Marianne Guenot

Journalist with nearly a decade's experience writing and editing science news, opinion, features, and investigations. 

I have more than 700 bylines to my name, which have attracted tens of millions of pageviews.

Words in Business Insider, The British Medical Journal (BMJ), The Lancet, Nature Medicine, and others. My work has been covered by Fortune, USA Today, The Independent, Libération, Forbes, Al Jazeera, and once made an appearance on Elon Musk's Twitter feed.

I turn around clean, tight, readable copy within the deadline without compromising on accuracy. I can write for a range of audiences, from broadsheet news readers, to B2B, to high-level policymakers.

I am comfortable writing in a wide range of formats, from quick news hits to months-long investigations.

If it's about science, I have probably covered it. I have a particular affinity for writing about health (especially obesity), the business, politics, and economics of science, and why billionaires invest in science. I also love delving deeply into a scientific topic I haven't worked on before. 

I am available for commissions from editors and science communication agencies. Reach out for a chat. 

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Selected works

Business Insider •

A Harvard professor is risking his reputation to search for aliens. Tech tycoons are bankrolling his quest.

Harvard's Avi Loeb has been setting the astrophysics world on fire with his claims that extraterrestrial tech could be behind recent near-Earth observations, his rising public persona, and his upcoming off-Broadway one-man show.

In this story, I spoke to the controversial professor to understand his motivation to search for signs of alien intelligence in Earth's backyard. I also investigated how he piqued the interest of wealthy counter-culture philanthropists to fund his quest.
Business Insider •

Climate change is already costing us money, but we have a chance to limit the worst of it and prosper. Here's how.

The ultimate goal, Amir Jina, an environmental economist at the University of Chicago, told Insider, should be to create a world where "climate or weather is a problem as boring as plumbing."
But to get there, we'll need to spend a lot of money up front and be real about the climate costs we're already paying — even if we don't always notice them.
Business Insider •

The moon is open for business, and entrepreneurs are racing to make billions

The moon could soon represent a market worth over $100 billion, piquing the interests of private companies like SpaceX, Blue Origin, Nokia, Lockheed Martin, and General Motors, to develop solutions for its lunar missions such as space-worthy rides, moon streaming, lunar GPS, and more.

This new market — worth over $100 billion— could be game-changing for humanity.

"Definitely the moon is going to be a big business," said Prachi Kawade, a senior analyst at NSR, a research-and-consulting company focused on the space market.
Business Insider •

OceanGate's cofounder wants to send 1,000 people to a floating colony on Venus by 2050, and says we shouldn't stop pushing the limits of innovation

The OceanGate expedition submersible tragedy raised questions about billionaire's ambitions to push the limits of the human experience for the sake of exploration. But Guillermo Söhnlein, OceanGate's co-founder, hasn't let the recent events dampen his ambition and claims humanity needs to continue pushing the limits of innovation.

He plans to send humans to live in the athmosphere of Venus. This aim, he says, is not as crazy as it seems. "I think it is less aspirational than putting a million people on the Martian surface by 2050," he told Business Insider.
Business Insider •

Children as young as 10 and rape victims were sterilized in Utah as late as the 1970s. Time is running out to get justice.


• Utah's eugenic sterilization program targeted at least 830 people, a new study claims.
• Around 50 were children aged between 10 and 14 years old.
• Researchers say as many as 54 people who suffered under the program may still be alive.

When a teenage girl, in 1928, told her bishop that she had been raped by her brother, she was labeled an idiot.

Instead of getting help, she was taken to the Utah State Hospital and sterlized against her will. The bishop later admitted she had likely been so
Business Insider •

They thought she was making up her symptoms. But her previous mental health diagnosis may have been overshadowing a very serious rare disease.

The vast majority of diagnoses are correct and useful. But doctors are not infallible. Faced with a series of uncommon symptoms, medical professionals may tend to look for the easiest explanation.

Daisy Simpson's case shows how a previous mental illness diagnosis can sometimes cause very real symptoms to be overlooked — a medical bias called diagnostic overshadowing.
Business Insider •

Resignation of top Biden scientific advisor is just another example of the toxic workplace culture plaguing academia, activists say


• Eric Lander announced his resignation Monday after an investigation found he bullied subordinates.
• Biden pledged to fire bullies "on the spot," but Lander was allowed to announce his resignation.
• Activists told Insider this approach is endemic in academia's toxic workplace culture.

At the start of his presidency, Joe Biden pledged to fire anyone who bullied at his White House "on the spot," with "no ifs, ands or buts."

Yet Eric Lander, who served as his top scientific advisor, was allow
Business Insider •

3 women share the terrifying experience of COVID-19 in pregnancy: 'This is not my time to go.'

When the doctor told Sultana Ashiq that she would have to be put "down to sleep" to go on a respirator as her lungs struggled against COVID-19, all Ashiq understood was "sleep."
Ashiq, a 33-year-old in London, was almost 31 weeks pregnant with twin girls, and she was exhausted. In the nine days since she had tested positive on January 11, her condition had rapidly declined — from shortness of breath and fever to gasping for air and unbearable pain.
Business Insider •

Over 600 cubes of Nazi uranium made their way to the US after the war. 2 scientists are trying to figure out where they are now.

These paperweight-like cubes wouldn't raise an eyebrow on someone's desk.

"Marie Curie's granddaughter has one. She uses it as a doorstop," said an expert.

But these 2-inch uranium cubes were once important enough for the Allied forces to send a special task force, codenamed 'Alsos' to bring them back from Nazi Germany.

This story follows two science sleuths as they trace fourteen hand-sized uranium cubes back to Nazi Germany's first efforts to build a nuclear reactor, and the Manhattan Project's attempts to derail this plan.
Business Insider •

5 southern states have seen vaccine uptake more than triple in the past month. It's not just the Delta variant that's making people clamor for first shots.

• Five states have seen the biggest increase in first-dose uptake since July 6.
• They are Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, and Oklahoma.
• Delta fear was a big motivator, but other factors were also at play, experts told Insider.
• See more stories on Insider's business page.

Vaccinations in the US slowed to their lowest levels in the first week of July. Cases were down and with them, the enthusiasm of the vaccine-hesitant.

But that all changed in early July, as the Delta variant b
Business Insider •

Long COVID patients: We feel gaslit by doctors that still don't believe us

For some long COVID patients, going to the doctor's office requires a clear game plan, extensive research, mental resilience, and physical stamina. That's because they don't expect their doctors to believe them.

Patients with other diseases that are poorly understood, like chronic fatigue syndrome or fibromyalgia, are familiar with medical gaslighting, a term for situations in which medical professionals undermine or dismiss a patient's symptoms as being caused by stress or anxiety.

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