Undark Magazine
Undark Magazine is a non-profit, editorially independent online publication exploring science as a "frequently wondrous, sometimes contentious, and occasionally troubling byproduct of human culture." The name Undark is a deliberate reference to a radium-based luminous paint product, also called Undark, that ultimately proved toxic and, in some cases, deadly for the workers who handled it. The publication's tag line is "Truth, Beauty, Science." The magazine is published under the auspices of the Knight Science Journalism Fellowships program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Undark" publishes a mix of long-form journalism, shorter features, essays, op -eds, questions and answers, and book excerpts and reviews. All content is freely available to read, and most is available for republishing by other publications and websites. Many large national and international publications, including "Scientific American", "The Atlantic", "Smithsonian", NPR, and "Outside" have republishing relationships with "Undark". "Undark" was jointly founded in 2016 by Pulitzer Prize-winning science author Deborah Blum and former "New York Times" journalist Tom Zeller Jr., who serves as editor-in-chief of the magazine. Awards. On February 19, 2019, "Undark" was awarded a George Polk Award for Environmental Reporting. The award honored photojournalist Larry C.  Price and contributing reporters for the magazine's multinational, multipart exposé on global air pollution, called "Breathtaking". The series also won the 2019 Al Neuharth Innovation in Investigative Journalism Award from the Online News Association. The magazine's work has been anthologized in "The Best American Science & Nature Writing" book series. In 2017, "Undark" was a finalist for an Online Journalism Award in the Feature category for its series "Wear & Tear", which explored the global impacts of the leather tanning and textile industries. In 2018, three "Undark" contributors were named as finalists in the National Association of Science Writers' Science  and Society Awards.