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. Math

    Scientists Say: Uncertainty

    In science, uncertainty is a term used to express how much data might vary around a measured point.

  2. Health & Medicine

    Scientists Say: Lactose

    You might not think of dairy products having sugar, but they do. Milk is rich in a sugar called lactose.

  3. Space

    Scientists Say: Oort cloud

    The very edge of our solar system is a crowded place. It’s full of ice and rocks in a bubble called the Oort cloud.

  4. Brain

    Explainer: What are opioids?

    Opioid drugs can kill pain, but they can also kill people. Here’s how.

  5. Brain

    Scientists Say: Receptor

    This molecule is a chemical messenger’s docking station. A receptor serves as a lock for cell activity.

  6. Earth

    Scientists Say: Inclusion

    As rocks form slowly, they can trap things in their timeless clutches. A material trapped inside a mineral is called an inclusion.

  7. Health & Medicine

    Teens win big prizes for research on potato killer, vaping and a rare disease

    The Regeneron Science Talent Search awarded more than $2 million in prizes this year. This year’s top winners tackled plant disease, vaping and more.

  8. How to build your dragon — with science

    Dragons are creatures of fantasy, but that doesn’t mean you can’t use science to design one.

  9. These questions inspired science champs. How do you match up?

    Fancy science fair projects sometimes seem like they’re only for super-geniuses. But that’s not true! Many rely on what everyone learns in school.

  10. Health & Medicine

    Scientists Say: Ectoparasite

    Many people think of parasites as organisms that live inside their hosts. But some of them can be found on the outside instead.

  11. Health & Medicine

    Scientists Say: CT scan

    Short for computerized tomography, this technique lets scientists and doctors see insides in detail.

  12. Animals

    Scientists Say: Zooplankton

    These plankton are tiny, but don’t let that fool you. They are predators, too.

Use up and down arrow keys to explore.Use right arrow key to move into the list.Use left arrow key to move back to the parent list.Use tab key to enter the current list item.Use escape to exit the menu.Use the Shift key with the Tab key to tab back to the search input.