All Stories by Sid Perkins
- Earth
Going Down? Probe could ride to Earth’s core in a mass of molten iron
A geophysicist suggests that scientists could explore Earth's inner structure by sending a grapefruit-size probe on a week-long mission to the Earth's core inside a crust-busting mass of molten iron.
- Paleontology
Ancient wood points to arctic greenhouse
Chemical analyses of wood that grew in an ancient arctic forest suggest that the air there once was about twice as humid as it is now.
- Earth
Patterns from Nowhere
Scientists are developing geophysical models that may explain the polygonal patterns that appear in and on the ground in remote regions of the Arctic, Antarctica, and possibly the surface of Mars.
- Paleontology
Winging South: Finally, a fly fossil from Antarctica
A tiny fossil collected about 500 kilometers from the South Pole indicates that Antarctica was once home to a type of fly that scientists long thought had never inhabited the now-icy, almost insectfree continent.
- Earth
The Fires Below
Underground coal fires help shape the landscape on many scales and in many ways, some transient and some long-lasting.
- Earth
Sensing a vibe
A sprawling network of seismometers that covers the Los Angeles area could be adapted to provide warning of damaging ground motions from earthquakes in the seconds before those seismic vibes arrive.
- Earth
Harbor waves yield secrets to analysis
New findings by ocean scientists may help port officials in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, predict potentially destructive waves in the city's harbor.
- Earth
Seismic waves resolve continental debate
New analyses of seismic waves that have traveled deep within Earth may answer a decades-old question about the thickness of the planet's continents.
- Earth
Feel the Heat: Rain forests may slow their growth in warmer world
During a long-term research project in a Central American rain forest, mature trees grew more slowly in warm years than they did in cooler ones.
- Earth
Eye of the Tiger
Recent research has upended a 130-year-old, previously unchallenged theory about how the semiprecious stone called tiger's-eye is formed.
- Paleontology
Fertile Ground: Snippets of DNA persist in soil for millennia
Minuscule samples of sediment from New Zealand and Siberia have yielded bits of DNA from dozens of animals and plants, including the oldest DNA sequences yet found that can be traced to a specific organism.
- Paleontology
Family Meal: Cannibal dinosaur known by its bones
Analyses of the gnaw marks on bones of Majungatholus atopus, a carnivorous dinosaur from Madagascar, indicate that the creatures routinely fed on members of their own species.
