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Rachel Lense

Writer / Artist / Photographer

Hi, I'm Rachel. As it says above, I'm a writer and a photographer, but I just think of myself of as an eternally curious person. I'm driven to explore—to experience the world and its many inhabitants as authentically as possible. I'm eager to listen and learn, to document, to think deeply and create.

There's a special place in my heart for telling the stories of science, nature, technology, and health, and how they all intersect with culture. Much of my writing revolves around these themes. 

I currently work for NASA as a science communicator on the their heliophysics communications team. Before that, I was a full-time freelancer. I have an MA in Science Writing from Johns Hopkins University.

Scroll on for a sample of my work and follow me on social media to see what I'm up to today.

Articles

NASA •

NASA Discovers a Long-Sought Global Electric Field on Earth - NASA Science

Using observations from a NASA suborbital rocket, an international team of scientists has, for the first time, successfully measured a planet-wide electric field thought to be as fundamental to Earth as its gravity and magnetic fields. Known as the ambipolar electric field, scientists first hypothesized over 60 years ago that it drove how our planet’s atmosphere can escape above Earth’s North and South Poles. Measurements from the rocket, NASA’s Endurance mission, have confirmed the existence of...
NASA •

Scientists Use NASA Data to Predict Solar Corona Before Eclipse - NASA Science

Our Sun, like many stars, is adorned with a crown. It’s called a corona (Latin for “crown” or “wreath”) and consists of long, thread-like strands of plasma billowing out from the Sun’s surface. The powerful magnetic field of the Sun defines these strands, causing them to ripple and evolve their structures constantly. The strands are faint, however, so the only way to observe the corona with the naked eye is during a total solar eclipse.In anticipation of the solar eclipse on April 8, 2024, scien...
Photonics Focus (SPIE) •

Neuroimaging to the Rescue

It began with the sound of a heartbeat. Ingrid Youmans—a vibrant, middle-aged consultant, designer, and mother of two—swore she could hear the quiet rush of blood behind one ear, pulsing with the rhythm of her heart. It was subtle at first. Infrequent. So, she dismissed it, busy mom that she was, chalking it up to just one more of those weird things bodies do in their 40s. But the sound persisted, growing more frequent as the weeks churned. She decided to mention it at her annual checkup...
Healthy Lakes •

Farming Phosphorus: When Growing Life Hurts

A pungent layer of goop the color of guacamole spreads across a lake, closing beaches, killing wildlife, and poisoning drinking water. It sounds like the beginning of an old comic book series, but it’s the reality of millions of people worldwide. These harmful algal blooms (HABs) are a product of excess intricately tied to climate change, modern industrial agriculture, and a lack of effective pollution oversight. HABs are found nationwide, from small inland ponds to the Great Lakes. Even Lake Superior’s famous crystal waters have been affected lately. But it's especially bad in Lake Erie.
Psychology Today •

Human Flourishing in Unprecedented Times

This is Part I in a series focused on human flourishing.

In the last few years, how many self-help books have you bought? Perhaps authors like Brené Brown or Bessel van der Kolk ring a bell. Or maybe you have had friends talk about “forest bathing” or “setting boundaries.” If any of this is familiar, you are not alone.

According to NPD Group, an international market research firm, the number of self-help titles on the U.S. market tripled between 2013 and 2019, and sales of books relating to ph
Mental Floss •

An Ultra-Rare Hybrid Solar Eclipse is Coming in April

Solar eclipses: they’re the fantastic phenomena of the firmament that have captured humanity’s imagination since time immemorial. Ancient Chaco people etched celebratory petroglyphs of the unearthly displays into dry desert stone. The Maya famously predicted their occurrences with advanced astronomical, calendrical, and mathematical systems. And on April 20, 2023, you can partake in this long line of human-sun experiences with one of the rarest types of solar eclipses: a hybrid solar eclipse.
Shorthand •

Swimming in Doubt

A few years before this dive, I watched the movie Blackfish on Netflix. For the unacquainted, it’s a documentary that put Sea World’s abusive treatment of orcas in the searing spotlight (and caused major financial stress on the company as a result). But it also encouraged people to consider the cruelty of exploiting animals for entertainment’s sake. Things like swim-with-the-dolphins programs in Mexico, for instance, or porpoise petting stations at zoos.

In captivity, marine mammals like whales
The Science Writer •

How Legendary Creatures Transitioned from Sea to Sky

Ancient Babylon had Tiamat, the primordial creator who avenged her husband’s death in the form of a sea dragon. The Leviathan of the Bible cropped up repeatedly as a giant demon of the sea, eventually thwarted by God upon his triumphant return to Earth. And in Nordic sagas, Thor faced off against Jörmungandr, a serpent so large it encircled the Earth.

Similar tales continued in the West throughout the Middle Ages and into the Age of Exploration, where seamen’s yarns told of shivered sails and c

Art & Photography

NASA Scientific Visualization Studio •

NASA Scientific Visualization Studio | NASA Has Pride Across the Universe

The Progress Pride flag, based on the original rainbow pride flag by Gilbert Baker, was created in 2018 by Daniel Quasar to celebrate diversity within the queer community and the need for continued progress toward inclusion and acceptance in society. In this version, each color band is made up of images from across NASA. Planetary science, Earth science, heliophysics, and astrophysics are all represented. Below is the collection of the original images.



DownloadImages PIA2...
NASA •

2024 Total Solar Eclipse: Prediction vs. Reality - NASA Science

The researchers used the Aitken, Electra, and Pleiades supercomputers at the NASA Advanced Supercomputing facility, located at the agency’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley. With near-real-time data from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory and ESA’s (the European Space Agency) and NASA's Solar Orbiter, they created a dynamic model of the corona. The team’s model accurately predicted several details, including long streamers in the upper and lower left side of the image, but the...
The Science Writer •

Uncivil Political Discourse — The Science Writer

Now a biopolitical researcher at the University of Exeter in the U.K., Schreiber was the lead researcher of a 2013 study that examined brain scans of liberals and conservatives while they played a gambling game. Despite both groups taking similar risks, Schreiber noticed significant differences in brain activity. Liberals showed more activity in their insular cortex, one of a handful of brain regions responsible for emotion. Conservatives demonstrated more activity in the right amygdala, which p
The Science Writer •

Why Go Back to the Moon? — The Science Writer

The Moon holds the secrets of its creation and many more. By studying the Moon’s composition, scientists could understand better how it formed and when. The best Moon origin theory holds that the Moon formed some 4.5 billion years ago, when the solar system was a more chaotic place and a Mars-sized body slammed into Earth. The Moon’s lack of atmosphere means that scientists will find relics of asteroids there that did not burn up on their way to the surface, in contrast with Earth. And asteroids
The Science Writer •

Uncivil Political Discourse — The Science Writer

Now a biopolitical researcher at the University of Exeter in the U.K., Schreiber was the lead researcher of a 2013 study that examined brain scans of liberals and conservatives while they played a gambling game. Despite both groups taking similar risks, Schreiber noticed significant differences in brain activity. Liberals showed more activity in their insular cortex, one of a handful of brain regions responsible for emotion. Conservatives demonstrated more activity in the right amygdala, which p
Red Weather Magazine •

Hiking "The Narrows," Zion National Park

A digital black and white image of a canyon wall reflected upside-down in the calm waters of a river between smooth rocks in Zion National Park, Utah, USA.
Red Weather Magazine •

The Water Grave

A digital version of a physical black and white image developed by sandwiching two film negatives together and passing light through them to get a double exposure on light-sensitive photo paper. The image itself is of a freshly dug grave and a nearby lake in a Minneapolis graveyard. Part 2 of a series of photos.

Poetry