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.
Brooke Borel
Science writer, journalist, author.
From this contributor
Of mice and women
A new government mandate requires researchers to include females in their animal studies — or explain why they don't. What will this mean for autism research?
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Gene-activity map of developing brain reveals new clues about autism’s sex bias
Boys and girls may be vulnerable to different genetic changes, which could help explain why the condition is more common in boys despite linked variants appearing more often in girls.
Gene-activity map of developing brain reveals new clues about autism’s sex bias
Boys and girls may be vulnerable to different genetic changes, which could help explain why the condition is more common in boys despite linked variants appearing more often in girls.
By
Giorgia Guglielmi
16 October 2025 | 6 min listen
Engrams in amygdala lean on astrocytes to solidify memories
Disrupting the astrocyte-neuronal dynamic in mice destabilizes their memory of fear conditioning.
Engrams in amygdala lean on astrocytes to solidify memories
Disrupting the astrocyte-neuronal dynamic in mice destabilizes their memory of fear conditioning.
By
Lauren Schneider
15 October 2025 | 6 min listen
Parsing phenotypes in people with shared autism-linked variants; and more
Here is a roundup of autism-related news and research spotted around the web for the week of 13 October.
Parsing phenotypes in people with shared autism-linked variants; and more
Here is a roundup of autism-related news and research spotted around the web for the week of 13 October.
By
Jill Adams
14 October 2025 | 2 min read