All Stories by Sid Perkins
- Earth
Sahara to get hotter, drier, smaller
By the end of this century, the world's hottest desert will be even hotter, drier, and smaller than it is now, according to an international team of climate modelers.
- Earth
Resetting a clock from Earth’s rocks
Better measurements of one of the rates of radioactive decay used to date extremely old rocks open up the possibility that Earth may have had a crust as many as 200 million years earlier than previously thought.
- Earth
Deep-sea gear takes wild ride on lava
When a set of instruments monitoring an underwater volcano got trapped in an eruption in early 1998, the scientists who had deployed the sensors ended up with more data than they bargained for.
- Paleontology
A Ticklish Debate
Paleontologists engaged in a contentious debate about the origins of feathers often reach interpretations that are poles apart, and they defend their views with fervor.
- Ecosystems
Marine plankton put nitrogen in a fix
New genetic analyses of tropical marine microorganisms hint that some species are converting significant amounts of atmospheric nitrogen into nutrients, helping to fortify the base of the ocean's food pyramid.
- Paleontology
Study picks new site for dinosaur nostrils
A new analysis of fossils and living animals suggests that most dinosaurs' nostrils occurred at locations toward the tip of their snout rather than farther up on their face, a concept that may change scientists' views of the animals' physiology and behavior.
- Paleontology
For past climate clues, ask a stalag-mite
Mites fossilized in cave formations in the American Southwest show that at times during the past 3,200 years the climate there was much wetter and cooler.
- Earth
Atlantic coast may be in for a pounding
The above-average number and strength of hurricanes in the North Atlantic during the past 6 years may signal the beginning of a threatening weather trend for the United States, the Caribbean, and Central America.
- Earth
New type of hydrothermal vent looms large
The discovery of a new type of hydrothermal vent system on an undersea mountain in the Atlantic Ocean suggests that submarine hydrothermal activity may be much more widespread than previously thought.
- Earth
The Silence of the Bams
If a nuclear explosion were set off in a cavity of the right size and shape, even a moderate-sized nuclear bomb might appear at long distances to be no bigger than a routine explosion used in mining.
- Earth
Atlanta leaves big chemical footprint
A new analysis of water quality downstream of Atlanta shows that some pollutants from the city are still detectable in the river more than 500 kilometers away.
- Earth
Amazon forest could disappear, soon
A new model that includes a forest's effect on regional climate shows that the Amazon rainforest could disappear in the next three decades, much more rapidly than previously expected.
