All Stories by Sid Perkins
- Humans
Heed your elders, survive a tsunami
An oral tradition passed down among islanders in the South Pacific saved many lives during a tsunami last year and illustrates the benefits that community-based education and awareness programs can provide.
- Earth
Finding Fault: Trace of old subduction zone found in Italy
A thick layer of rocks now lying high in the mountains of Italy is the remains of a quake-generating subduction zone active under the sea millions of years ago, a discovery that provides clues about ancient seismic activity along this interface between tectonic plates and insights into what may be happening along many such subduction zones today.
- Earth
Seafloor Chemistry: Life’s building blocks made inorganically
Hydrocarbons in fluids spewing from hydrothermal vents on the seafloor in the central Atlantic were produced by inorganic chemical reactions deep within the ocean crust, a finding with implications for the possible origins of life.
- Humans
A Thirst for Meat: Changes in diet, rising population may strain China’s water supply
Rapid industrialization, an increase in population, and a growing dietary preference for meat in China are straining the country's water resources to the point where food imports probably will be needed to meet demand in coming decades.
- Earth
Bird’s-eye view of Antarctic ice loss
Satellite images of Antarctica between 1992 and 2006 indicate that the continent was losing ice much faster at the end of that period than it was a decade before.
- Humans
Transport emissions sizable, and rising
Almost one-sixth of the carbon dioxide produced by human activity since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution resulted from the transport of goods and people—an emissions fraction that's increasing by the year.
- Earth
Hued Afterglow: Fingerprinting diamonds via phosphorescence
The eerie phosphorescence displayed by a rare form of blue diamond can be used as an easy, cheap, and nondestructive way to identify individual gemstones and to distinguish natural blue diamonds from synthetic ones.
- Paleontology
The warm jungles of ancient France
Chemical analyses of amber excavated near Paris suggest that France was covered with a dense tropical forest about 55 million years ago.
- Archaeology
La Brea del Sur
Excavations at tar pits in Venezuela suggest that the fossils found there may rival those of the famed Rancho La Brea tar pits in Southern California.
- Paleontology
Whales started small
The ancestors of whales, some of which are the largest creatures ever to evolve, probably were mammals no larger than a fox.
- Earth
Plowing the Ancient Seas: Iceberg scours found off South Carolina
Recent sonar surveys off the southeastern United States have detected dozens of broad furrows on the seafloor that were carved by icebergs during the last ice age.
- Earth
In 2007, Greenland set a melting record
The duration and extent of ice melt across high-altitude portions of the Greenland ice sheet last year were the highest they've been in recent decades, satellite observations indicate.
