Hm, it should be black text (see the gif on the Github page), only changing to non-white text in the very last phase of the game. Not sure what went wrong there. Sorry!
Thanks for giving it a shot and leaving a comment! One of my primary goals with this project was to actually finish a game for once, so I had to keep a tight leash on the scope. Next project I'll stretch a bit more :)
I agree, the research UI is probably the weakest part of the game (and annoyingly, one of the parts I spent the most time on!). Thanks for playing and for the feedback!
p.s. "retirement" is used only as a euphemism by The Company, not me censoring myself ;)
