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. Animals

    Dolphins appear to perceive magnetic fields

    Bottlenose dolphins take less time to start exploring a magnetized block, suggesting they can sense magnetic fields.

  2. Animals

    Videos hint at why tree bats may die at wind turbines

    Using heat-sensitive cameras, scientists were able to watch how tree bats interact with wind turbines and determine what behaviors may lead to their deaths.

  3. Paleontology

    Strange fossils from China hint at early multicellular life

    New fossils of strange, oblong organisms that lived 600 million years ago are giving scientists hints to how living things may have moved from being single- to multi-celled.

  4. Health & Medicine

    Growth in diabetes diagnoses starting to slow in U.S.

    The percentage of the population diagnosed with diabetes and the rate of new cases per year rose sharply between 1990 and 2008 but haven't grown quite as quickly between 2008 and 2012.

  5. Planetary Science

    MAVEN spacecraft set to explore Martian atmosphere

    The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, or MAVEN, spacecraft entered into orbit around the Red Planet on September 21.

  6. Genetics

    Genetic data rewrite the prehistory of Europe

    The genomes of nine ancient and 2,345 living humans have changed the story of modern Europeans' origins.

  7. Math

    Sharks’ hunting paths may not be driven by math

    Penguins, tuna, sharks and other marine hunters have been shown to use math to find food. But simulations suggest the behavior is a result of rough water, not complex calculation.

  8. Health & Medicine

    Rounder waists show obesity continues to rise

    The waistlines of U.S. adults continue to expand, running counter to a report that obesity, based on body mass index, did not increase substantially in the past decade.

  9. Paleontology

    Fossil beetles show earliest signs of active parenting

    Ancient beetles that thrived off of dead and decaying flesh may have been among the first creatures to actively care for their young.

  10. Planetary Science

    Spot on comet chosen for Rosetta mission lander

    Philae, the Rosetta mission lander, will attempt to land on a spot called site J on comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko.

  11. Planetary Science

    Moon’s farside hints at violent volcanic explosions

    The spread of the element thorium in the moon's Compton-Belkovich region suggests that silica volcanoes there once had violent explosions.

  12. Quantum Physics

    Artificial atom probes sound’s quantum side

    Scientists have designed an artificial atom to emit sound that is divided into quantum particles.