All Stories by Sid Perkins
- Health & Medicine
Tracking down an emerging disease
By examining geographic patterns of outbreaks of a disfiguring skin disease in tropical nations, scientists are finding tentative clues about how the ailment spreads.
- Earth
. . . and churn up big waves, too
As Hurricane Ivan approached the U.S. Gulf Coast last September, sensors detected the largest wave ever measured by instruments.
- Earth
A hurricane can dump a lot of rain . . .
Hurricanes can drop enormous amounts of precipitation in a short amount of time, a phenomenon that residents of Puerto Rico experienced in spades when Hurricane Georges struck the island in 1998.
- Planetary Science
High Anxiety: Sudden solar flare highlights space risks
Measurements of energetic particles from an unusually strong solar flare that pummeled Earth early this year suggest that astronauts traveling or working in space might sometimes need to reach shelter within minutes of a warning.
- Earth
Muddy Waters
Even though human activities such as agriculture and deforestation are sending more sediment into streams and rivers, less of that material is reaching river deltas, a trend that exacerbates problems such as subsidence and coastal erosion.
- Earth
Portrait of destruction
A new simulation suggests where the most damaging ground motions would occur if a magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck the San Andreas fault east of Los Angeles.
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Learning to Listen
Disparate groups of creatures, including bats, toothed whales, and birds, have evolved biological sonar that they use to track prey, but other creatures have evolved ways to detect this sonar and thereby increase their odds of survival.
- Earth
Mind the Gap: Inadequate monitoring at many U.S. volcanoes
A report just released by the U.S. Geological Survey ranks the threats posed by the nation's volcanoes.
- Humans
Change of fuel could extend lives in Africa
By switching from biofuels such as wood and charcoal to kerosene or other fossil fuels, people in many parts of Africa could significantly trim indoor air pollution, thereby delaying millions of premature deaths from pulmonary disease over the next 25 years.
- Earth
Bed of Armor: Large rocks hold fast in flooding streams
The relative proportions of rocks of various sizes in gravel-lined streams remain constant, even during substantial floods.
- Paleontology
Early mammal had newfangled fangs
A tiny mammal that lived in Colorado about 150 million years ago had hollow teeth that lacked enamel, a characteristic that didn't reappear in mammals for another 100 million years.
- Earth
Coming Storms: Method predicts intensity of U.S. hurricane seasons
A new computer model that analyzes summer-wind patterns can help predict whether the United States will suffer a damaging hurricane season.
