Sid Perkins

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

All Stories by Sid Perkins

  1. Climate

    Heat waves stunt grassland growth

    An abnormally hot year can significantly suppress growth in grasslands, a stifling effect that lingers well into the next year even if temperatures return to normal. It can also hinder how well the grasslands absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

  2. Earth

    Don’t blame the cities

    Urban sprawl is sometimes blamed for skewing weather data and creating a false signal of global warming, but a new study suggests this idea is just a lot of hot air.

  3. Earth

    Mighty hurricanes get mightier

    Peak winds in North Atlantic hurricanes and similar storms elsewhere in the world have gained speed during the past three decades, thanks to a warming trend in many of the ocean basins where such storms are spawned.

  4. Earth

    Ice spy

    Radar altimeters on Earth-orbiting probes can detect and count small icebergs even under cloudy skies, providing warning to ships and invaluable data for scientists monitoring climate change.

  5. Earth

    Past gasps

    Earth’s atmosphere during some past geological ages wasn’t as oxygen-deprived as previously thought, new experiments suggest.

  6. Life

    Compass creatures

    Herds of grazing and resting deer and cattle tend to align themselves with the Earth’s magnetic field, a hint that the large mammals can somehow sense the invisible field.

  7. Earth

    Firm evidence that Earth’s core is solid

    Faint yet distinct ground motions recorded by a large network of seismic instruments in Japan in early 2006 are the strongest, most direct evidence that Earth’s inner core is solid.

  8. Life

    Humans aided, constrained by fossil fuels

    Maintaining long-term population will require alternate energy sources.

  9. Climate

    Forecast: Gullywashers

    Climate simulations are underestimating how often intense rainstorms occur at warm temperatures, a hint that episodes of extremely strong precipitation and flooding will strike more often as the global average temperature rises.

  10. Earth

    Naked planet

    Scientists officially launch OneGeology, a project that will produce a single digital map of the planet’s geological formations.

  11. Life

    Time to chill

    Well-preserved fossils deposited in an Antarctic lake about 14 million years ago pin down when a large part of the now-icy continent most recently dipped below freezing.

  12. Paleontology

    Soft tissue in fossils still mysterious

    New research suggests modern biofilms could contaminate ancient fossils.