Bethany Brookshire

Bethany Brookshire was a longtime staff writer at Science News Explores and is the author of the book Pests: How Humans Create Animal Villains. She has a B.S. in biology and a B.A. in philosophy from The College of William and Mary, and a Ph.D. in physiology and pharmacology from Wake Forest University School of Medicine. She was a 2019-2020 Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT, the winner of the Society for Neuroscience Next Generation Award and the Three Quarks Daily Science Writing Award, among others.

All Stories by Bethany Brookshire

  1. Materials Science

    Scientists Say: Zirconium

    Zirconium is a metal that knows the meaning of tough. It’s so heat resistant that it’s used for molds to shape melted metals, and so radiation resistant that it coats nuclear reactors.

  2. Health & Medicine

    Snot Science: Stopping the sneeze

    In my previous study, I compared thick and thin snot. Now, I’ll find out if a tissue makes a difference in how far a sneeze spreads.

  3. Life

    Scientists Say: Metabolism

    Metabolism is all the chemical activities that support life in a cell, an organ and a whole organism’s body.

  4. Animals

    Scientists Say: Jellies

    Jellies have roamed the seas for 500 million years. Some have stinging tentacles and bell-shaped bodies and are called jellyfish. Others are very different.

  5. Brain

    Expecting pain? That could really make it hurt worse

    How much someone expects something to hurt affects how their brain processes the pain, and how well they learn from it.

  6. Planets

    Scientists Say: Exomoon

    A moon that orbits a planet in our solar system in a moon. But a moon that orbits a planet outside our solar system? That’s an exomoon.

  7. Ecosystems

    Mosquito repellent could pose risks to baby salamanders

    Two ingredients in bug repellant — DEET and picaridin — can end up in streams. There, they may hurt salamanders but leave mosquitoes alone, a study finds.

  8. Brain

    Scientists Say: Opioid

    Opioid drugs work in the brain to stop pain. But the drugs also produce pleasure, which can make people want to take them over and over again.

  9. Physics

    Soggy cereal gives clues to how rock dams collapse

    To find out how ice sheets move and rock dams collapse, two researchers turned the attention to breakfast cereal.

  10. Ecosystems

    Welcome to the Arctic’s all-night undersea party

    Life teems in the frozen darkness of the Arctic night. But as the ice recedes and people move in, their light pollution may disturb the animals living there.

  11. Science & Society

    Here’s the science you loved in 2018

    When our readers read about science, they want to read about research that hits close to home, like smartphones, chocolate, vaping and more.

  12. Oceans

    What makes Aquaman special? He can take a lot of pressure

    The new Aquaman movie makes life under the sea look pretty glamorous. In fact, we puny humans probably couldn’t take the pressure.