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. Animals

    How do you build a centaur?

    A centaur has the torso of a human and the body of a horse. It may sound cool, but it wouldn’t work very well.

  2. Earth

    Let’s learn about snow

    Snow is more than just frozen water vapor. Scientists are studying everything from its shape to other planets where snowflakes fall.

  3. Animals

    Scientists Say: Organelle

    An organelle is a part of a cell with a particular function. Like organs. But for cells.

  4. Physics

    Scientists Say: Piezoelectric

    Piezoelectric materials produce an electric voltage when they are bent or squished. This can let us harvest electricity from movement.

  5. Health & Medicine

    Five questions about COVID-19 vaccine trials in teens, answered

    Scientists are now testing COVID-19 vaccines in teens. Why do teens need a separate trial? And what would happen? We’ve got answers.

  6. Health & Medicine

    Let’s learn about taste

    Taste tells us what’s good to eat, but scientists are still learning about how it works.

  7. Health & Medicine

    Scientists Say: Body Mass Index

    This is someone’s weight in kilograms divided by the square of their height in meters. But it’s not a measure of someone’s health.

  8. Chemistry

    Scientists Say: Molecule

    A molecule is a group of atoms linked with chemical bonds. It’s the smallest particle of a substance that has all of its chemical properties.

  9. Physics

    Let’s learn about gravity

    Gravity is an attraction between objects with mass. The more massive the object, the more gravity it’s got.

  10. Scientists Say: Respiration

    Breathe in and out, that’s respiration. Have a cell break down sugars for energy, and that’s respiration too.

  11. Brain

    Loneliness makes our brains crave people

    An area of the brain that lights up when hungry people see food also revs up when lonely people see social activities.

  12. Brain

    A taste map in the brain is a scattering of tiny flavor islands

    Some senses are highly organized in the brain. Taste is not. And that points to just how important it is.