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. Life

    Scientists Say: ATP

    This chemical is a bit like a rechargeable battery. Cells build and break apart its chemical bonds to store and release energy.

  2. Science & Society

    For minority students to succeed, teachers need to earn trust

    Minority middle-school students begin to lose trust in their teachers when they see peers treated unfairly.

  3. Health & Medicine

    Hibernation: Secrets of the big sleep

    Mammals from bears to squirrels hibernate the winter away. Learning how they do it might one day help people mimic aspects of it to heal from brain injuries or voyage to Mars.

  4. Animals

    Explainer: How brief can hibernation be?

    Many animals frequently slow body functions and drop their temperatures — sometimes for just a day. Is that hibernation, or just torpor? Are the two even related? Scientists disagree.

  5. Planets

    Scientists Say: Goldilocks zone

    Not too hot, not too cold. Just right. This is the region around a star where water could be a liquid, instead of a solid or gas.

  6. Four tips for reading a scientific paper

    Don’t let dense writing and big words put you off. Use these handy tips to get through the jargon.

  7. To understand a scientific paper, delve into its parts

    Scientific papers can look very scary. But they don’t have to be. Here’s how journal articles are organized.

  8. Physics

    Scientists Say: Dark matter

    Most of the universe isn’t made of stuff we can see. Scientists think some of it might be made of dark matter — matter that emits no radiation.

  9. Animals

    Scientists Say: Hibernation

    Hibernation is more than a deep sleep. Animals that hibernate lower their body temperature and reduce their body activities for months.

  10. Health & Medicine

    Sexist attitudes about smarts may emerge by first grade

    People often think women can be smart, but that men are more likely to be brilliant. This stereotype may form as young as age six, new data show.

  11. Health & Medicine

    Math attitude influences math achievement

    Bad feelings about math beget bad grades, a new study shows. The good news? Positive feelings are associated with good grades, too.

  12. Health & Medicine

    Scientists Say: Hyperthermia

    If our body temperatures rise too high, we can suffer from hyperthermia.