AOL News Team - Traci Watson

Traci Watson

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Traci spent 15 years at USA Today covering space, science, health and environmental issues.

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Obama May Need Heat Shield at Space Summit

posted: 2 days 19 hours ago

(March 9) -- Tax Day may seem an odd choice to kick off a campaign for controversial changes to NASA that will require billions of taxpayer dollars, but that's the date the White House has in mind. T ...

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'Dream Team' Agrees Huge Asteroid Killed Dinosaurs

posted: 7 days 19 hours ago

(March 4) -- For decades, scientists have debated exactly what kind of cataclysm was responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs. Did a giant rock from outer space blast T. rex and his ilk off th ...

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Astronauts Face New Frontier: Unemployment

posted: 14 days 2 hours ago

(Feb. 26) -- For 40 years, the American astronaut has been an icon of bravery and derring-do. But could these elite fliers be about to get their pink slips? Under a proposal by President Barack Obama ...

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Can't Place the Face? Maybe It's Your Genes

posted: 16 days 23 hours ago

(Feb. 23) -- A guest at a party taps your shoulder and says, "Remember me?" If you don't, just blame it on your genes. New research shows that the ability to recognize faces is strongly genetic, mean ...

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Is Space Station Worth America's Billions?

posted: 20 days 23 hours ago

(Feb. 19) -- Circling overhead is a laboratory in space that has cost U.S. taxpayers nearly $50 billion over the past 16 years without producing any blockbuster scientific results. Now the White Hous ...

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Obama's Call to Endeavour Astronauts Gets Awkward

posted: 21 days 23 hours ago

(Feb. 18) -- Astronauts flying in space are used to VIP phone calls that don't always go as scripted, but Wednesday's conversation was probably one of the most awkward. President Barack Obama used h ...

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New Tobacco Danger: 'Third-Hand Smoke'

posted: 31 days 19 hours ago

(Feb. 8) -- Here's yet another reason to book a nonsmoking hotel room. Scientists have long known that the residue from cigarette smoke clings to surfaces for weeks and even months. Now there is new ...

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Too Many Deer? Call in the Wolves, Scientists Say

posted: 38 days 19 hours ago

(Feb. 1) – Scientists are calling for a formidable new cadre of pest exterminators to prowl America's national parks: wolves. A coalition of researchers has proposed trucking wolves into parks ...

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Obama Mulls Outsourcing NASA's Next-Gen Shuttle

posted: 49 days 15 hours ago

(Jan. 21) -- President Barack Obama will soon have to make the ultimate outsourcing decision: Should NASA farm out the job of carrying astronauts to space? Since the Space Age began in the 1950s, U.S ...

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UN Rallies Satellites Over Haiti for Assistance

posted: 55 days 1 hour ago

(Jan. 16) -- In the chaos after Tuesday's earthquake in Haiti, there's one aid program that isn't floundering: a swift campaign to amass priceless satellite pictures of the disaster zone. Nations and ...

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