Laura Sanders

Laura Sanders

Senior Writer, Neuroscience

Laura Sanders reports on neuroscience for Science News. She wrote Growth Curve, a blog about the science of raising kids, from 2013 to 2019 and continues to write about child development and parenting from time to time. She earned her Ph.D. in molecular biology from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, where she studied the nerve cells that compel a fruit fly to perform a dazzling mating dance. Convinced that she was missing some exciting science somewhere, Laura turned her eye toward writing about brains in all shapes and forms. She holds undergraduate degrees in creative writing and biology from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, where she was a National Merit Scholar. Growth Curve, her 2012 series on consciousness and her 2013 article on the dearth of psychiatric drugs have received awards recognizing editorial excellence.

All Stories by Laura Sanders

  1. Physics

    Light can generate lift

    Researchers create a lightfoil that can push small objects perpendicularly.

  2. Chemistry

    Snot has the power to alter scents

    Enzymes in mice's nasal mucus can alter certain odors before the nose can detect them, a new study finds.

  3. Health & Medicine

    A few stray hairs

    Brain regions that sense the world can also flick a whisker, research in mice shows, suggesting that the organ’s division of labor is not so clear-cut.

  4. Health & Medicine

    Jet lag makes hamsters dumb

    A new study highlights the perils of shifting time zones.

  5. Health & Medicine

    Flick of a whisker can prevent stroke damage in rats

    A new study in animals suggests sensory stimulation could potentially provide a nondrug method for protecting human patients.

  6. Health & Medicine

    Pain-free pianists use their backs

    Pianists who use smaller arm and finger muscles are more prone to injury than players who activate their back and neck muscles.

  7. Health & Medicine

    Cocaine trumps food for female rats

    A study in rats finds that males prefer food over cocaine while females prefer the drug, a step toward better understanding of sex differences in addiction.

  8. Health & Medicine

    A new way for blind mice to see

    A new type of prosthetic eye can analyze patterns of cell activity to reproduce images similar to those produced in normal vision.

  9. Quantum weirdness

    Here are some key concepts in quantum mechanics experiments — and how those concepts play out in the real world.

  10. Quantum Physics

    Everyday Entanglement

    Physicists are taking quantum weirdness out of the lab.

  11. Physics

    Entanglement loophole closed

    A long-distance experiment rejects a challenge to quantum physics.

  12. Health & Medicine

    The fingers don’t lie

    The brain has at least two copy editors, typing experiments show.