Bethany Brookshire

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. Chemistry

    To test pill coatings, try a stomach in a flask

    Which pain reliever should you buy? The tablet, gel tab or compressed caplet? A teen did an experiment to find out.

  2. Chemistry

    BPA-free plastic may host BPA-like chemical, teen finds

    Something has to replace the BPA in ‘BPA-free’ plastics. A teen has been probing what that is.

  3. Genetics

    Scientists Say: Chromosome

    This threadlike structure is made of DNA wrapped around protein. It allows the 3 billion base pairs in human DNA to stay neatly packaged in a cell.

  4. Earth

    To study a geyser, these teens built their own

    Fascinated by geysers but unable to see one? These teens decided to build their own. It allowed them to study how temperature and pressure make the water spew into a founta.

  5. Health & Medicine

    Cooking can alter a food’s vitamin C content

    Scurvy plagued pirates and sailors on the high seas. It also inspired a teen to find out more about the vitamin C in her veggies.

  6. Physics

    Physics guides teen in search for which bike tire is best

    Mountain bikes have lots of options, including the size of the wheels. The choice a rider makes when buying a bike can affect how fast they can go.

  7. Animals

    How the house mouse found its home

    Once people started settling down 15,000 years ago, a mouse species followed them indoors. The animals didn’t need people to be farming and storing food.

  8. Animals

    Nighttime lights can dim a firefly’s flash

    Fireflies blink to attract mates. But when it’s too bright at night, the insects may stay away.

  9. Earth

    Scientists Say: Continent

    A continent is a large land mass. Geologists recognize six of them — Africa, Antarctica, Eurasia, Australia, North America and South America.

  10. Health & Medicine

    A light-filled box could blast bacteria from lab coats

    Doctors can pick up bacteria on their lab coats. A teen has designed a special light-filled box to keep those coats from infecting others with those germs.

  11. Health & Medicine

    This mix turns pink when sunscreen wears thin

    Many people know to put on sunscreen. Remembering to put more on is harder. A teen invented an indicator that glows pink when it’s time to reapply.

  12. Life

    Scientists Say: Mitochondrion

    Mitochondria are structures inside cells that converts certain chemicals into adenosine triphosphate — a molecule cells use as energy.