Brooke Borel

Science writer, journalist, author.

Brooke Borel is a science writer, journalist, and author. She’s a contributing editor at Popular Science and she has also written for the Atlantic, Slate, and PBS’s NOVA Next, among others. Her first book, Infested: How the Bed Bug Infiltrated Our Bedrooms and Took Over the World published in 2015.

From this contributor

Spectrum from The Transmitter.
Spectrum

Of mice and women

By Brooke Borel
19 October 2015 | 19 min read

Explore more from The Transmitter

Violet-stained neurons in a serial transverse section from an embryonic spiny dogfish, a bottom-dwelling shark.
Evolution

Digitization of ‘breathtaking’ neuroanatomy slide collection offers untapped research gold mine

Thousands of histological sections of vertebrate brains—including from spiny dogfish, turtles and more—are newly available online.

By Shaena Montanari
22 January 2025 | 3 min read
Research image of brain organoids with astroglia formation represented in green.
Spectrum

Personalized medicine; astroglia organoids; fast track for fragile X drug

Here is a roundup of autism-related news and research spotted around the web for the week of 20 January.

By Jill Adams
21 January 2025 | 2 min read
Illustration of clinicians, a pill bottle, a speech bubble and shadowy figures.
Addiction

Neuroscientists need to do better at explaining basic mental health research

The knowledge gap between scientists, health-care professionals, policymakers and people with mental health conditions is growing, slowing the translation of basic science to new treatments. Like lawyers learning to present a case to the court, scientists should learn to educate nonscientists about their findings.

By Omar Abubaker, Karla Kaun, Eric J. Nestler
21 January 2025 | 7 min read