On some unknown day in 2027, if all goes as planned, a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket will launch toward the dark void beyond Earth’s atmosphere, carrying with it the basic makings of a space station that ...

Every year, up to 7 billion day-old male chicks are tossed into shredding machines, gassed, or suffocated in plastic bags — a process known as chick culling. This grim ritual is underpinned by both ...

For years, Ron Low took pride in his ability to give his wife multiple orgasms in a single sexual encounter. This was possible, in part, because his erections lasted up to an hour. By the age of 38, ...

Welcome to Entanglements. In this episode, hosts Brooke Borel and Anna Rothschild are joined by Undark editor-in-chief Tom Zeller Jr. to talk about the show’s successes and failures, and about their ...

As you’re reading this, your cells are mutating. Moreover, they are mutating in maddening numbers. Your body replaces some 330 billion of your cells daily, or about one percent, so there are numerous ...

It’s been more than a decade since scientists first started publishing papers on neural organoids, the small clusters of cells grown in labs and designed to mimic various parts of the human brain.

Nearly 70 years ago, Congress amended the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to prohibit companies from using food additives before they have been rigorously vetted for safety. This change in the ...

Before beginning his tenure as secretary of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. posted an old picture of his father, Bobby Kennedy, and another man at a ...

While the new guidelines say that generally, “saturated fat consumption should not exceed 10% of total daily calories,” the document’s new food pyramid features red meat, cheese, and whole milk at or ...

In March 1953, a healthy 28-year-old woman donated blood at a clinic in northern England. As technicians tried to determine her blood type, they could hardly believe what they saw. The woman, ...

When David Lo first visited the Salton Sea shore in the spring of 2018, he was struck by the sheer oddness of the place: the beach of barnacle shells and pulverized fish bones; the abandoned dock far ...

When Mana Parast was a medical resident in 2003, she had an experience that would change the course of her entire career: her first fetal autopsy. The autopsy, which pushed Parast to pursue perinatal ...