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 AmericanDiscover 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

    Pollinators are usually safe from a Venus flytrap

    A first-ever look at what pollinates the carnivorous Venus flytrap finds little overlap between pollinators and prey.

  2. Animals

    Tiny trackers reveal the secret lives of young sea turtles

    Young loggerhead turtles can end up in very different places in the Atlantic depending on when they hatch.

  3. Animals

    Coconut crabs are a bird’s worst nightmare

    A biologist witnesses a coconut crab taking out a blue-footed booby and documents the balance of the animals in an Indian Ocean archipelago.

  4. Animals

    Alligators eat sharks — and a whole lot more

    Alligators aren’t just freshwater creatures. They swim to salty waters and back, munching on plenty of foods along the way.

  5. Animals

    Invasive earthworms may be taking a toll on sugar maples

    Sugar maple trees in the Upper Great Lakes region are more likely to have dying branches when there are signs of an earthworm invasion, a new study finds.

  6. Animals

    These spiders crossed an ocean to get to Australia

    The nearest relatives of an Australian trapdoor spider live in Africa. They crossed the Indian Ocean to get to Australia, a new study suggests.

  7. Animals

    One creature’s meal is another’s pain in the butt

    Kelp and dolphin gulls in Patagonia have found a new food source. But they accidentally injure fur seal pups to get it.

  8. Animals

    Fire ants build towers with three simple rules

    Fire ants use the same set of simple rules to produce static rafts and perpetually moving towers.

  9. Animals

    Drowned wildebeests can feed a river ecosystem for years

    Only a small percentage of wildebeests drown as they cross the Mara River, but they provide resources for the river ecosystem for years after their deaths.

  10. Animals

    Sooty terns’ migration takes the birds into the path of hurricanes

    Sooty terns migrate south from southern Florida and back again. The track sometimes takes the birds into the path of hurricanes, a new study finds.

  11. Animals

    Why create a model of mammal defecation? Because everyone poops

    Mammals that defecate in the same fashion as humans all excrete waste within the same time frame, no matter their size, a new study finds.

  12. Animals

    How a dolphin eats an octopus without dying

    An octopus’s tentacles can kill a dolphin — or a human — when eaten alive. But wily dolphins in Australia have figured out how to do this safely.