stepped in. The Trump administration, at Big Tech’s urging, is attempting to roll back many of those laws....

Anjana Susarla, Professor of Information Systems, Michigan State UniversityThe Conversation12/12/2025

Technology

Can scientists detect life without knowing what it looks like? Research using machine learning offers a new way

A new machine learning model explores the boundary between biological and nonbiological chemistry....

Amirali Aghazadeh, Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of TechnologyThe Conversation12/12/2025

Technology

Why Lab-Grown Brain Cells Might Never Become Conscious

Neural organoids — tiny clusters of brain cells grown in the laboratory to mimic parts of the human brain — have been used to study everything from bipolar disorder and Alzheimer’s disease to tumors a...

Sara TalposUndark Magazine12/12/2025

Technology

Songbirds swap colorful plumage genes across species lines among their evolutionary neighbors

Interbreeding across species lines is one way helpful genes can spread into a bird population....

David Toews, Associate Professor of Biology, Penn StateThe Conversation12/11/2025

Technology

AI’s errors may be impossible to eliminate – what that means for its use in health care

Many health symptoms can be caused by multiple illnesses – if AI can’t tell the difference between them, it won’t be able to operate accurately without human oversight....

Carlos Gershenson, Professor of Innovation, Binghamton University, State University of New YorkThe Conversation12/11/2025

Technology

AI-generated political videos are more about memes and money than persuading and deceiving

Don’t discount the threat of AI political videos fooling people, but for now, they’re mostly about bolstering group identity and cashing in on viral content....

Lisa Fazio, Associate Professor of Psychology, Vanderbilt UniversityThe Conversation12/11/2025

Technology

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Shouldn’t Just Be a Last Resort

When treating clinical depression, insurance companies tend to prioritize the least expensive treatments over ones that may be pricier, even if it’s not in the patient’s best interest. Transcranial Ma...

Michael C. MaroneUndark Magazine12/11/2025

Technology

From early cars to generative AI, new technologies create demand for specialized materials

The mass adoption of new technologies drives demand for rare and complex materials used in their manufacture....

Peter Müllner, Distinguished Professor in Materials Science and Engineering, Boise State UniversityThe Conversation12/10/2025

Technology

Can Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals Affect Gender Identity?

Some scientists have speculated whether early exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals might play a role in gender dysphoria. Attempts to explore this association, however, are highly contentious be...

Charles SchmidtUndark Magazine12/10/2025

Technology

Newly discovered link between traumatic brain injury in children and epigenetic changes could help personalize treatment for recovering kids

Some children recover better after traumatic brain injury than others, despite appearing similarly to doctors. Looking at the genetic and cellular level, however, reveal key differences....

Lacey W. Heinsberg, Assistant Professor of Nursing and Human Genetics, University of PittsburghThe Conversation12/9/2025

Technology

Lower-cost space missions like NASA’s ESCAPADE are starting to deliver exciting science – but at a price in risk and trade‑offs

What’s better – many small space missions, or a few large, sweeping ones? Space scientists are asking this question as they face budget uncertainties....

Ari Koeppel, Earth Sciences Postdoctoral Scientist and Adjunct Associate, Dartmouth CollegeThe Conversation12/9/2025

Technology

The Diminishing Oversight of Livestock Grazing on Public Lands

With dwindling federal oversight, cattle are grazing where they’re not supposed to and degrading the land. This can spread invasive plants, pushing out native species and worsening wildfire risk. Thou...

ProPublica and High Country NewsUndark Magazine12/9/2025

Technology

Putting pig organs in people is OK in the US, but growing human organs in pigs is not – why is that?

How many human cells does a pig need before it’s considered too human?...

Monika Piotrowska, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University at Albany, State University of New YorkThe Conversation12/8/2025

Technology

Why can’t I wiggle my toes one at a time, like my fingers?

What muscles feet have, how your brain controls them, and how humans evolved all play a part in why people can’t easily move individual toes....

Steven Lautzenheiser, Assistant Professor of Biological Anthropology, University of TennesseeThe Conversation12/8/2025

Technology

Far-right extremists have been organizing online since before the internet – and AI is their next frontier

Neo-Nazis and other far-right extremists were early adopters of bulletin board systems, pioneering online recruiting and radicalization techniques long before the social media revolution....

Michelle Lynn Kahn, Associate Professor of History, University of RichmondThe Conversation12/5/2025

Technology

Measuring Colorado’s mountains one hike at a time

To most accurately measure mountain peaks, Eric Gilbertson lugs equipment all the way to the top....

Eric Gilbertson, Associate Teaching Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Seattle UniversityThe Conversation12/4/2025

Technology

Most normal matter in the universe isn’t found in planets, stars or galaxies – an astronomer explains where it’s distributed

Most of the universe is made up of dark matter and dark energy. The majority of everything else is dispersed throughout space as tiny particles....

Chris Impey, University Distinguished Professor of Astronomy, University of ArizonaThe Conversation12/4/2025