McKenzie Prillaman

Staff Writer

McKenzie Prillaman is a science and health journalist based in Washington, DC, who interned at Science News in spring 2023. She holds a degree in neuroscience from the University of Virginia and studied adolescent nicotine dependence at the National Institute on Drug Abuse. After figuring out she’d rather explain scientific research than conduct it, she worked at the American Association for the Advancement of Science and then earned a master’s degree in science communication from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her work has appeared in Nature, Scientific American, The Cancer Letter and The Mercury News, among other publications.

All Stories by McKenzie Prillaman

  1. Animals

    A fungus named after Sir David Attenborough zombifies cave spiders

    The new fungus species Gibellula attenboroughii forces reclusive cave spiders to exposed areas, likely to benefit spore dispersal.

  2. Animals

    Cuttlefish ink may overwhelm sharks’ sense of smell

    The main component of common cuttlefish ink — melanin — strongly sticks to shark smell sensors, possibly explaining why the predators avoid ink.

  3. Health & Medicine

    A second version of bird flu is infecting cows. What does that mean?

    While the risk to humans of exposure from cows or milk remains low, this new flu spillover from birds into cows raises the need for continued surveillance.

  4. Animals

    Cricket frogs belly flop their way across water

    Cricket frogs were once thought to hop on the water’s surface. They actually leap in and out of the water in a form of locomotion called porpoising.

  5. Animals

    Fever’s link with a key kind of immunity is surprisingly ancient

    When sick, Nile tilapia seek warmer water. That behavioral fever triggers a specialized immune response, hinting the connection evolved long ago.

  6. Health & Medicine

    What bird flu experts are watching for in 2025

    Since early 2024, the U.S. has logged 66 human cases of H5N1. Scientists are keeping a watchful eye on the virus’s spread as we enter a new year.

  7. Health & Medicine

    Obesity needs a new definition beyond BMI, health experts argue

    Experts say clinical obesity is more than a high BMI and instead is a disease in which excess body fat harms tissues, organs or doing daily activities.

  8. Health & Medicine

    What to know about the first bird flu–related death in the U.S.

    H5N1 has infected 66 people in the United States since early 2024, mostly causing mild illness. A Louisiana man was the first to get severely sick.

  9. Health & Medicine

    AI helps doctors detect more breast cancer in the largest real-world study

    AI is as good as clinicians at interpreting mammograms, a cancer study with nearly 500,000 participants in Germany suggests.

  10. Neuroscience

    The unique neural wiring of the human hippocampus may maximize memory

    Living tissue from the memory centers of people’s brains reveals sparse nerve cell connections that provide strong, reliable signaling between cells.

  11. Genetics

    Neandertal genes in people today came from hook-ups around 47,000 years ago

    Most present-day humans carry a small amount of Neandertal DNA that can be traced back to a single period of interbreeding, two genetic analyses find.

  12. Animals

    Eavesdropping on fish could help us keep better tabs on underwater worlds

    Scientists are on a quest to log all the sounds of fish communication. The result could lead to better monitoring of ecosystems and fish behavior.