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.

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Illustration of the outlines of a baby, a bee and a robot filled in with computer code-like characters.

Babies, bees and bots: On the hunt for markers of consciousness

To truly understand consciousness, we need new methods to measure it and detect it in other intelligent systems.

By Tim Bayne
30 July 2025 | 6 min read

Jennifer Prendki explains why AI needs to emulate life

Prendki describes how her work on large artificial-intelligence models shaped her view that current AI needs inspiration from living organisms.

By Paul Middlebrooks
30 July 2025 | 109 min listen
Research visualization of reverberating activity in a selection of higher-order brain areas.

Eye puffs prompt separable sensory, affective brain responses in mice, people

Post-puff brain state might not be an emotion, some researchers caution, but the protocol provides a cross-species approach to study emotions.

By Calli McMurray
29 July 2025 | 8 min listen