Sarah Zielinski

Sarah Zielinski

Editor, Print at Science News Explores

Sarah Zielinski wanted to be a marine biologist when she was growing up, but after graduating from Cornell University with a B.A. in biology, and a stint at the National Science Foundation, she realized that she didn’t want to spend her life studying just one area of science — she wanted to learn about it all and share that knowledge with the public. In 2004, she received an M.A. in journalism from New York University’s Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program and began a career in science journalism. She worked as a science writer and editor at the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, the American Geophysical Union’s newspaper Eos and Smithsonian magazine before becoming a freelancer. During that time, she started her blog, Wild Things, and moved it to Science News magazine, and then became an editor for and frequent contributor to Science News Explores. Her work has also appeared in Slate, Science, Scientific AmericanDiscover and National Geographic News. She is the winner of the DCSWA 2010 Science News Brief Award and editor of the winner of the Gold Award for Children’s Science News in the 2015 AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Awards, “Where will lightning strike?” published in Science News Explores. In 2005, she was a Marine Biological Laboratory Science Journalism Fellow.

All Stories by Sarah Zielinski

  1. Animals

    Chimps raised among humans may have problems as adults

    Chimpanzees taken away from their mothers and raised to be pets or entertainers have problems relating to other chimps later in life.

  2. Animals

    Mama deer respond to the cries of human babies

    Deer mothers approached a speaker playing distress calls of young mammals when the frequency fell into the same range as fawns.

  3. Animals

    Rhinoceros beetle’s horn shape reflects fighting style

    The elaborate horns of rhinoceros beetles vary in subtle ways that allow each species to handle the stress and strain of its specific style of battle.

  4. Plants

    Helping trees adapt to climate change possible but a huge task

    A new study finds that it would be possible to assist the migration of trees and help them adapt to climate change, but the scale of such a project would be massive.

  5. Animals

    A brief history of animal death in space

    The Russian “sexy space geckos” join a long list of creatures that have died after humans sent them into space.

  6. Animals

    Ducks may like water, but they don’t use it to navigate

    Scientists tracking ducks in Illinois with radar found that the waterfowl didn’t bother using a river to navigate their way south.

  7. Animals

    Spiders get bigger in the big city

    City-living golden orb-weaving spiders tend to be bigger than those that live in the countryside, a new study finds.

  8. Animals

    Magpies don’t like shiny things

    Magpies’ reputation as thieving birds that will steal shiny objects is all wrong, a new study finds.

  9. Animals

    These lizards may be able to learn from each other

    An experiment with skinks provides the first evidence of social learning in lizards.

  10. Animals

    Zebra finches go mad with mercury, and other animal updates

    Mercury exposure makes zebra finches bold and hyperactive, and additional research from the 2014 Animal Behavior Society Meeting.

  11. Animals

    Aboriginal lizard hunting boosts kangaroo numbers

    An aboriginal technique for hunting lizards with fire in Western Australia feeds wallaroo populations.

  12. Animals

    New dolphin species gets a name

    A species of humpback dolphin from Australia has now received its proper name.