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. Health & Medicine

    Fungi aid immune system’s fight

    Scientists have discovered that white button mushrooms, the plain Janes of edible fungi, are actually quite stimulating. Their powder seems to jump-start the immune response of cells taken from mice, a new study finds. MUSHROOM MIGHT. Adding white button–mushroom powder to incubating immune system cells from mice revved up the cells’ development and their response […]

  2. Anthropology

    Digging that Maya blue

    The unusual pigment Maya blue was probably made over an incense fire as part of a ceremony honoring the rain god Chaak, a new analysis of a pot reveals.

  3. Animals

    Great spots for white sharks

    The great white sharks of the eastern Pacific may be genetically isolated from the world's other white sharks, and tagging data reveal that the animals stick to specific routes and destinations.

  4. Earth

    Dioxin’s long reach

    Breast development is delayed in teenage girls who were exposed to the organic pollutant dioxin in the womb and in their mothers' breast milk.

  5. Earth

    Defining Toxic: Federal agencies look to cells, not animals, for chemical testing

    Government scientists are collaborating to shift the testing of potentially toxic chemicals away from animals to methods that use high-speed automated robots, which should generate data relevant to humans faster and more cheaply than current methods.

  6. On Top of Words: Spatial language spurs kids’ reasoning skills

    Recent studies of spatial reasoning in deaf children support the notion that language helps people encode certain concepts and suggest that using spatial language with children may boost overall reasoning skills.

  7. Jelly Propulsion

    Jellyfish have been swimming the seas for at least 550 million years, and research is now revealing how the challenges of moving in fluid have shaped the creatures' evolution.

  8. Animals

    Whales Drink Sounds: Hearing may use an ancient path

    Sounds can travel to a whale's ears through its throat, an acoustic pathway that might be ancient in the whale lineage.

  9. Earth

    Early dioxin exposure hinders sperm later

    Dioxin exposure at an early age affects sperm quality later in life.

  10. Humans

    . . . And the Envelope, Please: Forty outstanding young scientists move to final round of competition

    Forty outstanding young scientists will travel to Washington, D.C., for the final round of the 2008 Intel Science Talent Search.

  11. Plants

    Traveling tubers

    Potato varieties from Chile arrived in Europe several years before the blights of the mid-1800s, a new analysis of DNA from old plant collections reveals.

  12. Health & Medicine

    Tasty stalks

    Celery's tasteless compounds make chicken soup taste better.