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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Neuronal genes SATB2 and MEF2C.

Nuclear location helps control gene activity during brain development

A study of developing human brain tissue suggests that genes switch on more strongly when they move from the nucleus’s edge toward structures that contain proteins involved in making and processing RNA.

By Giorgia Guglielmi
20 August 2026 | 4 min read
Cortical organoids.

Five-year-old human brain organoids aged on schedule

The cultured spheres typically mimic only prenatal development, but the five-year-old ones grown in Paola Arlotta’s lab acquired postnatal features.

By Claudia López Lloreda
19 August 2026 | 5 min read