Sid Perkins

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

All Stories by Sid Perkins

  1. Earth

    Signs of Life?

    Life's effects on a planet's terrain show up only in surprisingly subtle ways.

  2. Earth

    Stunting Growth: Ozone will trim plants’ carbon-storing power

    Increasing ground-level ozone due to pollution will stifle the growth of vegetation in many regions, accelerating the buildup of planet-warming carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

  3. Earth

    Erosion accelerates along Alaskan coast

    Alaska's northern coast is falling into the sea at an accelerating rate.

  4. Earth

    Birth of an Island: Megaflood severed Europe from Britain

    Hundreds of thousands of years ago, the spillover from an immense glacial lake carved a chasm that in a matter of weeks separated what is now Britain from continental Europe.

  5. Ecosystems

    Sea Change: People have affected what penguins eat

    Adélie penguins in Antarctica significantly changed their eating habits about 200 years ago, after whaling and other human activities transformed the ocean ecosystem.

  6. Earth

    As the last ice age waned, a great lake was born

    Lake Agassiz, a huge and now vanished freshwater lake, formed almost 14,000 years ago, toward the end of the last ice age.

  7. Earth

    Polymer Breakdown: Reaction offers possible way to recycle nylon

    A new chemical process offers hope that the thousands of tons of nylon thrown away every year could one day be recycled.

  8. Earth

    Icebergs can be biological hot spots

    Icebergs carry nutrients from the land and shed them into the sea, nourishing life in the frigid waters near Antarctica.

  9. Chemistry

    A sweet way to replace petroleum?

    Thanks to a new chemical process, many products now manufactured from petroleum could one day be made from sugar molecules.

  10. Earth

    A Gemstone’s Wild Ride

    Diamonds may be carried to the surface in explosions of gas and rock fizzing up from deep within Earth's mantle.

  11. Paleontology

    Winged dragon

    A quarry on the Virginia–North Carolina border has yielded fossils of an unusual gliding reptile that lived in the region about 220 million years ago.

  12. Earth

    Tree rings tell tale of megadroughts

    Tree rings in ancient timber show that the Colorado Plateau experienced a 60-year drought in the 12th century.