All Stories by Sid Perkins
- Tech
Dawn of the commercial space age
On Oct. 4, a privately funded, piloted craft called SpaceShipOne reached a height of 378,000 feet (115.1 kilometers), breaking a world altitude record for rocket-powered planes and claiming the $10 million Ansari X prize.
- Earth
Global warming won’t boost carbon storage in tundra
The notion that a warmer climate in arctic regions will lead to enhanced carbon sequestration in tundra ecosystems isn't supported by field data.
- Earth
Humming Along: Ocean waves may cause global seismic noise
The slow and nearly constant vibrations of Earth's crust stem from severe winter weather over some of the world's oceans.
- Paleontology
Big Gulp? Neck ribs may have given aquatic beast unique feeding style
The fossilized neck bones of a 230-million-year-old sea creature have features suggesting that the animal's snakelike throat could flare open and create suction to pull in prey.
- Earth
Cool Harvest: Frost on sea ice may boost atmosphere’s bromine
Frost flowers, the delicate crystals that sometimes grow atop fresh sea ice, can be a substantial source of ozone-destroying bromine in lower atmosphere near the poles.
- Earth
Paved Paradise?
The precipitation-fed runoff that spills from impervious surfaces such as buildings, roads, and parking lots in developed areas increases erosion in streams, wreaks ecological havoc there, and contributes to urban heat islands.
- Earth
North and South: Equal melting from each hemisphere raised ice age sea levels
The gargantuan volumes of meltwater that boosted sea levels during the most recent round of ice ages derived equally from ice sheets in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.
- Planetary Science
Martian ice could be sculpting surface patterns
Images taken by the Mars Global Surveyor suggest that most areas with geological features known as patterned ground appear at high latitudes.
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Some corals like it hotter
The heat-tolerant algae that live symbiotically within some corals may enable their hosts to adapt to the warmer water temperatures projected to accompany long-term climate change.
- Tech
A new deep-sea submersible
Scientists have announced a 4-year, $21.6-million design-and-construction effort to replace the aging research submersible Alvin.
- Earth
Early Shift: North Sea plankton and fish move out of sync
As ocean temperatures in the North Sea have warmed in recent decades, the life cycles of some species low in the food chain have accelerated significantly, sometimes wreaking ecological havoc.
- Paleontology
Growth Spurt: Teenage tyrannosaurs packed on the pounds
Detailed analyses of tyrannosaur fossils suggest that the creatures experienced an extended growth spurt during adolescence.
