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 American, Discover 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. Plants

    Kleptoplast

    A cellular part such as a light-harvesting chloroplast that an organism takes from algae it has eaten.

  2. Animals

    A year of rediscovered species

    Thousands of species go extinct each year, but at least a few are found after many years of being lost.

  3. Animals

    African frog conceals itself with chemicals

    Two small peptides keep the West African savanna frog from being stung by ants.

  4. Animals

    Penguin huddles move like traffic jams

    When one emperor penguin takes a step, he sets off a wave of movement.

  5. Animals

    New species of tapir found in the Amazon

    A sixth species of the large, snouted mammal was hiding in plain sight, well known by indigenous people.

  6. Animals

    Protecting wildlife with legal hunting is a complicated issue

    Trophy hunting is legal in some African nations, but making the system work can be difficult, especially when data is lacking on how many animals exist.

  7. Animals

    Before a fight, chameleons engage in colorful communication

    Before one chameleon rumbles with another, he’ll display his side and change his stripes, indicating his willingness to fight.

  8. Animals

    Bedbugs survive cold, but not for too long

    Some studies have indicated that cold might kill bedbugs after as little as one hour of exposure. But new research finds that’s not the case.

  9. Animals

    Leaping land fish avoids predators by blending in

    The Pacific leaping blenny avoids being eaten by predators by blending into its rocky habitat.

  10. Animals

    Grizzly bears get stressed from salmon decline

    Grizzlies in coastal British Columbia bulk up on salmon in the fall, but they experience stress when the fish are scarce.

  11. Animals

    Dazzle camouflage may fool a locust

    The bold zig-zag patterns that adorned naval ships during the world wars also appear in nature and may bewilder locusts, a new study suggests.

  12. Animals

    DNA study reveals new wild cat species in Brazil

    A new small cat species, Leopardus guttulus, was discovered in Brazil, hiding in plain sight. The oncilla, researchers say, is really two kinds of cat.