Emily Underwood
Verified- Journalist, Freelance
- Writer, Science Magazine
- Science Content Producer, Knowable Magazine
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Articles by Emily Underwood
To pee or not to pee? That is a question for the bladder - and the brain
How do we sense the need to urinate? The basic urge is surprisingly complex and can go awry as we age. You’re driving somewhere, eyes on the road, when you start to feel a tingling sensation in your lower abdomen. That extra-large Coke you drank an hour ago has made its way through your kidneys into your bladder. “Time to pull over,” you think, scanning for an exit ramp. To most people, pulling into a highway rest stop is a profoundly mundane experience.
In a Bizarre Experiment, Neuroscientists Figured Out How We Control This Extremely Basic Human Need
You’re driving somewhere, eyes on the road, when you start to feel a tingling sensation in your lower abdomen. That extra-large Coke you drank an hour ago has made its way through your kidneys into your bladder. “Time to pull over,” you think, scanning for an exit ramp. To most people, pulling into a highway rest stop is a profoundly mundane experience. But not to neuroscientist Rita Valentino, who has studied how the brain senses, interprets, and acts on the bladder’s signals.
To pee or not to pee? That is a question for the bladder-and the brain
This article was originally featured on Knowable Magazine. You’re driving somewhere, eyes on the road, when you start to feel a tingling sensation in your lower abdomen. That extra-large Coke you drank an hour ago has made its way through your kidneys into your bladder. “Time to pull over,” you think, scanning for an exit ramp. To most people, pulling into a highway rest stop is a profoundly mundane experience.
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How Do We Know When to Pee?
You’re driving somewhere, eyes on the road, when you start to feel a tingling sensation in your lower abdomen. That extra-large Coke you drank an hour ago has made its way through your kidneys into your bladder. “Time to pull over,” you think, scanning for an exit ramp. To most people, pulling into a highway rest stop is a profoundly mundane experience. But not to neuroscientist Rita Valentino, who has studied how the brain senses, interprets and acts on the bladder’s signals.
To pee or not to pee? That is a question for the bladder-and the brain
You’re driving somewhere, eyes on the road, when you start to feel a tingling sensation in your lower abdomen. That extra-large Coke you drank an hour ago has made its way through your kidneys into your bladder. “Time to pull over,” you think, scanning for an exit ramp. To most people, pulling into a highway rest stop is a profoundly mundane experience. But not to neuroscientist Rita Valentino, who has studied how the brain senses, interprets, and acts on the bladder’s signals.
To pee or not to pee? That is a question for the bladder — and the brain Original
You’re driving somewhere, eyes on the road, when you start to feel a tingling sensation in your lower abdomen. That extra-large Coke you drank an hour ago has made its way through your kidneys into your bladder. “Time to pull over,” you think, scanning for an exit ramp. To most people, pulling into a highway rest stop is a profoundly mundane experience. But not to neuroscientist Rita Valentino, who has studied how the brain senses, interprets and acts on the bladder’s signals.
Grizzly bears were pillaging farms. Could a canine keep them away?
On the prairies of north central Montana, farmers must sometimes contend with a worrisome visitor: the grizzly bear. Hungry bears, attracted by grain that has spilled from storage bins, will wander close to worksites and homes, leading to potentially dangerous encounters with people. Some farmers “weren’t letting their kids play in their front yard because grizzly bears were walking through,” says wildlife scientist Julie Young of Utah State University.
Bone marrow transplants spread Alzheimer’s-like disease in mice, controversial study reports
Bone marrow transplants between mice can transmit symptoms and pathology associated with Alzheimer’s disease, according to a controversial study published today in Stem Cell Reports. Its authors found that healthy mice injected with marrow from a mouse strain carrying an extremely rare, Alzheimer’s-linked genetic mutation later developed cognitive problems and abnormal clumping of proteins in the brain.
The Inner World of the Teen
This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning. Teens exist in the murky space between youth and maturity—and in decades past, when the teen babysitter was a staple of American life, adults seemed to understand that.
The knotty economics of student loan debt
Most economists agree that college is a wise investment. People who complete four-year degrees typically earn more than people who only finish high school, and they report higher levels of financial well-being across their lifetimes, such as more retirement savings. Countries with more educated populations are wealthier, achieve greater innovation and have more engaged citizens. But who should pay for college? Individuals who receive college degrees?
Why has student loan debt ballooned? An economist weighs in
Q&A — Economist Constantine Yannelis People in the US owe a whopping $1.7 trillion for higher education. An economist weighs in on how to deal with the ballooning college tab. Support sound science and smart stories Help us make scientific knowledge accessible to all Donate today Most economists agree that college is a wise investment.
Why has student loan debt ballooned? An economist weighs in
CREDIT: LEE WOODGATE / SCIENCE SOURCE The massive increase in US student debt has complex causes — and uneven consequences for borrowers. Q&A — Economist Constantine Yannelis People in the US owe a whopping $1.7 trillion for higher education. An economist weighs in on how to deal with the ballooning college tab. Support sound science and smart stories Help us make scientific knowledge accessible to all Donate today Most economists agree that college is a wise investment.
Why has student loan debt ballooned? An economist weighs in
Most economists agree that college is a wise investment. People who complete four-year degrees typically earn more than people who only finish high school, and they report higher levels of financial well-being across their lifetimes, such as more retirement savings. Countries with more educated populations are wealthier, achieve greater innovation and have more engaged citizens. But who should pay for college? Individuals who receive college degrees?
The Last Word On Nothing
Cameron’s new children’s book,, hadn’t gone to print when she and I met up for tea at the annual science writers conference in Memphis last October. She was still fact-checking and finalizing, and having a (tiny!)(Cameron: big!) freakout about how the book would be received. To teach history to children isn’t easy, ever. When I read Cameron’s book I understood what a challenge she’d accepted.
Why You Should Grow Native Plants in Your Garden
As a boy growing up in the 1960s, Doug Tallamy made daily visits to a pond on one of the last empty lots in his suburban New Jersey neighborhood. It was teeming with dragonflies and water beetles, polliwogs and frogs—until bulldozers arrived, burying the pond and its inhabitants. That early loss sparked a lifelong passion for understanding nature.
Do other animals dream?
The two pairs of eyespots staring out of this picture hint at the bearer’s name: peacock butterfly. The spots — along with a wing-rubbing technique that makes a hissing sound — help the insect scare away predators as it flits through the gardens of England and Wales, where it’s common. Illustrator Marian Hill has come across it herself in flowery patches, which might explain why she added a depiction of the butterfly to her Buzz & Scuttle collection.
To help birds and insects, cultivate native gardens
As a boy growing up in the ’60s, Doug Tallamy made daily visits to a pond on one of the last empty lots in his suburban New Jersey neighborhood. It was teeming with dragonflies and water beetles, polliwogs and frogs — until bulldozers arrived, burying the pond and its inhabitants. That early loss sparked a lifelong passion for understanding nature.
To help birds and insects, cultivate native gardens
CREDIT: DARIO SANCHES / WIKIMEDIA COMMONS Across the world, songbirds like this rufous-browed peppershrike (Central and South America) rely on native insects for food. Growing local plants in yards will help to boost insect numbers.
Will unpredictable side effects dim the promise of new Alzheimer’s drugs?
A sea change is underway in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, where for the first time a drug that targets the disease’s pathology and clearly slows cognitive decline has hit the U.S. market. A related therapy will likely be approved in the coming months.
Zooming In on the Brains of Babies
Published13 Jun 2023 Author Emily Underwood Source Knowable Magazine iStock.com via PeopleImages Many of our defining traits — including the languages we speak and how we connect with others — can be traced back at least in part to our earliest experiences.
Zooming In on the Brains of Babies
Published13 Jun 2023 Author Emily Underwood Source Knowable Magazine iStock.com via PeopleImages Many of our defining traits — including the languages we speak and how we connect with others — can be traced back at least in part to our earliest experiences.
The Last Word On Nothing
Lately I’ve been having recurring nightmares about packing. In the dreams I badly want to get somewhere – onto a plane, off of a bus, into a boat – but I can’t, because I have too much shit. I can’t jettison anything in the dream, and yet there’s no way to get everything into my bags or suitcases. No matter how much stuff I cram inside them, there’s always more. I spend the dreams in a state of disarray and wake up sweating.
Teens Can Have Excellent Executive Function - Just Not All the Time
Credit: AnnaStills / iStock The ability to set a goal and pursue it without getting derailed by temptations or distractions is essential to nearly everything we do in life, from finishing homework to driving safely in traffic. It also places complex demands on the brain, requiring skills like working memory — the ability to keep small amounts of information in mind to perform a task — as well as impulse control and being able to rapidly adapt when rules or circumstances change.
Ultrasound brain pulses put mice in a hibernation-like state
It’s a classic science fiction trope: Astronauts on an interstellar journey are kept in sleek, refrigerated pods in a state of suspended animation. Although such pods remain purely fictional, scientists have pursued research into inducing a hibernation-like state in humans to lessen the damage caused by medical conditions such as heart attacks and stroke, and to reduce the stress and costs of future long-distance space sojourns.
Cómo se desarrolla la función ejecutiva en los cerebros adolescentes, según la neurocientífica Beatriz Luna
CRÉDITO: ISTOCK.COM / SKYNESHER Los adolescentes pueden alcanzar grandes logros cuando están motivados, pero su función ejecutiva aumenta y disminuye más que en los adultos. Entrevista con la neurocientífica Beatriz Luna Los cerebros de los adolescentes son muy capaces, aunque inconsistentes, en esta edad crítica de exploración y desarrollo. También están muy en sintonía con las recompensas.
Teens Can Have Excellent Executive Function - Just Not All the Time
Representative image. Photo: Guduru Ajay bhargav/Pexels The ability to set a goal and pursue it without getting derailed by temptations or distractions is essential to nearly everything we do in life, from finishing homework to driving safely in traffic.
To Understand the Teen Brain, Start With Rewards
This article was originally published by Knowable Magazine. The ability to set a goal and pursue it without getting derailed by temptations or distractions is essential to nearly everything we do in life, whether finishing homework or driving safely in traffic.
Teens can have excellent executive function - just not all the time
The ability to set a goal and pursue it without getting derailed by temptations or distractions is essential to nearly everything we do in life, from finishing homework to driving safely in traffic. It also places complex demands on the brain, requiring skills like working memory — the ability to keep small amounts of information in mind to perform a task — as well as impulse control and being able to rapidly adapt when rules or circumstances change.
Teens can have excellent executive function - just not all the time
The ability to set a goal and pursue it without getting derailed by temptations or distractions is essential to nearly everything we do in life, from finishing homework to driving safely in traffic. It also places complex demands on the brain, requiring skills like working memory — the ability to keep small amounts of information in mind to perform a task — as well as impulse control and being able to rapidly adapt when rules or circumstances change.
The Last Word On Nothing
Walking south along the beach towards Los Angeles this weekend, my friend and I were talking about all the arbitrary things that can alter a life’s trajectory, like where you’re born or if your parents went to college. As we walked, we noticed hundreds of tiny sea creatures scattered like dark blue flower petals along the water’s edge. Some were as small as a baby’s fingernail. Others were as big as silver dollars.
Zooming in on the brains of babies
Many of our defining traits — including the languages we speak and how we connect with others — can be traced back at least in part to our earliest experiences. Although our brains remain malleable throughout our lives, most neuroscientists agree that the changes that occur in the womb and in the first few years of life are among the most consequential, with an outsize effect on our risk of developmental and psychiatric conditions.
When alpha mice are trounced by weaklings, they spiral into depression
When two male mice meet in a confined space, the rules of engagement are clear: The lower ranking mouse must yield. But when these norms go out the window—say, when researchers rig such an encounter to favor the weakling—it sends the higher ranking male into a depressionlike spiral.
As some hail new antibody treatment for Alzheimer’s, safety and benefit questions persist
A festive air pervaded an Alzheimer’s disease conference yesterday in San Francisco, where attendees cheered what several described as a monumental breakthrough: the first treatment to clearly, albeit modestly, slow the disease’s seemingly inexorable cognitive decline. In so doing, some scientists say, it substantiated the long-held hypothesis that the brain protein known as beta amyloid is a major driver of the illness.
Making Sense of Big Ocean Data
The North Atlantic right whale known as Snow Cone was tangled in fishing ropes and covered in parasites when researchers spotted her off the Massachusetts coast in September 2022. Rescuers tried to approach her by boat and remove the ropes digging into her jaw. But before they could free Snow Cone, she dove. No one has seen the whale since.
Climate Change May Cause an Insurance Meltdown Before It Melts Everything Else
This story was originally published by Knowable magazine. On Sept. 27 at noon Eastern, Knowable Magazine, Annual Reviews, and Future Tense will host an online event on disaster insurance, featuring Alice Hill, senior fellow for climate change policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, and Carolyn Kousky, associate vice president for economics and policy at the Environmental Defense Fund. Register here. When Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana on Aug.
Rethinking insurance for floods, wildfires and other catastrophes
When Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana on August 29, 2005, surges of seawater more than 20 feet higher than normal tide levels crested over the levees surrounding New Orleans. Within hours, the levees started to fail, flooding 80 percent of the city. More than 1,800 people across several states died in the storm or its aftermath, and thousands of homes and businesses were destroyed.
The Last Word On Nothing
It’s the spider time of year, the webs are everywhere and the little spiders are sneaking into the house. Sneaking is bad enough but then you learn that some spiders fly — paraglide, actually, crossed with hot-air ballooning. Just no. This post first ran on April 19, 2018. Most spring days on my favorite walk, I watch a small group of people wearing packs trudge up a grassy hill. Once they reach the top they spread out colorful sails, put on harnesses and jog forward.
Restoring a key hormone could help people with Down syndrome
Down syndrome is the most common genetic cause of intellectual disability, affecting about one in 600 babies. It occurs when a person is born with an extra copy of chromosome 21, ultimately leading to distinctive physical features, an elevated risk of many health problems, and mild to moderate intellectual impairments. Many people with Down syndrome thrive—especially with access to therapy, education, and health care.
The Last Word On Nothing
Note: This post is about suicide, so please skip it if you’re not up for that right now. Last month we lost a friend of ours, a seventeen year-old girl. My first impulse when I got the call was to clean our house. I didn’t know what else to do. There was nothing to do, except make some room for the grief that would be moving in and staying for a while. Natalie is the third teenager in our small community to die by suicide in as many years.
Mentally exhausted? Study blames buildup of key chemical in brain
You know the feeling. You’ve been cramming for a test or presentation all day, when suddenly you can’t remember simple things, like what you ate for breakfast, or where exactly Belize is. Now, a study hints at why we get so unraveled after hours of hard mental labor: a toxic buildup of glutamate, the brain’s most abundant chemical signal.
How to Create a Video Logo
By Emily Underwood, guest writer. Undoubtedly, videos are the most popular way of consuming content in these present times. 96% of the online users watch videos to know more about products, and 9 out of 10 viewers claim that they want to see more videos from their favorite businesses and brands. As of 2022, an average individual is likely to spend 100 minutes every day watching online visuals.
Chemical emitted by babies could make men more docile, women more aggressive
Scientists have argued for decades over whether humans have pheromones, chemical compounds that trigger aggression and mating in insects and other animals. Although the notion has great popular appeal—search Amazon for “pheromone” and you’ll get the idea—there’s scant evidence for this kind of signal in our species. A new study could change that.
The Last Word On Nothing
“Scythe Menders,” by Charles William Bartlett, 1912 I finally finished Anna Karenina, which means I now know what people are talking about when they refer to the ecstatic relief that the gentleman farmer Konstantin Lenin experiences when, after spending far too much time thinking about farming, he finally just grabs a scythe and starts mowing hay, real hay! That, gentle reader, is how I felt last week when I talked to Leif Nelson, senior author of the recent PNAS study “Empirical audit and...
The Last Word On Nothing
Our backyard oak. All weekend I’ve been trying to write an article about oak trees for a rapidly approaching deadline, and not making much headway. I know what the problem is: Oaks aren’t a story, they’re too branched and sprawling, and I still need a path to follow through the woodland, or an acorn for distractable squirrel readers to nibble, or whatever. But I couldn’t find it, or maybe I just didn’t want to.
The Last Word On Nothing
Drawing of the vagus nerve by Andreas Vesalius. Wellcome Trust collection “What even is consciousness, though?” my friend B wondered yesterday, squinting into the sun. The air was full of cottonwood dander. Floating on the breeze, the tufted white seeds looked like they were suspended in deep water. She was nervous about the anesthesia. Four masses in her abdomen, one the size of a football. Likely not cancer, but they won’t know for certain until they “dig around,” the surgeon said.
A sense of self
Summary Scientists are unraveling how our organs talk to the brain and how the brain talks back. That two-way communication, known as interoception, encompasses a complex system of nerves and hormones, including the vagus nerve, a massive network of fibers that travel from nearly every internal organ to the base of the brain and back again. Scientist have long known the vagus nerve carries signals between the organs and the brainstem.
Finding consciousness outside the brain, and using DNA to reunite families
Podcast By Sarah Crespi, Emily UnderwoodJun. 10, 2021 , 2:00 PM V. Altounian/SCIENCE First this week, Contributing Correspondent Emily Underwood talks with host Sarah Crespi about the surprising role of the vagus nerve—which connects the brain to organs like the heart and digestive tract—in processes once thought to be solely controlled by the brain, such as consciousness and memory.
Newly detailed nerve links between brain and other organs shape thoughts, memories, and feelings
The vagus nerve forms a complex network linking the brain and internal organs. V. Altounian/Science By Emily UnderwoodJun. 10, 2021 , 12:55 PM In the 1930s, neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield pioneered a daring new kind of cartography. As a stenographer took notes, he delicately touched an electrode to the exposed brains of his awake, consenting patients and asked what they felt as electrical current hit different areas.
Newly detailed nerve links between brain and other organs shape thoughts, memories, and feelings
In the 1930s, neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield pioneered a daring new kind of cartography. As a stenographer took notes, he delicately touched an electrode to the exposed brains of his awake, consenting patients and asked what they felt as electrical current hit different areas. Penfield wanted to better predict which brain functions would be threatened when surgeons had to remove tumors or chunks of tissue that were triggering epileptic seizures.
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