photo of Ashley Yeager

Ashley Yeager

Associate News Editor

Ashley Yeager is the associate news editor at Science News. Previously, she worked at The Scientist, where she was an associate editor for nearly three years. She has also worked as a freelance editor and writer, and as a writer at the Simons Foundation, Duke University and the W.M. Keck Observatory. She was the web producer for Science News from 2013 to 2015, and was an intern at the magazine in the summer of 2008. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and a master’s degree in science writing from MIT. Her book, Bright Galaxies, Dark Matter and Beyond, on the life of astronomer Vera Rubin, will be published by MIT Press in August.

All Stories by Ashley Yeager

  1. Physics

    How a violin’s f-holes influence its sound

    F-shaped holes move air faster, allowing classic violins to put out more powerful sounds at lower frequencies than their ancestors, a new study shows.

  2. Neuroscience

    With good timing, experiences can rewire old brains

    New experiences can rewire old brains — but the timing has to be just right.

  3. Neuroscience

    Newly identified brain circuit could be target for treating obesity

    In mice, specific nerve cells control compulsive sugar consumption, but not normal feeding, hinting at a new therapeutic target for treating obesity.

  4. Neuroscience

    Immune system may remember and adapt to stress

    Mice without immune systems who receive stressed immune cells are less anxious and more social, suggesting that the immune system can adapt to stress.

  5. Neuroscience

    Brain’s protective barrier gets leakier with age

    Aging influences the breakdown of the blood-brain barrier, which may contribute to learning and memory problems later in life.

  6. Neuroscience

    Newly identified brain circuit hints at how fear memories are made

    A newfound set of brain connections appears to control fear memories, a finding that may lead to a better understanding of PTSD and other anxiety disorders.

  7. Health & Medicine

    What’s in a nap? For babies, it may make long-lasting memories

    Taking naps after learning seems to help babies less than a year old make memories and keep them, for about a day anyway.

  8. Neuroscience

    Brain’s plumbing may knock out blood test for brain injury

    The brain's waste-removal system may complicate scientists' attempts to create a blood test to diagnose traumatic brain injury.

  9. Neuroscience

    Protectors of our nervous system play a role in pain

    PET and MRI brain scans show that the cells that protect our central nervous system also play a role in chronic pain.

  10. Neuroscience

    Soft brain implant helps paralyzed rats walk again

    Scientists have made a soft, flexible electrical implant that mimics the elasticity of the brain and spine's protective tissue.

  11. Neuroscience

    PET scans hint at brain’s reorganization after injury

    Imaging monkeys’ brains after strokelike injury is giving scientists clues to how neurons reorganize themselves so the animals can move again.

  12. Health & Medicine

    HPV vaccination not linked to multiple sclerosis

    Getting vaccinated against human papillomavirus, or HPV, is not associated with developing multiple sclerosis or similar diseases, a new study shows.