Meghan Rosen is a senior writer who reports on the life sciences for Science News. She earned a Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology with an emphasis in biotechnology from the University of California, Davis, and later graduated from the science communication program at UC Santa Cruz.
September 12, 2025 3 min read Child’s Death Shows How Measles in the Brain Can Kill Years after an Infection A child in Los Angeles County has died from a rare but always fatal brain disorder that develops years after a measles infection. Experts underscore the need for vaccination to protect the most vulnerable By…
Jaguars are known to be strong swimmers Matthias Graben/imageBROKER RF/Getty Images Camera traps show that an adult male jaguar swam at least 1.3 kilometres to an island in the reservoir of the Serra da Mesa dam in central Brazil – by far the longest recorded swim by one of these animals. In fact, it’s possible…
In the 1960s, saltwater intrusion in a southeast Louisiana swamp killed the trees and plants that lived there. Now restored with freshwater, the swamp has become the perfect place for revegetation projects — particularly because healthy swamps can serve as a speed bump to slow hurricanes. That’s one reason why the open water of Bayou…
Charlie Kirk, 31-year-old founder of the conservative nonprofit organization Turning Point USA, was shot on Wednesday while speaking outdoors at Utah Valley University. He was pronounced dead later that day. Officials say the single shot may have been fired from a nearby rooftop. On Friday morning, with a massive manhunt still underway, President Donald Trump…
Mosquitoes may not bite indiscriminately hugh sturrock/Alamy Hedonists who drink beer, don’t wash, share a bed and eschew sunscreen may be more attractive to mosquitoes – at least, that’s what a study of festivalgoers found. For their Mosquito Magnet Trial, Sara Lynn Blanken at Radboud University Medical Centre in the Netherlands and her colleagues visited…
Researchers could use quantum effects to develop new types of medical imaging inside cells themselves.
For astronomers studying dark matter, the Bullet Cluster is one of the greatest laboratories in the universe. It was discovered almost by accident, a blip of x-rays in the sky that was detected by NASA’s Einstein Observatory in 1992 and given the designation 1E 0657-56. Follow-up observations in visible light confirmed it to be a…
Social media can bombard adolescents with people to judge themselves harshly against Alys Tomlinson/Getty Images How We Grow UpMatt Richtel (Mariner Books) The true story at the start of How We Grow Up, the latest book by Pulitzer-winning journalist Matt Richtel, is chilling to read as a parent of children nearing adolescence. Elaniv was a…
NASA’s Perseverance rover on Mars NASA/JPL-Caltech Has NASA found life on Mars? In a word, no. But last year, NASA’s Perseverance rover found signs in an ancient rock that could point to life having existed on the Red Planet billions of years ago. And now we have more evidence in the form of small nodules…
