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. Humans

    Geographic profiling fights disease

    Widely used to snare serial criminals, a forensic method finds application in epidemiology.

  2. Humans

    Networks dominated by rule of the few

    Certain systems, including social hubs like Facebook, can be directed from relatively few control points.

  3. Chemistry

    Spray of zinc marks fertilization

    Embryonic development begins with an outpouring of the metal, illustrating chemistry's importance in orchestrating biological processes.

  4. Tech

    Nanotubes coming to a screen near you

    New technology promises brighter, bigger display screens that use less energy.

  5. Tech

    Robot based on cartwheeling caterpillars

    GoQBot curls itself up and takes off spinning.

  6. Chemistry

    Plants and predators pick same poison

    Zygaena caterpillars and their herbaceous hosts independently evolved an identical recipe for cyanide.

  7. Math

    Cells take on traveling salesman problem

    With neither minds nor maps- chemical-sensing immune players do well with decades-old mathematical problem, a computer simulation reveals.

  8. Humans

    Hidden dalliance revealed by X-rays

    A high-tech analysis uncovers a 19th century painter’s do-over.

  9. Humans

    Just breathing in Iraq can be hazardous

    Poor air quality is an added danger for troops, testing indicates.

  10. Humans

    Noise is what ails beaked whales

    Large-scale experiments reveal a sensitivity to sonar, apparently at lower levels than other species.

  11. Humans

    A new glimpse at the earliest Americans

    Along a stream in central Texas, archaeologists have found a campsite occupied at the tail end of the Ice Age.

  12. Life

    Computer chips wired with nerve cells

    Experiments could lead to ways of melding minds with machines.