Rachel Ehrenberg

Previously the interdisciplinary sciences and chemistry reporter and author of the Culture Beaker blog, Rachel has written about new explosives, the perils and promise of 3-D printing and how to detect corruption in networks of email correspondence. Rachel was a 2013-2014 Knight Science Journalism fellow at MIT. She has degrees in botany and political science from the University of Vermont and a master’s in evolutionary biology from the University of Michigan. She graduated from the science writing program at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

All Stories by Rachel Ehrenberg

  1. Life

    Seeing, feeling have something in common

    A protein needed for eye development is also involved in detecting vibrations.

  2. Humans

    Numbers warn of looming collapses

    Mathematical tools help researchers predict when systems are about to change dramatically.

  3. Chemistry

    Taste of fructose revs up metabolism

    The pancreas pumps more insulin in response to the sugar, potentially throwing the body’s energy-storage machinery out of whack.

  4. Humans

    Arsenic-based life finding fails follow-up

    Tests see no evidence to confirm a bold 2010 claim that some microbes can incorporate the normally toxic element into their cellular machinery.

  5. Chemistry

    Measuring what makes a medicine

    A new way to evaluate molecules offers a finer-grained picture of which ones could become drugs.

  6. Humans

    Election night numbers can signal fraud

    Wealth of high-turnout blowouts in Russia’s 2011 parliamentary contest strongly suggests ballot stuffing, an analysis concludes.

  7. Science & Society

    In many fields of science, it’s always the year of the rat

  8. Humans

    Seaweed study fuels bioenergy enthusiasm

    Munched by a manipulated microbe, ocean algae readily yield ethanol.

  9. The Digital Camera Revolution

    Instead of imitating film counterparts, new technologies work with light in creative ways.

  10. Tech

    Twitter kept up with Haiti cholera outbreak

    Epidemiologists find that social media can be used to track disease outbreaks as they happen, even in countries with little infrastructure.

  11. Life

    Eight-legged evolution exploits editing

    Octopuses adapt to water temperature with tweaks to how genes are copied, not DNA itself.

  12. Life

    Measuring the leap of a lizard

    Creatures use their tails to balance during complex maneuvers.