All Stories by Sid Perkins
- Paleontology
Egg-Citing Discovery: Dinosaur fossil includes eggshells
The first-ever find of shelled eggs inside a dinosaur fossil bolsters ideas about the reptiles' reproductive physiology.
- Earth
Hit Again: December temblor probably caused new Sumatran quakes
Seismic activity that rattled the Indonesian region early this week, including a quake that measured a whopping magnitude 8.7, was triggered by December's massive tsunami-spawning earthquake, scientists suggest.
- Earth
Volume of glaciers and ice caps is estimated
New topographic data have enabled scientists to estimate the volume of water trapped in the ice caps and glaciers outside of Antarctica and Greenland and to predict how high the sea level would rise if this ice melted.
- Paleontology
Old Softy: Tyrannosaurus fossil yields flexible tissue
Scientists analyzing fragments of a Tyrannosaurus rex's leg bone have recovered soft, pliable material, including structures that apparently are cells and blood vessels.
- Planetary Science
Slowpoke: Atmosphere put brakes on meteorite that formed famed crater
The extraterrestrial object that gouged out Arizona's Meteor Crater about 50,000 years ago struck at a speed much slower than most scientists had previously proposed.
- Earth
Warm Spell: Arctic algae record shift in climate
Analyses of sediment samples taken from remote arctic lakes indicate that the climate across large swaths of the Northern Hemisphere has been warming for many decades.
- Earth
Baking dirt to predict erosion after a fire
Lab tests suggest that a wide variety of soils exposed to the heat of intense wildfires end up with a similar resistance to erosion, a finding that may help scientists model that process more accurately.
- Earth
Straight Flush
Scientists are evaluating the results of the flood they unleashed in the Grand Canyon last November, hoping that it will restore sandbars and beaches along the Colorado River just downstream of Arizona's Glen Canyon Dam.
- Ecosystems
Return of the Wetlands? Restoration possible for some Iraqi marshes
Field studies conducted in Iraq last year suggest that some of the region's ecologically devastated marshes could be returned to health.
- Earth
Lava fountain driven by reservoir of gas
The gases driving a lava fountain that spewed from Italy's Mount Etna in June 2000 had accumulated in a reservoir 1.5 kilometers below the mountain's peak, chemical analyses suggest.
- Earth
Sky High: Gamma-ray bursts are common in Earth’s upper atmosphere
Enigmatic bursts of high-energy gamma rays produced Earth's atmosphere are stronger and more frequent than previously thought.
- Paleontology
Groovy Bones: Mammalian ear structure evolved more than once
Fossils of an ancient egg-laying mammal indicate that the characteristic configuration of the bones in all living mammals' ears arose independently at least twice during the group's evolution.
