Undark Magazine

{{short description|Online magazine}}

{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2025}}

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| name = Undark Magazine

| logo = Undark logo gold.png

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| url = {{URL|https://www.undark.org/}}

| commercial = No

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| language = English

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| founder = Deborah Blum and Tom Zeller Jr.

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| launch_date = {{start date and age|2016|03|df=no}}

| industry = Media

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}}Undark Magazine is a nonprofit online publication exploring science as a "frequently wondrous, sometimes contentious, and occasionally troubling byproduct of human culture."{{cite web|url=https://undark.org/who-is-undark/|title=About Undark Magazine|work=Undark Magazine|publisher=Knight Science Journalism Fellowships}} The name Undark is a deliberate reference{{Cite news|url=https://undark.org/who-is-undark/|title=About Us - Undark|work=Undark|access-date=2018-05-02}} to a radium-based luminous paint product called Undark that ultimately proved toxic, if not deadly for those who handled it.{{Cite magazine|url=https://www.wired.com/2011/03/life-in-the-undark/|title=Life in the Undark|last=Blum|first=Deborah|magazine=WIRED|access-date=2018-05-02}}{{Cite web |

first=Laura|last=Dattaro|title=Can Undark go where no other online science mag has gone before? |url=https://www.cjr.org/the_profile/enterprise_science_journalism.php |date=October 27, 2015 |website=Columbia Journalism Review |language=en}}

The publication's tag line is "Truth, Beauty, Science."{{Cite web|url=https://undark.org/who-is-undark/|title=About Us|website=Undark Magazine|access-date=2019-11-06}}{{Cite web | first=Ricardo|last= Bilton |title=Connecting science with society, Undark hopes to help elevate the standards for science journalism |url=https://www.niemanlab.org/2016/10/connecting-science-with-society-undark-hopes-to-help-elevate-the-standards-for-science-journalism/ |date=October 20, 2016 |website=Nieman Lab}}

The magazine is published under the auspices of the Knight Science Journalism Fellowships program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.{{cite web |last1=Horgan |date=May 3, 2016 |first1=Richard |title=A New Twist for MIT's Knight Science Journalism Program |url=https://www.adweek.com/performance-marketing/2016-2017-knight-science-journalism-fellows-undark/ |website=Adweek |access-date=21 June 2021}}

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.{{cite web|url=https://undark.org/submission-guidelines/|title=Submissions|work=Undark Magazine|publisher=Knight Science Journalism Fellowships}}{{cite web|url=https://undark.org/republishing-guidelines/|title=Republishing Guidelines|work=Undark Magazine|access-date=9 February 2018}} Many large national and international publications, including Scientific American,{{cite news|url=https://www.scientificamerican.com/author/undark/|title=Stories by Undark Magazine|work=Scientific American|access-date=9 February 2018}} The Atlantic,{{cite news|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/projects/undark/|title=Articles republished from Undark Magazine|work=The Atlantic|access-date=9 February 2018}} Smithsonian,{{cite news|url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/when-cure-is-cause-180967666/|title=When a Medical "Cure" Makes Things Much, Much Worse|work=Smithsonian Magazine|access-date=9 February 2018}} NPR,{{Cite news|url=https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/06/11/531931490/change-from-addict-to-person-with-an-addiction-is-long-overdue|title=Why We Should Say Someone Is A 'Person With An Addiction,' Not An Addict|work=NPR.org|access-date=2018-05-02}} and Outside {{cite news|url=https://www.outsideonline.com/2261171/allure-and-perils-hydropower|title=The Allure and Perils of Hydropower|work=Outside Magazine|access-date=9 February 2018}} 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.{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/by/tom-zeller-jr|title=Recent and archived work by Tom Zeller Jr. for The New York Times|access-date=25 February 2018|work=New York Times}}