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

    Parasites help brine shrimp survive toxic waters

    When brine shrimp are infected with tapeworms, the tiny aquatic organisms survive better in warm waters and in those laced with toxic arsenic.

  2. Animals

    How killing wolves to protect livestock may backfire

    Lone wolves are more likely to prey on goats and other livestock than are wolves living in packs, a new study finds.

  3. Oceans

    Protected coral reefs may not be the ones that need protection

    A new study finds that more than half of the world’s coral reefs site within a half-hour of a human settlement. But those that are protected tend to be far away.

  4. Animals

    Tiger protection in Thailand produces results

    Despite good efforts, the goal of doubling the global tiger population by 2022 looks impossible.

  5. Animals

    Invasive toads will probably overrun Madagascar

    A new report finds that eradicating invasive Asian toads before they overtake all of Madagascar is “not currently feasible.”

  6. Animals

    Without a ban on trade in old ivory, elephant killing continues

    Samuel Wasser has been working to track down where poached ivory comes from. But to stop the killing, he says, a ban on the ivory trade is necessary.

  7. Animals

    Slow-moving nurse sharks have a metabolism to match

    The nurse shark has the slowest metabolism of any shark measured so far, a new study finds.

  8. Animals

    Africa’s poison arrow beetles are key in traditional hunting method

    In the Kalahari of Namibia, some San people still hunt with a traditional method — arrows laced with poison taken from beetle larvae.

  9. Animals

    Microbes may help bears stay healthy when fat for hibernation

    Brown bears fatten up for hibernation without suffering from weight-related problems. A new study shows that their gut microbes may help.

  10. Animals

    Purpose of zebra stripes remains a mystery

    Zebra stripes don’t help the animals disappear in the vision of predators, a new study finds.

  11. Animals

    Feral dogs take a bite out of Andean wildlife

    A survey of a remote park in Ecuador finds feral dogs are a problem for many species of native mammals.

  12. Animals

    Climate change may be deadly for snowshoe hares

    The mismatch between coat color and the landscape can be deadly for a snowshoe hare.