The Watchers team and our contributors bring the latest on extreme weather, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, space weather, and all things science. We're all about making sense of the natural world and keeping you informed on what’s happening. Got a tip or a question? Hit us up using the form at newstips!
A new study shows how seasonal changes in large-scale water cycles in California influence small-scale quake activity. It confirms that the annual hydrological loading cycle modulates microseismicity in California. The results of the study reveal how snow, rain,…
For the first time, scientists have realized the satellite-based distribution of entangled photon pairs over a distance of 1 200 km (745 miles). The photon pairs were demonstrated to be still entangled after traveling long distances and Bell's inequality was…
Scientists working on NASA’s historic Juno mission to the gas giant Jupiter have recently presented their early findings for the first time. Like so many other recent space missions, what they have discovered is not what they expected. As reported by New…
Japan has more measurable earthquakes than any other country and has over 100 active volcanoes. These both result from Japan being wedged among four major tectonic plates. The tectonics are complicated, but in this animation, IRIS attempted to look at the basic…
Numerous landslides caused by heavy monsoon rains have buried thousands of homes and claimed lives of at least 152 people in Bangladesh since Monday, June 12, 2017. Police say many of the dead are from poor tribal communities living in traditional homes in the…
According to a new analysis by a theoretical physicist from UC Berkley and a radio astronomer from the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory at Harvard University, our sun, as well as every other sunlike star in the universe, had a twin when it was born. Astronomers…
A new study led by Michael West of Lowell Observatory and Roberto De Propris of the University of Turku reveals that the most massive galaxies in the universe have been aligned with their surroundings for at least ten billion years. This discovery shows that…
An unusually strong and cold low pressure system caused several daily low temperatures and precipitation records to be set on Monday, June 12, 2017 across central and northern Nevada. On the same day, state's mountainous regions received an estimated 6 – 12…
Devastating effects of Cyclone "Mora" in Myanmar and Bangladesh and unusually heavy monsoon rains across Sri Lanka have left at least 1.3 million children in urgent need of humanitarian assistance, UNICEF warns. "Children who have had their lives…
In nature, there is nothing more spectacular than the Spring. Funny enough, animals and plants are way quicker to get back to being active than to fall into dormancy in the Fall. It sometimes takes months for deciduous plants to lose all their leaves, whereas they…
