Marta Zaraska


Marta Zaraska is a freelance science journalist whose work has appeared in The Washington Post, Scientific American and The Boston Globe, among other publications. She has written two literary novels and contributed to two travel books published by National Geographic. Her nonfiction book “Meathooked: The History and Science of Our 2.5-Million-Year Obsession With Meat,” was published in 2016 by Basic Books and chosen by Nature as one of “the best science picks” in March 2016.

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Illustration of birdsong, bird brain, and DNA.

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A 1992 PNAS paper showed how birdsong upregulates the expression of an immediate early gene in bird forebrains. The work revealed to Ribeiro the importance of studying molecular responses in naturalistic contexts.

By Sidarta Ribeiro
14 July 2026 | 4 min read
Illustration of an open journal featuring lines of text and small illustrations of eyes and mouths.

Major ischemic events in autistic people, and more

Here is a roundup of autism-related news and research spotted around the web for the week of 13 July.

By Jill Adams
14 July 2026 | 1 min read
Illustration of lucid dreaming.

Watching the mind build a world: Lucid dreaming as a model for generative perception

Lucid dreaming offers a rare opportunity to observe and probe perception from within.

By Magdalena Paluchowska
13 July 2026 | 8 min read