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. Cosmology

    Everlasting light

    Remnant glow of ancient stars offers glimpse of universe's past.

  2. Astronomy

    Postcards from Voyager

    Suzanne Dodd is project manager for NASA’s twin Voyager probes.

  3. Planetary Science

    Mystery Meteorite

    The case for (and against) a rock from Mercury.

  4. Earth

    The ice keeper

    The Science Life.

  5. Earth

    Spinning the Core

    Laboratory dynamos attempt to generate magnetic fields the way planets and stars do.

  6. Earth

    Geologists develop weapons to combat that sinkhole feeling

    What do five Porsches, several Kentucky thoroughbreds and a three-story building in Guatemala City have in common? They’ve all been swallowed by sinkholes. Sadly, the sudden cave-ins sometimes claim people’s lives as well. On February 28 the earth opened up underneath the Seffner, Fla., bedroom of Jeff Bush, entombing him. The freak accident highlighted Florida’s […]

  7. Earth

    Quakes in Slo-Mo

    Barely detectable tremors may portend major destruction.

  8. Planetary Science

    When an asteroid heads for Earth, it’s time to reconsider those doomsday plans

  9. Earth

    Italian earthquake verdict exposes rifts between science and society

  10. Space

    Planets and their sun grow together

    Radio telescopes reveal how nascent bodies funnel gas to their parent star.

  11. Earth

    Antarctic subglacial drilling effort suspended

    A British-led team has called off this season’s campaign to penetrate Lake Ellsworth.

  12. Genetics

    Contest brings out the biohackers

    Mix one part enthusiasm, two parts engineering and three parts biology — and you’ve got a recipe for do-it-yourself genetic engineering. Every November, college kids from Michigan to Munich descend on MIT, eager to show off their biohacking skills. In the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition, teams battle one another to build the coolest synthetically altered organisms. If you want to create a microbe that will sniff out and destroy contaminants in mining waste ponds, or a cell that will produce drugs right in your body, iGEM is for you.