Headshot of Lauren Schenkman.

Lauren Schenkman

Contributing writer

Lauren Schenkman is a freelance journalist. She has written for Atlas Obscura, The New York Times Magazine, Tin House, and TED Ideas. Before going freelance, she was a reporter and editor at Science. She has undergraduate degrees in physics and English and an MFA in creative writing.

 

From this contributor

Explore more from The Transmitter

Cortical organoids from the anterior (green) or posterior (red) cortex.

Polarized cortical organoids mimic the brain’s regional organization

The organoids show region-specific gene-expression changes that match those observed during fetal development.

By Holly Barker
24 September 2026 | 4 min read
Research diagram of gene expression.

Prefrontal cortex has three transcriptomic acts across human lifespan, new atlas suggests

Various genes show distinct exits and entrances with age in the open-source dataset, the largest of its kind to date.

By Siddhant Pusdekar
23 September 2026 | 5 min read

Microglia scoop out garbage from inside neurons

Through a newly identified process called skoupocytosis, neurons recruit the immune cells to remove cellular waste they find hard to deal with themselves.

By Siddhant Pusdekar
23 September 2026 | 0 min watch