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. Life

    Cheetahs, but not wild dogs, manage to live with lions

    One conservation tenet says that cheetahs can’t survive when lions are around, but it’s wild dogs that disappeared in one lion-dense area of the Serengeti.

  2. Animals

    Little thylacine had a big bite

    A reconstruction of the skull of a thylacine, an extinct, fox-sized Australian marsupial, reveals that the animal could have eaten prey much larger than itself.

  3. Animals

    How a chimp goes mattress hunting

    Chimpanzees prefer firm beds made of ironwood, a new study finds.

  4. Oceans

    The surprising life of a piece of sunken wood

    Timber and trees that wash out to sea and sink to the bottom of the ocean hold a diverse community of organisms.

  5. Animals

    Lionfish grow wary after culling

    Efforts to control invasive lionfish could make them more difficult to catch.

  6. Animals

    Small sperm whale species share a diet

    Dwarf and pygmy species of sperm whales overlap in what they eat, and that could be a problem as the food web changes around them.

  7. Animals

    Young vervet monkeys look to mom when learning

    Among vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus aethiops), behaviors are passed from mother to child, a new study finds.

  8. Animals

    Pandas enjoy the sweet life

    Unlike many of their carnivore relatives, bamboo-loving pandas can taste natural, and some artificial, sugars.

  9. Animals

    As their homes warm, salamanders shrink

    Many species of salamanders respond to climate change by getting smaller.

  10. Animals

    Skewed gender ratios turn bird world into a soap opera

    Infidelity, divorce and polygamy become more common among birds when one sex is rarer and has more choice in partners.

  11. Animals

    Mama frog’s care includes a gift of poison

    Strawberry poison frog tadpoles get defensive chemicals through unfertilized, nutritious eggs provided by mom.

  12. Animals

    How to count a sea turtle

    Trends, not absolute numbers, matter more when it comes to conservation efforts for sea turtles.