All Stories by Sid Perkins
- Tech
Wrinkle, wrinkle, little polymer
Scientists have developed a cheap and easy way to create specific patterns of tiny wrinkles on the surface of a flexible and commonly used polymer, a technique that could be used to fabricate an assortment of microdevices.
- Materials Science
Microstructures make a beetle brilliant
Engineers looking to make a variety of surfaces whiter and brighter could learn a few things from a lowly beetle.
- Earth
Sudden Chill
Today's combination of nuclear proliferation, political instability, and urban demographics increases the likelihood that humankind could suffer a devastating nuclear winter.
- Paleontology
Ancient Glider: Dinosaur took to the air in biplane style
About 125 million years before the Wright Brothers took to the air with their biplane, a 1-meter-long dinosaur may have been swooping from tree to tree using the same arrangement of wings.
- Paleontology
Going Under Down Under: Early people at fault in Australian extinctions
A lengthy, newly compiled fossil record of Australian mammals bolsters the notion that humanity's arrival on the island continent led to the extinction of many large creatures there.
- Earth
2006: Hottest year in U.S. history
Preliminary analyses of weather data gathered from more than 1,200 sites across the continental United States indicate that last year was the warmest on record.
- Paleontology
Of penguins’ range and climate change
Variations in the range of Adélie penguins along one section of Antarctica's coast during the past 45,000 years are a keen indicator of climate change there.
- Materials Science
Electrode Enhancements: New materials may boost fuel cell performance
Two teams have independently discovered ways to dramatically improve the materials used in the electrodes of fuel cells.
- Paleontology
Paleotrickery: A lengthy lineage for leaf-mimicking insects
Species in one group of insects have escaped the hungry eye of predators by looking like foliage and moving like swaying leaves for at least 47 million years, a new fossil find suggests.
- Humans
When budgeting for quakes, dig deep
If earthquakes that struck the United States since 1900 are any guide, the nation can expect to suffer seismic damages of about $2.5 billion dollars each year in the future.
- Earth
Scraping the bottom
A survey of deep waters in western Lake Superior has revealed the tracks left by massive icebergs scraping bottom there during the last ice age.
- Earth
Glaciers give major boost to sea level
The ongoing disappearance of glaciers and other small ice masses worldwide makes a larger contribution to sea level rise than the melting of ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica does.
