Sid Perkins
Sid Perkins is a freelance science writer based in Crossville, Tenn.
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All Stories by Sid Perkins
- Earth
Global warming heats up nursery of hurricanes
Sea-surface temperatures in the North Atlantic Ocean reached record highs last year.
- Earth
Radiation Redux: Forest fires remobilize fallout from bomb tests
A sensor installed to monitor fallout from modern nuclear tests has detected small amounts of radioactive cesium produced by bomb tests decades ago and sent skyward by forest fires.
- Earth
Underwater landslides tallied near Puerto Rico
An oceanographic survey off the northern coast of Puerto Rico has found remnants of many underwater landslides, a handful of which were large enough to have caused deadly tsunamis.
- Planetary Science
Lots of red dust, but not much noise
In space, no one can hear you scream, but a new analysis suggests that it's pretty quiet on Mars, too.
- Earth
Asian sediments betray age of nearby desert
Grains of silt embedded in thick sediments of northwestern China may settle a debate about the age of the Taklimakan Desert.
- Paleontology
Sticky Subjects: Insights into ancient spider diet, kinship
Remnants of a spider web embedded in ancient amber suggest that some spiders' diets haven't changed much in millions of years.
- Paleontology
Ancient webbed masters
Newly unearthed fossils of a 110-million-year-old bolster the notion that all modern birds evolved from aquatic ancestors.
- Earth
Cleaning up pollution, whey down deep
Lab and field tests hint that dairy whey, a lactose-rich by-product of the dairy industry, could be used to clean up underground water supplies tainted by the solvent trichloroethylene.
- Earth
Subglacial lakes may not be isolated ecosystems
Large volumes of water may occasionally flow between the lakes that lie deep beneath Antarctica's kilometers-thick ice sheet.
- Paleontology
Amphibious Ancestors
Newly discovered fossils from Greenland, as well as a reexamination of those of previously known creatures, are providing researchers with additional insights into ancient vertebrates' move from water to land.
- Earth
Toxic Tides: Another reason to worry about hurricanes
The hurricanes that struck Florida in the summer of 2004 also may have triggered an intense, widespread, and long-lasting red tide that afflicted the state's west-central coast throughout 2005.
- Earth
Deep-sea action
Scientists using remotely operated vehicles have reported the first close-up observations of a deep undersea volcano during its eruption.