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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.
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All Stories by Bethany Brookshire
- 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.
- Chemistry
Scientists Say: Precipitation
Chemicals can dissolve into a solution, but when they come out, they precipitate.
- Brain
Scientists Say: Amusia
When you can’t carry a tune, you might have amusia, a brain disorder where people can’t tell one note from another.
- Chemistry
Scientists Say: Solution
In math, this is just the answer to your problem. In chemistry, this word means something else entirely.
- Chemistry
Scientists Say: Base
Bases are chemicals that contain negatively charged chemical groups made from oxygen and hydrogen. They lend coffee its bitter flavor and have pH rankings higher than 7.0.
- Chemistry
Scientists Say: Acid
When a chemical tastes sour, ranks below 7.0 on the pH scale and has many hydrogen ions in its solution, it gets a special name.
- Genetics
Scientists Say: Mutation
Information in an organism is stored in a code. Here’s the word scientists use to describe a change in that code.
- Chemistry
Scientists Say: Keratin
Keratin is a fibrous protein that gives our nails and hair their strength.
- Health & Medicine
Scientists Say: Umami
What’s the word for something savory? Umami is a taste, and is often described as being meaty.
- Health & Medicine
The most popular stories of 2015
Our readers love to read about health and wellness. Check out which stories were most popular.
- Chemistry
Scientists Say: Joule
A joule is the amount of work done when a force of one newton moves an object one meter. It’s also the energy required to produce one watt for one second.
- Agriculture
New gene resists our last-ditch drug
Antibiotic resistance continues to grow. Now, scientists have found a tiny loop of DNA that resists a drug doctors use as a last line of defense.