Headshot of Jill Adams.

Jill Adams

Contributing writer

Jill U. Adams is a freelance science journalist based in Albany, New York. She covers health, mental health and biomedical research for such publications as The Transmitter, The Washington Post, Scientific American, Undark and The Scientist. She has a Ph.D. in pharmacology from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.

From this contributor

Scans of brains using the OPM-MEG method.
Spectrum

Language development during the first 1,000 days; and more

By Jill Adams
10 November 2026 | 2 min read
Research image showing copy number variants in prenatal cortical neurons.
Spectrum

Prenatal pruning of neurons with copy number variants; and more

By Jill Adams
3 November 2026 | 2 min read
Protein asparagine synthetase in hippocampus neurons.
Spectrum

Behavioral phenomics in zebrafish; and more

By Jill Adams
27 October 2026 | 2 min read
Illustration of an open journal featuring lines of text and small illustrations of eyes and mouths.
Spectrum

COVID-19 and influenza effects in pregnancy; and more

By Jill Adams
20 October 2026 | 2 min read
Research image of resting-state functional MRI.
Spectrum

Acetaminophen effects on developing brain organoids; and more

By Jill Adams
13 October 2026 | 1 min read

Explore more from The Transmitter

Clockwise: lab mouse, zebrafish, octopus, rat pushing a cube, nematodes, fruit fly.
Animal models

The term ‘model organism’ should be reserved for biological systems

By referring to artificial neural networks as model organisms, we run the risk of distorting funding priorities and disregard the explanatory power of a shared evolutionary history across biological organisms.

By Marc Coutanche
13 November 2026 | 6 min read
Basal ganglia

New phase of BRAIN Initiative spawns basal ganglia ‘parts list’

With a standardized cell naming system and infrastructure for data collection and analysis, the basal ganglia project sets the stage for a whole-brain primate atlas.

By Claudia López Lloreda
12 November 2026 | 1 min watch
Research image showing genes containing microexons in mice.
Spectrum

Machine-learning model spots autism-linked variants that scramble splicing

The model provides a way to investigate genetic variation in regions of the genome whose functions have been difficult to interpret.

By Giorgia Guglielmi
12 November 2026 | 4 min read