All Stories by Sid Perkins
- Earth
Oldest feathered dino shows its colors
Analysis of a fossil suggests plumage first evolved for display, not flight.
- Paleontology
Reverbs of bat echolocation studies
Ancient bat may well have used sound waves to sense the world, Sid Perkins reports in the latest Deleted Scenes blog.
- Climate
Water vapor slowed recent global warming trend
A decline in stratospheric water vapor has slowed Earth’s surface warming slightly in recent years.
- Earth
Dinosaurs, in living color
Researchers find microscopic structures in some fossils that may have held pigments.
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Crop irrigation could be cooling Midwest
A recent drop in summer highs may be linked to greater moisture from the Great Plains.
- Humans
Minor air traffic delays add up to big costs
On average, the economic impact of late flights exceeds that of hurricanes
- Agriculture
How better weather models can save peanut farmers money
Better weather forecasts could help farmers avoid unnecessary pesticide spraying.
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Dressing up dinos
Adding soft tissue to bone helps scientists, paleoartists bring ancient creatures to life.
- Climate
Acidifying ocean may stifle phytoplankton
Chemical changes in seawater make a key nutrient less available to these organisms.
- Earth
Hydrothermal vent environments not unchanging
Once-rare organisms can become dominant, probably as some environmental conditions change over time.
- Earth
Footprints could push back tetrapod origins
Newly discovered trackways much older than previous evidence for sea-to-land transition.
- Earth
Tides in Earth’s crust trigger small, deep quakes
Study of one portion of the San Andreas fault finds that just a little added stress from crustal tides makes a quake more likely.
