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. Animals

    Improbable ‘black swan’ events can devastate animal populations

    Conservation managers should take a note from the world of investments and pay attention to “black swan” events, a new study posits.

  2. Animals

    Camera trap catches a badger burying a cow

    Badgers are known to bury small animals to save them for future eating. Now researchers have caught them caching something much bigger: young cows.

  3. Animals

    De-extinction probably isn’t worth it

    Diverting money to resurrecting extinct creatures could put those still on Earth at risk.

  4. Environment

    Most fish turned into fishmeal are species that we could be eating

    Millions of tons of food-grade fish are turned into fishmeal for aquaculture and agriculture.

  5. Animals

    The animal guide to finding love

    Learn to dance, keep an eye on your competition, bring a gift: Animals have some practical advice for finding a mate.

  6. Animals

    A diet of corn turns wild hamsters into cannibals

    Female European hamsters fed a diet of corn eat their young — alive. They may be suffering from something similar to the human disease pellagra.

  7. Life

    A message to rock climbers: Be kind to nature

    Scientists are only just starting to figure out the impacts that the sport of rock climbing is having on cliff ecosystems.

  8. Animals

    World’s largest reindeer population may fall victim to climate change

    Climate change and wolves are driving down the reindeer population in Russia’s Taimyr population.

  9. Animals

    Chimps look at behinds the way we look at faces

    Humans demonstrate something called the inversion effect when gazing at faces. Chimpanzees do this too — when looking at other chimps’ butts.

  10. Animals

    Why a mountain goat is a better climber than you

    For the first time, scientists have analyzed how a mountain goat climbs a cliff. Big muscles in the shoulder and neck help a lot, they find.

  11. Oceans

    Coral die-off in Great Barrier Reef reaches record levels

    Bleaching has killed more than two-thirds of corals in some parts of the Great Barrier Reef, scientists have confirmed.

  12. Animals

    Now there are two bedbug species in the United States

    The tropical bedbug hadn’t been seen in Florida for decades. Now scientists have confirmed it has either resurfaced or returned.