🧠 Changes in neural connections due to substance use and withdrawal are long-lasting, and craving can peak well into abstinence. Understanding this process could inspire drugs to support recovery.
✍️ Emma Yasinski: https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/mind/2026/what-addiction-does-to-synapses-in-brain
🍜 When it comes to comfort food, the psychological connection may matter more than the food itself.
Recent research suggests that while the mood-boosting effects of comfort food are genuine, it may not be only the act of eating that provides them. Just thinking about your culinary source of comfort could evoke similarly warm, nostalgic feelings.
✍️ Debbie Koenig: https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/food-environment/2026/why-we-crave-comfort-food
Such customized vaccines, which are engineered to match a person’s specific cancer mutations, are one in a handful of new strategies targeting this difficult-to-treat cancer; learn more from our recent story.
https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/health-disease/2025/progress-for-pancreatic-cancer
Even in an ordinary pregnancy, the journey that sperm must take to reach the egg is stunningly complicated; learn more from our 2025 comic.
https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/living-world/2025/how-sperm-navigate-the-path-to-fertilization-of-egg
The goal of in vitro fertilization is a healthy baby. But a lot has to go right along the way, from complex medical procedures to mundane management of medications and paperwork.
At the Pudding, Lam Thuy Vo tells her IVF story via an illustrated interactive: https://pudding.cool/2026/03/ivf/
What’s the secret to a great cup of tea?
From where the Camellia sinensis bush is grown to whether the leaves are withered or fermented, much can influence the popular drink’s molecular and flavor profile 🍵
✍️ Amber Dance: https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/food-environment/2026/tea-compounds-flavors-affected-by-processing-growing
Better outcomes may come from new drugs, strategies to rev up the immune system and learning to identify the disease sooner in its course — here's how scientists are making progress fighting pancreatic cancer 👇
https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/health-disease/2025/progress-for-pancreatic-cancer
Adult children vs. parents, siblings vs. siblings — calling quits on one’s kin seems increasingly common.
As more adults cut off their parents, a researcher calls for closer scrutiny of causes and effects, and suggests paths to reconciliation.
✍️ Katherine Ellison
https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/mind/2026/causes-of-family-estrangement
Scientists are trying to name the qualities that make someone wise and figure out how to cultivate them. ✍️ Emily Laber-Warren
https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/mind/2026/what-is-wisdom-can-it-be-taught
Keeping global warming to manageable levels will require removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it somewhere else. The world’s oceans may be a promising option.
✍️ Sandy Ong
Knowable Magazine
