All Stories by Sid Perkins
- Earth
Irrigation may be shifting Earth’s rotational axis
Computer simulations suggest that from 1993 to 2010 irrigation alone could have nudged the North Pole by about 78 centimeters.
- Climate
Why is the North Atlantic breaking heat records?
Record-breaking sea-surface temperatures off the coast of Africa may affect the 2023 hurricane season. What’s fueling the unusual heat is unclear.
- Anthropology
These ancient flutes may have been used to lure falcons
Seven bird-bone flutes unearthed from a site in northern Israel are about 12,000 years old and may have been used as bird calls.
-
New discoveries are bringing the world of pterosaurs to life
The latest clues hint at where pterosaurs — the first vertebrates to fly — came from, how they evolved, what they ate and more.
- Climate
The summer of 2021 was the Pacific Northwest’s hottest in a millennium
Tree ring data from the Pacific Northwest reveal that the region’s average summer temperature in 2021 was the highest since at least the year 950.
- Paleontology
Newfound bat skeletons are the oldest on record
The newly identified species Icaronycteris gunnelli lived about 52.5 million years ago in what is now Wyoming and looked a lot like modern bats.
- Astronomy
The biggest planet orbiting TRAPPIST-1 doesn’t appear to have an atmosphere
TRAPPIST-1b is hotter than astronomers expected, suggesting there’s no atmosphere to transport heat around the planet.
- Paleontology
520-million-year-old animal fossils might not be animals after all
Newly described fossils of Protomelission gatehousei suggest that the species, once thought to be the oldest example of bryozoans, is actually a type of colony-forming algae.
- Paleontology
The oldest known pollen-carrying insects lived about 280 million years ago
Pollen stuck to fossils of earwig-like Tillyardembia pushes back the earliest record of potential insect pollinators by about 120 million years.
- Planetary Science
NASA’s Perseverance rover captured the sound of a dust devil on Mars
A whirlwind swept over Perseverance while its microphone was on, capturing the sound of dust grains hitting the mic or the NASA rover’s chassis.
- Microbes
Ancient bacteria could persist beneath Mars’ surface
Radiation-tolerant microbes might be able to survive beneath Mars’ surface for hundreds of millions of years, a new study suggests.
- Plants
The worldwide water-lifting power of plants is enormous
The energy used per year by the world’s plants to lift sap rivals the amount of energy generated by all hydroelectric dams, a new study suggests.
