Alexandra Witze

Contributing Correspondent

Alexandra Witze is a contributing correspondent based in Boulder, Colorado. Among other exotic locales, her reporting has taken her to Maya ruins in the jungles of Guatemala, among rotting corpses at the University of Tennessee's legendary "Body Farm," and to a floating sea-ice camp at the North Pole. She has a bachelor's degree in geology from MIT and a graduate certification in science communication from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Among her honors are the Science-in-Society award from the National Association of Science Writers (shared with Tom Siegfried), and the American Geophysical Union's award for feature journalism. She coauthored the book Island on Fire, about the 18th-century eruption of the Icelandic volcano Laki.

All Stories by Alexandra Witze

  1. Physics

    The backstory behind a new element

    Science News contributing editor Alexandra Witze describes what it took to synthesize ununseptium, element number 117.

  2. Physics

    Colliding dust grains charge each other up

    Physicists propose a way that cloud particles can electrify themselves.

  3. Chemistry

    Superheavy element 117 makes debut

    An international team of researchers fill a gap in the periodic table, and lay another stepping stone along the path to the “island of stability.”

  4. Space

    Cosmic magnetic field strength measured

    Hints of weak magnetism between galaxies narrows options for how the early universe got its fields.

  5. Chemistry

    Building a cheaper catalyst

    Using perovskite instead of platinum in catalytic converters could shave many hundreds of dollars off the cost of a diesel car.

  6. Earth

    Ice drilling nets shrimpy surprise

    Underwater camera captures an Antarctic crustacean, as a serendipitous part of a larger ice shelf study.

  7. Materials Science

    Physicists observe quantum properties in the world of objects

    A demonstration marries the world of the very small with the everyday, opening new realms for quantum computing and other applications.

  8. Chemistry

    Methane-making microbes thrive under the ice

    Antarctica’s ice sheets could hide vast quantities of the greenhouse gas, churned out by a buried ecosystem.

  9. Physics

    Supertwisty light proposed

    Researchers suggest a never-before-imagined property of electromagnetic fields that could one day yield new types of sensors.

  10. Climate

    Ancient Norse colonies hit bad climate times

    Temperatures in Iceland plummeted soon after settlers arrived, a new chemical analysis suggests.

  11. Science & Society

    Placement of marine reserves is key

    A study finds that focusing on the heaviest-fished areas can help meet conservation goals.