Helen Thompson

Helen Thompson

Associate Digital Editor

Helen Thompson is the associate digital editor at Science News. She helps manage the website, makes videos, builds interactives, 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. Herculaneum scroll
    Archaeology

    Scrolls preserved in Vesuvius eruption read with X-rays

    A technique called X-ray phase contrast tomography allowed scientists to read burnt scrolls from a library destroyed by the 79 A.D. eruption of Vesuvius.

  2. Weddell seal
    Animals

    Diving marine mammals take deep prey plunges to heart

    In spite of their diving prowess, Weddell seals and bottlenosed dolphins experience irregular heart rates when they venture beyond 200 meters under the sea.

  3. Jawed fish tree
    Life

    Fossilized fish skull shakes up the evolutionary history of jaws

    Analysis of a 415-million-year-old fossilized fish skull suggest that the earliest jawed vertebrates probably looked a lot like modern bony fish.