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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Dogs Likely Evolved From Wolves in Mideast

posted: 2 days 2 hours ago

(March 17) -- If you have a basenji, Chinese shar-pei or chow chow snoozing at your feet, you'd better pamper your pet. You're living with blue-blooded canine royalty. Those three are among the most ...

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Obama May Need Heat Shield at Space Summit

posted: 10 days 5 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: 15 days 5 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: 21 days 12 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: 24 days 9 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: 28 days 9 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: 29 days 10 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: 39 days 5 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: 46 days 5 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: 57 days 1 hour 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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