All Stories by Sid Perkins
- Earth
September’s Science: Shutdown of airlines aided contrail studies
The shutdown of commerical aviation within the United States for 3 days after Sept. 11, 2001, provided scientists with a unique opportunity to study the influence of high-flying jet aircraft on Earth's climate.
- Earth
Tornado Alley, USA
A new model that simulates 30,000 years worth of tornadoes in the United States finds that the place not to be if you fear funnel clouds is southeastern Oklahoma, where any particular spot can expect to get damaged once every 4,000 years.
- Paleontology
Ancient Whodunit: Scientists indict wee suspects in ancient deaths
Evidence locked in 180,000-year-old sediments suggests that a toxic algae bloom was the cause of death for a large group of mammals that were fossilized intact on an ancient lake bottom.
- Earth
In case of temblor, run downhill
Computer models of the ground motions measured on a shallow hill during an earthquake suggest that, in certain circumstances, the ground movements could be magnified by as much as 10 times those measured on flat areas nearby.
- Humans
In USSR, generals did it by the numbers
A statistical analysis of the dates and times of Soviet underground nuclear tests suggests that the favorite numbers of the test-site commander may have had a significant influence upon the precise timing of the detonations.
- Earth
Monitors get weird vibes from Antarctic
In late 2000, seismometers on islands in the South Pacific picked up vibrations that were eventually traced to a large iceberg drifting in the Ross Sea north of Antarctica.
- Earth
Symbionts affect coral’s chemistry
The presence of symbiotic organisms in the tiny animals that build coral reefs changes the rates at which the animals take in minerals from the water, a finding that may affect the results of many research projects that have used chemical analyses of coral remains to infer past sea-surface temperatures.
- Earth
The Silent Type: Pacific Northwest hit routinely by nonquakes
Once every 14 months or so, portions of coastal British Columbia and northwestern Washington State experience a slow ground motion that, if released all at once, would generate an earthquake measuring more than 6 on the Richter scale.
- Earth
Motion of ice across Lake Vostok revealed
New measurements of the movement of the Antarctic ice sheet across a lake that harbors microbial life beneath 4 kilometers of ice could help scientists determine where to drill to get the freshest samples of frozen water without contaminating the lake.
- Earth
Satellites discover new Arctic islands
Danish researchers analyzing satellite observations of remote Tobias Island, discovered in 1993 off the northeastern coast of Greenland, have stumbled upon a new group of small islands nearby.
- Earth
All Cracked Up from the Heat? Major hunk of an Antarctic ice shelf shatters and drifts away
A Rhode Island-size section of an Antarctic ice shelf splintered into thousands of icebergs in a mere 5-week period during the area's warmest summer on record.
- Earth
Rocks in Earth’s mantle could hold five oceans
Analysis of minerals created in the laboratory under conditions that simulate those deep within the planet suggests that the zone of rocks just outside Earth's core could hold enough water to fill the oceans five times.
