Carolyn Wilke

Contributing Editor, Science News Explores

Carolyn Wilke earned her Ph.D. in environmental engineering at Northwestern University, where her research drew on the fields of environmental chemistry, materials science and toxicology. She got her start in science writing by blogging for HELIX, Northwestern’s science magazine and wrote as a AAAS Mass Media Fellow at The Sacramento Bee. Now a freelance science writer. Carolyn worked as a staff writer at Science News Explores and interned at Science News and The Scientist. When not delving into a new scientific discovery, you might find Carolyn behind her sewing machine or trying to amuse her cat. 

All Stories by Carolyn Wilke

  1. Chemistry

    New materials yank ‘forever chemicals’ from water

    Materials known as metal-organic frameworks, or MOFs, trap some PFAS fast — and can be reused again and again.

  2. Space

    Analyze This: Ice around baby stars may hint at origins of Earth’s water

    Scientists have now gotten a good look at the ice around a baby star. It might help them unravel the origins of the water needed for life on Earth.

  3. Animals

    Birds of paradise have a newly discovered glow

    Many male birds of paradise have bellies, bills and other parts that glow under certain types of light. This special gleam may help them woo mates.

  4. Science & Society

    Analyze This: Do bad childhoods make movie villains?

    In DC and Marvel movies, a rough childhood doesn’t always mean that characters become villains.

  5. Animals

    Analyze This: Moving frogs to new places helped an endangered species spread

    Frogs resistant to a deadly fungus jump-started populations in these new areas.

  6. Animals

    Analyze This: Why the fastest creatures are neither tiny or huge

    The “Goldilocks zone” for fast animal speed seems to depend on a body not being too small or so big it gets in the way of its own strength.

  7. Earth

    Analyze This: Smartphone data may help improve GPS

    Data from millions of phones helped fill in maps of the ionosphere, an atmospheric layer that can muddle radio signals key for navigation systems.

  8. Animals

    Analyze This: When do cats move like liquids?

    Cats flow through narrow openings but hesitate before short openings. That may help them avoid unseen danger in the wild.

  9. Ecosystems

    Analyze This: In movies, wetlands often get a bad rap

    Swamps in films are often linked to danger, death and strange things. But movies also highlight wetlands’ biodiversity and resources.

  10. Psychology

    Analyze This: Skipping through videos may increase boredom

    Contrary to what people often expect, fast-forwarding or switching videos may leave viewers more bored and less satisfied.

  11. Fossils

    Analyze This: How big was the biggest T. rex?

    Only around 80 fossil Tyrannosaurus rex skeletons have been found. They probably don’t include the biggest T. rex that ever lived.

  12. Earth

    Explainer: How volcanoes erupt

    Magma can sit underground for tens, hundreds or even thousands of years before an influx of new magma or gush of gas triggers a volcano to erupt.