All Stories by Sid Perkins
- Earth
Indonesian reefs fell prey to fires
The fires that swept through Indonesian rain forests late in 1997 apparently laid waste to some marine ecosystems, as well.
- Earth
Long Ride West: Many western sediments came from Appalachians
Much of the material in several thick layers of sandstone in the western United States originated in the Appalachians.
- Paleontology
Oh, what a sticky web they wove
A look inside a piece of 130-million-year-old amber has revealed a thin filament of spider silk with sticky droplets that look just like those produced by modern spiders.
- Earth
Clearing the Air: Ozone-killing bromine is on the decline
Chemical analyses of Earth's lower atmosphere show that the overall concentration of bromine, a component of some potent ozone-destroying chemicals, has dropped by 5 percent since peaking in 1998.
- Earth
Not So Green? Using hydrogen as fuel may hurt environment
Replacing fossil fuels with clean-burning hydrogen—considered to be a way to reduce globe-warming carbon dioxide—may create a different set of environmental problems, including larger and longer-lasting ozone holes.
- Earth
Saltier Water: Climate change can slow ocean’s absorption of carbon dioxide gas
A decrease in precipitation over the Pacific Ocean north of Hawaii in recent years has left the ocean there saltier and has diminished its ability to soak up carbon dioxide.
- Agriculture
Fluid Security—Overcoming Water Shortfalls in the 21st Century
About 70 percent of Earth’s surface is covered with water, some 1.4 billion cubic kilometers of it. Too bad almost 96.5 percent of it’s salty, and another 2 percent is locked away as ice in remote places such as Greenland and Antarctica. All told, just a little more than 1 percent of our planet’s water […]
- Paleontology
Three Species No Moa? Fossil DNA analysis yields surprise
Analyses of genetic material from the fossils of large flightless birds called moas suggest that three types of the extinct birds may not be separate species after all.
- Earth
Large lake floods scoured New Zealand
A volcanic region of New Zealand’s North Island experienced immense floods and severe erosion when lakes filling the craters of dormant volcanoes burst through the craters' rims and poured down the slopes.
- Paleontology
A human migration fueled by dung?
When people made their way from Asia to the Americas, the path they took may have been covered in dung.
- Earth
For European lakes, how clean is clean enough?
New research on lakes in Denmark suggests that agriculture has been affecting water quality there for more than 5,000 years.
- Earth
Long-Term Ocean Venting: Seafloor system has been active for ages
Analyses of mineral deposits in and around a unique set of hydrothermal vents beneath the Atlantic Ocean suggest that the site's tallest towers of minerals have been growing for at least 30,000 years.
