Helen Thompson is the multimedia editor at Science News. She makes videos, creates data visuals, helps manage the website, wrangles cats and occasionally writes about things like dandelion flight and whale evolution. She has undergraduate degrees in biology and English from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, a master’s degree in science writing from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, and strong opinions about tacos. Before Science News, she wrote for Smithsonian, NPR.org, National Geographic, Nature and others.

All Stories by Helen Thompson

  1. Paleontology

    New dolphin fossil makes a splash

    A newly discovered dolphin fossil provides clues to the evolution of river dolphins in the Americas.

  2. Paleontology

    New dolphin fossil makes a splash

    A newly discovered dolphin fossil provides clues to the evolution of river dolphins in the Americas.

  3. Science & Society

    How dollhouse crime scenes schooled 1940s cops

    In the 1940s, Frances Glessner Lee’s dollhouse murder dioramas trained investigators to look at crime scenes through a scientific lens.

  4. Genetics

    How Ethiopian highlanders adapted to breathe thin air

    Lower levels of a heart protein may help Ethiopian highlanders breathe thin air, researchers report.

  5. Genetics

    Pneumonia bacteria attacks lungs with toxic weaponry

    Some strains of the bacteria that causes pneumonia splash lung cells with hydrogen peroxide to mess with DNA and kill cells, a new study suggests.

  6. Animals

    Rare fossils expand evolutionary history of sperm whales

    A pygmy fossil unearthed in Panama reveals that the organ the whales use to produce sound and echolocate shrunk over time.

  7. Animals

    Woolly mammoth DNA shows toll of low diversity

    A new sequencing analysis of two woolly mammoth genomes reveals evidence of genetic decline due to isolation and inbreeding just prior to extinction.

  8. Psychology

    To reduce stress and anxiety, make yourself invisible

    We may not be able to make people invisible, but researchers have discerned its effect on the human mind in a new study.

  9. Genetics

    Mosquito bites might be foretold in genes

    Attractiveness to mosquitoes could be inherited, twin study suggests.

  10. Planetary Science

    The moon is about as old as we thought it was

    Meteorite heat signatures pinpoint the age of the collision that created the moon — confirming many previous lunar age estimates.

  11. Life

    ‘Geographic tongue’ creates unique topography

    A condition called ‘geographic tongue’ makes mouth organ appear maplike.

  12. Planetary Science

    Atmospheric water may be giving Saturn its spots

    Planetary scientists think that water in Saturn’s atmosphere could be driving the massive storms that appear every few decades in the ringed planet’s atmosphere.