Sid Perkins

Sid Perkins is a freelance science writer based in Crossville, Tenn.

All Stories by Sid Perkins

  1. As the worms churn

    Burrowing animals mix soil and sediments, shaping the environment and scientists’ understanding of it.

  2. Earth

    World’s longest cave formation still growing

    Minerals still accumulate in New Mexico’s Snowy River.

  3. Animals

    Ancient giant beavers did not chow on trees

    The now-extinct animals had a hippo-like diet

  4. Chemistry

    How leaves could monitor pollution

    Trees near high-traffic areas accumulate tiny particles.

  5. Earth

    Johnstown Flood matched volume of Mississippi River

    A modern survey of terrain determines flow rate of the 1889 flood that was one of America's deadliest disasters.

  6. Ecosystems

    Windy with a chance of weevils

    Scientists have traced the reappearance of cotton pests in west-central Texas to a tropical storm.

  7. Paleontology

    Fungi thrived during mass extinction

    Fossil analyses hint that several species thrived during the world’s largest mass extinction.

  8. Tech

    Nobel Prize in physics awarded for work with light

    Charles K. Kao wins for discoveries enabling fiber-optic communication, and Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith win for inventing the charge-coupled device

  9. Paleontology

    Fish death, mammal extinction and tiny dino footprints

    Paleontologists in Bristol, England, at the annual meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology report on fish fossils in Wyoming, the loss of Australia’s megafauna and the smallest dinosaur tracks.

  10. Paleontology

    Feather-covered dinosaur fossils found

    Scientists have uncovered a feather-laden, peacock-sized dinosaur that predates the oldest known bird.

  11. Paleontology

    King of the ancient seas

    Paleontologists discover fossilized skeleton of bus-sized marine reptile that had teeth with serrated edges.

  12. Life

    Dino-era delivery at sea

    Genetic determination of gender is linked to live birth and evolutionary success of ancient marine reptiles, study finds.