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!
"There's rosemary, that's for remembrance…"~ William Shakespeare Since ancient times, herbs have been appreciated for their profound therapeutic effects. Science as a form of evidence-gathering did not take the epistemological pole position
Ocean waves, the hot sun, sea breezes — the right combination makes a great day at the beach. A different combination makes a killer hurricane. The complex interactions of the ocean and the air above it that can create such different outcomes are not yet fully known. S
In the middle of the 19th century, the massive binary system Eta Carinae underwent an eruption that ejected at least 10 times the sun's mass and made it the second-brightest star in the sky. Now, a team of astronomers has used extensive new observations to create th
Understanding the sun from afar isn't easy. How do you figure out what powers solar flares – the intense bursts of radiation coming from the release of magnetic energy associated with sunspots – when you must rely on observing only the light and particle
The summer of 2014 will be bathed in moonlight as three perigee "supermoons" occur in consecutive months: July, August, September. The first supermoon is on July 12 at 08:28 UTC, the second on August 10 at 17:44 UTC and the third on September 9 at 03:30 UTC.Th
Physicists a step closer to finding mysterious sources…An observatory run by the University of Utah found a "hotspot" beneath the Big Dipper emitting a disproportionate number of the highest-energy cosmic rays. The discovery moves physics another step
Martian areography tells a story of incredibly violent events. It appears from the many images sent to Earth that it once experienced powerful plasma discharges on a massive scale. Burned and blasted craters, piles of scorched dust covering almost an entire hemisphere,
The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission has recommended that the government issue potassium iodide pills to all people living within 10 km (6 miles) of nuclear power plants, to use in case of a nuclear accident, such as the one suffered by Japan's Fukushima Daiichi p
Now that the Space Shuttle era is over, NASA is writing the next chapters in human Spaceflight with its commercial and international partners.It is advancing research and technology on the International Space Station, opening low-Earth orbit to US industry, and pushing
A huge fireball passed over the skies of the UK on June 30, 2014, and was captured by Norman Lockyer Observatory in Devon at 02:04 UTC.According to Dave Jones from the UK Meteor Observation Network (UKMON) this was the largest ever meteor captured at the observatory.It
