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
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Physics
Scientists Say: Yottawatt
On Earth, scientists measure energy use in watts. When you have lot of those watts — one million billion billion — you have a yottawatt.
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Physics
Scientists Say: Wavelength
When something travels as a wave — such as light — scientists can measure it by its wavelength, the distances between the peaks.
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Physics
Scientists Say: Watt
Say Watt? This is a unit used to measure the flow of energy being used.
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Math
Scientists Say: Y-axis
The bars on a graph tell you nothing unless you know what they mean. The lines on the sides can let you know.
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Life
Scientists Say: Yeast
For some people, yeast bring to mind slimy infections. But these little fungal beasts are used to make bread rise, too.
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Teen scientists win big for health and environmental-cleanup research
The Intel Science Talent Search honors 40 students each year. The 2016 top award winners studied health technologies and how to clean local streams.
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Math
Scientists Say: X-axis
The bars on a graph tell you nothing unless you know what they mean. The lines on the sides can let you know.
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Scientists Say: Replication
A scientist can run an experiment and get a result. But that result won’t be truly trustworthy until other scientists rerun the tests and replicate the findings.
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Physics
Scientists Say: Potential energy
This is the energy an object has because of its position or condition.
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Animals
Roadkill : Learning from the dead
Roadkill can be more than a smooshed-up carcass. Scientists study these highway casualties to learn more about wildlife and their environments.
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Health & Medicine
Scientists Say: Zika
Zika virus has burst into the news because it is linked with microcephaly — a condition where babies are born with small heads.