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!
Technology for protecting spaceships from laser fire is feasible today, University of Leicester students discovered. The only drawback, so far, is that you won’t be able to see a thing outside.In anticipation of Star Wars Day on 4 May, three fourth-year Physics st
Humans must colonize Mars to ensure our survival as a species, said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden at the opening of the Humans 2 Mars Summit at George Washington University.Bolden was speaking in support of the space agency's plans to develop a new Orion crew ca
Arizona Sate University scientists, together with collaborators from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai, have published yesterday, in Nature Structural and Molecular Biology, a first of its kind atomic level look at the enzyme telomerase that may unlock the sec
Northwestern University researchers are the first to develop a new solar cell with good efficiency that uses tin instead of lead perovskite as the harvester of light. The low-cost, environmentally friendly solar cell can be made easily using "bench" chemistry
"A star is gone! A star is gone! There is a blank in Heaven … " So said the 19th century poet George Darley in his poem "The Fallen Star". Was this merely poetic imagery and metaphor, or could it have been based on some historic fact?I realize that
In a public ceremony on April 16, a coalition of farmers, scientists and sustainable food advocates launched the Open Source Seed Pledge, a parallel licensing system designed to keep seeds in the hands of the public and prevent them from being patented by private intere
AP David's talk considered the sources of the modern idea of 'Laws of Nature,' or as they are more usually known nowadays, 'physical laws.' He began by articulating the difference between descriptive and prescriptive laws: nature as directly observed
The largest moon in our solar system, a companion to Jupiter named Ganymede, might have ice and oceans stacked up in several layers like a club sandwich, according to new study led by JPL's Steve Vance that models the moon's makeup.Previously, the moon
Due to a rash of conflict-of-interest scandals at the European Food Safety Authority, the European Parliament voted recently on a resolution that would ban scientists who have ties to the agriculture and food industries from being employed by the agency.The resolution u
The Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has captured the first image of an asteroid taken from the surface of Mars. The night-sky image actually includes two asteroids: Ceres and Vesta, plus one of Mars' two moons, Deimos, which may have been an
