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Bethany Brookshire

Staff Writer, Science News for Students, 2013–2021

Bethany Brookshire was the staff writer at Science News for Students from 2013 to 2021. 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 is also a host on the podcast Science for the People, and a 2019-2020 MIT Knight Science Journalism Fellow.

All Stories by Bethany Brookshire

  1. woman inside wearing mask
    Neuroscience

     Lonely brains crave people like hungry brains crave food

    After hours of isolation, dopamine-producing cells in the brain fire up in response to pictures of humans, showing our social side runs deep.
  2. Tuatara
    Animals

     ‘Phallacy’ deflates myths about the penises of the animal kingdom

    By touring nature’s many penises, Phallacy author Emily Willingham puts the human organ in its place.
  3. Teacher reads to children
    Health & Medicine

     Five big questions about when and how to open schools amid COVID-19

    Researchers weigh in on how to get children back into classrooms in a low-risk way.
  4. Student looking into a microscope
    Science & Society

     College biology textbooks still portray a world of white scientists

    Despite recent efforts to include more women and people of color, it will be decades — or even centuries — before textbooks reflect student diversity.
  5. Animals

     The ‘ratpocalypse’ isn’t nigh, according to service call data

    A new study shows that rat-related reports in New York City went down during COVID-19 lockdowns compared with previous years during March and April.
  6. Two yellow labs
    Animals

     Calculating a dog’s age in human years is harder than you think

    People generally convert a dog’s age to human years by multiplying its age by seven. But a new study shows the math is way more complex.
  7. stock image of a hypothetical coronavirus vaccine
    Health & Medicine

     How making a COVID-19 vaccine confronts thorny ethical issues

    COVID-19 vaccines will face plenty of ethical questions. Concerns arise long before anything is loaded into a syringe.
  8. lab mice
    Science & Society

     Biomedical studies are including more female subjects (finally)

    In 2019, 49 percent of biomedical research articles had both male and female subjects, almost double the percentage a decade ago.
  9. coyote walking up stairs in a park
    Animals

     5 reasons you might be seeing more wildlife during the COVID-19 pandemic

    From rats and coyotes in the streets to birds in the trees, people are noticing more animals than ever during the time of the coronavirus.
  10. bubble chamber
    Physics

    50 years ago, Fermilab turned to bubbles

    The National Accelerator Laboratory, now called Fermilab, used to have a bubble chamber to study particles. Today, most bubble chambers have gone flat.
  11. male mice in cages in a lab setting
    Neuroscience

    Female rats face sex bias too

    In neurobiological studies, male lab animals tend to outnumber females, which are considered too hormonal. Scientists say it’s time for that myth to go.
  12. women in medical school
    Science & Society

     Medical student evaluations appear riddled with racial and gender biases

    Women and minorities are more frequently described by personality in medical student evaluations, but men are described by their skills, a study says.