Stories by Meghan Bartels

Meghan Bartels is a science journalist based in New York City. She joined Scientific American in 2023 and is now a senior reporter there. Previously, she spent more than four years as a writer and editor at Space.com, as well as nearly a year as a science reporter at Newsweek, where she focused on space and Earth science. Her writing has also appeared in Audubon, Nautilus, Astronomy and Smithsonian, among other publications. She attended Georgetown University and earned a master’s degree in journalism at New York University’s Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program.

An adult humpback whale launching out of the ocean in a full breach with sea water cascading off its body.

AnimalsFebruary 20, 2026

Listen to the oldest known recording of a whale

Researchers have rediscovered a 77-year-old recording of a haunting song that now has been determined to have come from a humpback whale

Meghan Bartels

A paleontological illustration showing a large lizard-like animal with a tall sail on its back appearing to vomit. Also pictured are two smaller reptiles, one bright blue and the other a greenish brown.

PaleontologyFebruary 18, 2026

This fossilized vomit is older than the dinosaurs

Vomit is gross—but 290-million-year-old vomit is a scientific marvel

Meghan Bartels

GIF showing several horses galloping majestically across a meadow.

AnimalsFebruary 16, 2026

Celebrate the Year of the Horse with equine science

According to the Chinese zodiac, 2026 is the Year of the Horse—so saddle up for some equine science

Meghan Bartels

Islands coated in white material with many birds swirling around.

ArchaeologyFebruary 11, 2026

This ancient South American kingdom ran on bird poop

Maize farmers in Peru’s Chincha Valley were fertilizing their crops with seabird poop as early as the year 1250

Meghan Bartels

An illustration of measles virus particles attacking neurons.

MeaslesFebruary 5, 2026

Brain swelling is one of measles’ nastiest side effects, and it’s happening in South Carolina

The South Carolina measles outbreak has triggered rare but serious brain swelling in some children

Meghan Bartels

Two women with bows in their hair seen from behind in a photograph from the 1960s.

PollutionFebruary 2, 2026

A century of hair clippings show lead exposure rates have plummeted

There’s no safe level of exposure to lead—but a small, strange study shows we’ve made incredible progress in recent decades

Meghan Bartels

A man walking carefully on an icy sidewalk.

WeatherJanuary 28, 2026

To safely navigate icy sidewalks, walk like a penguin

Icy weather brings a serious risk of falls. Here’s how to stay safe

Meghan Bartels

SpacecraftJanuary 28, 2026

40 years after Challenger disaster, NASA faces safety fears on Artemis II

Many of the team behind NASA’s Artemis II mission were children 40 years ago, when the space shuttle Challenger disaster reshaped spaceflight

Meghan Bartels

Swirls of ice coat a flat pane with orange and blue reflected light

ChemistryJanuary 23, 2026

The scientific quest to explore the hidden complexity of ice

Ice has many forms beyond the mundane stuff produced in a standard freezer

Meghan Bartels

This is a gif animation made up of false-colour images taken by ESA’s Proba-3 mission and NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory. Against a dark background, the Sun’s disc is shown in dark orange, as captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory. A thin halo of yellow light surrounds the Sun, giving it a luminous outline against the dark background of space. This yellow outline shows the Sun’s inner corona, as captured by Proba-3. Also in yellow, three solar prominence eruptions are visible, resembling bright yellow wave-like outburst extending outwards from the Sun. First, we can see a smaller one in the top right corner, followed by a larger one in the top left and a third one in the bottom right. The whole animation lasts about 4 seconds and plays in a loop.

AstrophysicsJanuary 21, 2026

Watch three solar prominences erupt in epic video

A European spacecraft caught rare footage of three successive prominences popping off the sun

Meghan Bartels

A green iguana with its eyes closed sprawls on a concrete surface

AnimalsJanuary 16, 2026

It’s so cold in Florida that iguanas might rain from the skies

Florida’s iguanas are an introduced species, and they aren’t used to the chilly temperatures the state is currently experiencing

Meghan Bartels

InternetJanuary 15, 2026

Wikipedia at 25: Science’s Front Page Faces a New Era

Wikipedia had to fight to establish its legitimacy—and now it faces a new existential threat posed by generative AI

Meghan Bartels

A photo of a child with a thermometer sticking out of their mouth.

VaccinesJanuary 14, 2026

How CDC’s Vaccine Rollback Will Affect Winter Respiratory Virus Season

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has slashed childhood vaccine recommendations in the middle of respiratory virus season

Meghan Bartels

Space ExplorationJanuary 8, 2026

In Unprecedented Move, NASA to Rush Astronauts Home after Medical Incident on ISS

NASA on Thursday announced it would take the extraordinary step of bringing four crewmembers back to Earth from the space station before their official mission end

Meghan Bartels

NASA astronaut Mike Fincke poses next to a spacesuit. The helmet is secured with a protective cover designed to prevent scratches and contamination when the suit is not in use, ensuring the visor remains clear for spacewalks.

SpacecraftJanuary 7, 2026

NASA Mulls Ending Space Station Crew-11 Mission Early after Astronaut Suffers Medical Issue

NASA may bring some of the ISS’s crew home earlier than planned after one member experienced a medical issue just hours before two astronauts were due to complete a space walk outside the station on Wednesday

Meghan Bartels

Cropped image of a bar chart quantifies oil reserves in select countries, including Venezuela, which appears at the top with more than 300 billion barrels.

GeologyJanuary 7, 2026

Why Does Venezuela Have So Much Oil? Geology

Trump has cited Venezuela’s oil resources as motivation for capturing the nation’s leader—here’s the geology behind the news

Meghan Bartels

The cluster appears here as a large collection of brilliant white lights, each a distinct galaxy. A neon purple cloud stretches across the cluster’s crowded core. Many of the hundred-plus galaxies in the cluster are in two clumps of galaxies towards the top and bottom of center. Some are encircled by a faint glowing haze, while a few foreground stars gleam with diffraction spikes. Some of the smaller galaxies are tinted blue, orange, or red, and some appear more oblong than round, suggesting spiral shapes viewed edge-on. The neon purple cloud sits at the heart of the image, surrounding the most densely-packed part of the cluster. This cloud, which spreads vertically across the cluster, is multimillion-degree gas observed by Chandra. The two clumps of observable galaxies, and the spread of superheated gas, reveal that the Champagne Cluster is in fact two clusters in the process of colliding.

AstronomyDecember 31, 2025

Cheers! Ring in the New Year with Glittering ‘Champagne Cluster’ Image

A galaxy cluster discovered on New Year’s Eve in 2020 shines in a new image from NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory

Meghan Bartels

A person in medical scrubs holds a stethoscope to a baby's back.

Public HealthDecember 30, 2025

Whooping Cough Deaths Rise in U.S. as Surge in Infections Continues

The brutal respiratory infection has infected tens of thousands and killed at least 13 people in the U.S. in 2025

Meghan Bartels

An image of space made by the Euclid telescope shows a bright barred spiral galaxy with two sweeping arms glowing in shades of blue and white against a deep black background dotted with stars. Its core is luminous. Its spiral arms curve gracefully outward to the left and down to the right, resembling a cosmic garland draped across the scene. A smaller, faint and round galaxy appears to the left of the barred spiral galaxy.

AstronomyDecember 24, 2025

Dark Matter Telescope Captures a Sparkling Galaxy Merger

The Euclid Space Telescope is decking the halls with boughs of starlight

Meghan Bartels

A comet with an elaborate tail dives toward the bottom center of the image, with astronomical observatories in the foreground.

AstronomyDecember 22, 2025

Behold the 10 Most Stunning Space Images of 2025

From an interstellar comet to breathtaking auroras and from brand-new rockets to iconic space telescopes, here are some of our favorite images from the cosmos in 2025

Meghan Bartels

A single meteor streaks across a starry sky behind the silhouette of a peak.

AstronomyDecember 20, 2025

Catch the Last Meteor Shower of 2025—Right in Time for the Winter Solstice

Sky watchers may be tempted out this weekend, when an underappreciated meteor shower will coincide with a new moon and the longest night of year for the Northern Hemisphere

Meghan Bartels

A horizontal oval outline; across the long central line is a chaotic mess of light aligning with the plane of our galaxy.

AstronomyDecember 19, 2025

Get Lost in This Dazzling New Map of the Cosmos

NASA’s newest space telescope has unveiled a stunning map of the cosmos in infrared

Meghan Bartels

On the left, a greenish mottled orb. On the right, a gray and tan cracked orb.

Space ExplorationDecember 17, 2025

New Views of Solar System Moons Complicate Ocean Worlds Theory

Oceans hiding within the crusts of distant moons are tantalizing targets for scientists looking for life beyond Earth

Meghan Bartels

An image of a book called Evergreen with an upside-down conifer tree on the cover.

BooksDecember 13, 2025

The History of America Can Be Told through Christmas Trees

Christmas trees—and conifers in general—have made some surprising cameos throughout U.S. history, author Trent Preszler reveals in his book Evergreen

Meghan Bartels

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