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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. Matheronodon provincialis
    Paleontology

    New dinosaur sported a curious set of chompers

    Matheronodon provincialis, a newly described dinosaur, munched on tough plants with big scissors for teeth.

  2. Christina Warinner
    Anthropology

    Christina Warinner uncovers ancient tales in dental plaque

    Molecular biologist Christina Warinner studies calculus, or fossilized dental plaque, which contains a trove of genetic clues to past human diet and disease.

  3. ichthyosaur illustration
    Paleontology

    A baby ichthyosaur’s last meal revealed

    A new look at an old fossil shows that some species of baby ichthyosaurs may have dined on squid.

  4. ichthyosaur illustration
    Paleontology

    A baby ichthyosaur’s last meal revealed

    A new look at an old fossil shows that some species of baby ichthyosaurs may have dined on squid.

  5. common bedbugs
    Animals

    Bedbugs may be into dirty laundry

    When humans aren’t around, bedbugs go for the next best thing: smelly human laundry.

  6. barn owl
    Animals

    Old barn owls aren’t hard of hearing

    A new study suggests that older barn owls hear just as well as younger ones.

  7. Cassini at Saturn
    Planetary Science

    The Cassini probe dies tomorrow. Here’s how to follow its end

    Science News is on the scene at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory for the big finish of the Cassini mission to Saturn.

  8. Myotis myotis bat
    Animals

    Why bats crash into windows

    Smooth, vertical surfaces may be blind spots for bats and cause some animals to face-plant, study suggests.

  9. Myotis myotis bat
    Animals

    Why bats crash into windows

    Smooth, vertical surfaces may be blind spots for bats and cause some animals to face-plant, study suggests.

  10. lead pipes
    Archaeology

    Ancient mud documents the legacy of Rome’s lead pipes

    Researchers used lead levels in Rome’s ancient harbors to track lead pipe use and urbanization.

  11. SN staff watching eclipse
    Astronomy

    Here’s what the Science News family did for the eclipse

    On August 21, 2017, the path of a total solar eclipse went coast to coast across the United States. Here are our dispatches.

  12. giant larvacean
    Animals

    Giant larvaceans could be ferrying ocean plastic to the seafloor

    Giant larvaceans could mistakenly capture microplastics, in addition to food, in their mucus houses and transfer them to the seafloor in their feces.