Rumors were flying through the blogosphere this winter: physicists at the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) may finally have directly detected gravitational waves, ripples in the fabric of space-time predicted by...

The best thing about a day in my life on the lookout for gravitational waves is that I never know when it will begin.

Like many of my colleagues working for the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), the morning of Monday,...

For many of us, access to the Internet through a variety of means is a given. I can access the Internet through two laptops, a tablet, a smartphone and even both of my game systems, from the comfort of my living room.

However, this access is...

A few large weather systems make all the difference between a wet and a dry year in the Southwest. Coming during the winter and spring, they account for the bulk of the rain...

On the evening of February 12, 1946, Isaac Woodard, a 26-year-old black Army veteran, boarded a bus in Augusta, Georgia. Earlier that day, he’d been honorably discharged, and he was heading to Winnsboro, South Carolina to reunite with his wife.

The bus driver made a stop en route. When Woodard asked if he had time to use the bathroom, the...

“Will you be my Valentine?”

People all across the country say those words in the run-up to February 14 and the Valentine’s Day holiday. Whether you’re asking a brand new paramour or a long-term...

Eighty years ago, when sun exposure was first associated with skin cancer, popular culture was exalting tanning by emphasizing that a “fine brown color suggests health and good times, and is a pleasant thing to see."

We know that sun exposure can be deadly, and today’s public awareness campaigns strongly focus on sun avoidance to...

For the bulk of our evolutionary history, human groups were small, tightly knit communities. Only quite recently, some human groups started evolving into the large-scale societies with vast interconnected trade networks we know today. Urban areas in...

We’re looking for two dynamic and experienced journalists to join The Conversation US team based in Atlanta.

Do you have a passion for communicating medical research and the latest debates on health policy? The new Health and Medicine Editor will cover a range of issues – from the emerging link between allergies and antibiotic overuse...

Last week, the diehards had their say in Iowa. Last night in New Hampshire, the independents took their turn.

The Iowa Caucuses are time consuming and only the most committed or ideological partisans show up.

But New Hampshire’s election laws allow people to vote in the primaries even if they are not registered with one of the parties. These...