Clare Watson Author Profile | The Scientist Magazine®

Clare Watson

Clare Watson is a freelance science journalist and fact-checker with a background in biomedical science. In addition to The Scientist, her work has appeared in Nature, Undark, The Guardian, Hakai Magazine, Cosmos, Australian Geographic, and the 2021 Best Australian Science Writing anthology. From her home south of Sydney, Australia, she writes about everything from energy deficiencies in elite athletes and seafood fraud to the hype about hydrogen and stem cell therapies. Read more of her work at www.clarewatson.com.au.

In urban bathhouses in Germany and the surrounding low countries, bathhouse proprietors, known as baders, provided visitors with basic medical care. To draw blood, baders would scratch the skin before placing a heated cupping glass over the incision to extract blood and purge the body. Other tools associated with baders, including dental forceps and an amputation saw, hint at further services they provided.

Bathing Through the Ages: 1300–1848

Clare Watson | Mar 1, 2023 | 2 min read

Public bathing, ubiquitous around the world and through the ages, plays an often-unappreciated role in public health.

A false color transmission electron microscope micrograph showing the nuclear envelope, the rough endoplasmic reticulum, the nucleus, and the cytoplasm.

New Gene Mutants Identified in Rare Motor Neuron Diseases

Clare Watson | Oct 17, 2022 | 2 min read

The discovery of gene variants in cases of hereditary spastic dysplasia could provide a diagnosis to affected families where no genetic cause could be found before.

A colored microscope image of a cross section of a human artery filled with fatty plaques

Protein-Recycling Process Protective Against Arterial Plaques

Clare Watson | Aug 1, 2022 | 2 min read

A team of scientists has found that in mice, a cellular housekeeping pathway protects against a major cause of heart attacks and strokes.

A microscope image of Legionellales bacteria infecting a protozoan

Ancestral Bacteria May Have Invaded Early Eukaryotic Cells

Clare Watson | Jun 1, 2022 | 2 min read

The discovery that a group of cell-infecting bacteria lived roughly 2 billion years ago stirs a longstanding controversy around which came first: phagocytosis or mitochondria.

An artist's rendering of the ancient arthropod Erratus sperare

Anatomical Firsts in Early Arthropods

Clare Watson | Jun 1, 2022 | 2 min read

A team of scientists have discovered an ancient arthropod that may show the origins of branched limbs and the first gill-like breathing structures in the clade.