All Stories by Sid Perkins
- Paleontology
Fossil mystery solved?
Experiments in a Florida swamp show how aquatic creatures can get trapped and preserved in amber, a form of hardened tree sap.
- Earth
Invasive, Indeed
Some people may live lightly on the land, but the demands of the world's population as a whole consume nearly a quarter of Earth's total biological productivity.
- Archaeology
Lake-Bottom Bounty: Some Arctic sediments didn’t erode during recent ice ages
Sediments in a few lakes in northeastern Canada were not scoured away during recent ice ages, a surprising find that could prove a boon to climate researchers.
- Paleontology
Unexpected Archive: Mammoth hair yields ancient DNA
Hair from ancient mammoths contains enough genetic material to permit reconstruction of parts of the animal's genome.
- Astronomy
Out-of-focus find
Blurry images yield estimates of the true width of glowing meteor vapor trails in Earth's upper atmosphere.
- Paleontology
Bumpy Bones: Fossil hints that dinosaur had feathery forearms
A series of knobs on the forearm bone of a 1.5-meter-long velociraptor provides the first direct evidence of substantial feathers on a dinosaur of that size.
- Earth
Meteor dust layers taint Antarctic ice
Two layers of deep Antarctic ice, each hundreds of thousands of years old, are rich in meteoritic dust.
- Earth
Grazing on the Periodic Table: Some ancient microorganisms lived on a diet of pure sulfur
Microorganisms that lived 3.5 billion years ago obtained energy by metabolizing pure sulfur.
- Earth
What Goes Up
A massive scientific field study in Mexico City, along with lab experiments and computer simulations, show that pollution from the world's megacities has a global impact.
- Earth
Sonic Sands: Uncovering the secret of the booming dunes
The age-old mystery of sand dunes that produce loud, thrumming noises is explained by a new theory that involves a resonant layer of dry sand.
- Plants
Cretaceous Corsages? Fossil in amber suggests antiquity of orchids
Orchids appeared on the scene about 80 million years ago, according to evidence from a bee that collected orchid pollen and got trapped in amber.
- Earth
Arctic snow was dirtier in early 1900s
Arctic snow collects less soot now than it did a century ago, but it's still dirtier than it was before the Industrial Revolution.
