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: Amphibian

    Amphibians are ectotherms that live dual lives — they start off in water, breathing with gills, and end up breathing air with lungs.

  2. Chemistry

    Build ice towers with bottled water and ice

    Pour out liquid water into a solid ice tower. We outline the conditions you’ll need to turn this demonstration into a super-cool experiment.

  3. Archaeology

    Let’s learn about ancient technology

    Ancient people didn’t have the internet. Instead, they performed surgeries, made weapons and built monuments with wood, stones, rope and fire.

  4. Chemistry

    Scientists say: Chemical

    A chemical is anything made of two or more atoms bonded together in a fixed structure. Chemicals make up the world around us.

  5. Health & Medicine

    Here’s how COVID-19 is changing classes this year

    To keep students and teachers safe from COVID-19, some things in the classroom are changing — and sometimes entire schools are being kept closed.

  6. Space

    Scientists Say: Asteroid, meteor and meteorite

    Asteroids, meteors and meteorites are all space rocks. But one is in orbit, another is in the atmosphere and the third is on the ground on Earth.

  7. Archaeology

    Women like Mulan didn’t need to go to war in disguise

    Female skeletons in Mongolia show injuries like those of fighting men — evidence that they could be warriors, too.

  8. Tech

    Let’s learn about space robots

    Space robots can take pictures of other planets, analyze samples of their surface and even peer into their interiors.

  9. Health & Medicine

    Scientists Say: Vaccine

    Vaccines help the body develop immunity to a disease. They are biological mixtures that imitate a disease so the body can defend itself.

  10. Agriculture

    Scientists Say: Carbohydrate

    Carbohydrates are molecules with carbon, oxygen and hydrogen. Animals break down these chemicals in food to get energy.

  11. Brain

    You don’t see as much color as you think

    It might seem like we live in a world full of color. But when scientists flip it into black and white, most people never notice the switch.

  12. Humans

    Let’s learn about early humans

    Homo sapiens are the last member left of our genus. But many other species of early humans existed before us.

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.