Sid Perkins

Sid Perkins is a freelance science writer based in Crossville, Tenn.

All Stories by Sid Perkins

  1. a composite of photos of a lion, a resplendent quetzal, golden poison frog and blue shark (left to right)
    Science & Society

    Humans exploit about one-third of wild vertebrate species

    An analysis of nearly 47,000 vertebrate animal species reveals that using them for food, medicine or the pet trade is helping push some toward extinction.

  2. A photo of sprinklers watering crops.
    Earth

    Irrigation may be shifting Earth’s rotational axis

    Computer simulations suggest that from 1993 to 2010 irrigation alone could have nudged the North Pole by about 78 centimeters.

  3. A radar map of the North Atlantic ocean showing large areas of unusually high temperatures in orange and red, with some blue spots near the east coast of North America
    Climate

    Why is the North Atlantic breaking heat records?

    Record-breaking sea-surface temperatures off the coast of Africa may affect the 2023 hurricane season. What’s fueling the unusual heat is unclear.

  4. Seven ancient bone flutes, each shown from three different angles, against a black backdrop
    Anthropology

    These ancient flutes may have been used to lure falcons

    Seven bird-bone flutes unearthed from a site in northern Israel are about 12,000 years old and may have been used as bird calls.

  5. An illustration of a pterosaur flying over rocky terrain with mountains, a body of water and the sun in the background.

    New discoveries are bringing the world of pterosaurs to life

    The latest clues hint at where pterosaurs — the first vertebrates to fly — came from, how they evolved, what they ate and more.

  6. A United States maps focused on the average summer temperatures in 2021. The west coast is covered in a darker red color while the rest of the country is a light red/orange color.
    Climate

    The summer of 2021 was the Pacific Northwest’s hottest in a millennium

    Tree ring data from the Pacific Northwest reveal that the region’s average summer temperature in 2021 was the highest since at least the year 950.

  7. A photo of a fossilized bat skeleton
    Paleontology

    Newfound bat skeletons are the oldest on record

    The newly identified species Icaronycteris gunnelli lived about 52.5 million years ago in what is now Wyoming and looked a lot like modern bats.

  8. An illustration of an orange planet with dark orange and red spots scattered across its surface.
    Astronomy

    The biggest planet orbiting TRAPPIST-1 doesn’t appear to have an atmosphere

    TRAPPIST-1b is hotter than astronomers expected, suggesting there’s no atmosphere to transport heat around the planet.

  9. A photo of a fossil with two dark brown pieces attached to the shell.
    Paleontology

    520-million-year-old animal fossils might not be animals after all

    Newly described fossils of Protomelission gatehousei suggest that the species, once thought to be the oldest example of bryozoans, is actually a type of colony-forming algae.

  10. An illustration of a Tillyardembia sitting on a plant.
    Paleontology

    The oldest known pollen-carrying insects lived about 280 million years ago

    Pollen stuck to fossils of earwig-like Tillyardembia pushes back the earliest record of potential insect pollinators by about 120 million years.

  11. A photo of NASA’s Perseverance rover (whose wheel is seen at left) exploring Mars’ dusty Jezero crater on November 5.
    Planetary Science

    NASA’s Perseverance rover captured the sound of a dust devil on Mars

    A whirlwind swept over Perseverance while its microphone was on, capturing the sound of dust grains hitting the mic or the NASA rover’s chassis.

  12. A close up of orange bacteria on a yellow background
    Microbes

    Ancient bacteria could persist beneath Mars’ surface

    Radiation-tolerant microbes might be able to survive beneath Mars’ surface for hundreds of millions of years, a new study suggests.