All Stories by Sid Perkins
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Planetary ScienceMarsquakes reveal the Red Planet boasts a liquid core half its diameter
Analyses of seismic waves picked up by NASA’s InSight lander shed new light on the planet’s core and give clues to the thickness of the crust.
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ClimateCollapse may not always be inevitable for marine ice cliffs
Runaway collapse of ice cliffs could dramatically boost sea level. But these cliffs may not be so vulnerable, new simulations suggest.
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EarthA new book uses stories from tsunami survivors to decode deadly waves
In ‘Tsunami: The World’s Greatest Waves,’ two scientists chronical hundreds of eyewitness accounts to show the human cost of life at the water’s edge.
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AnimalsNewly recognized tricks help elephants suck up huge amounts of water
New ultrasound imaging reveals what goes on inside a pachyderm’s trunk while feeding. It can snort water at the rate of 24 shower heads.
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PaleontologyT. rex’s incredible biting force came from its stiff lower jaw
T. rex could generate incredibly strong bite forces thanks to a boomerang-shaped bone that stiffened the lower jaw, a new analysis suggests.
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ClimateClimate change may have changed the direction of the North Pole’s drift
A mid-1990s shift in the movement of the pole was driven by glacial melt, in part caused by climate change, among other factors, a new study reports.
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Planetary ScienceEarth sweeps up 5,200 tons of extraterrestrial dust each year
Thousands of micrometeorites collected from Antarctica come from both comets and asteroids, a new study suggests.
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Planetary ScienceA meteor may have exploded over Antarctica 430,000 years ago
Tiny spherules recovered from a mountaintop suggest a space rock broke apart midflight and sprayed debris across thousands of kilometers.
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AstronomyAndromeda’s and the Milky Way’s black holes will collide. Here’s how it may play out
Supermassive black holes in the Milky Way and Andromeda will engulf each other less than 17 million years after the galaxies merge, simulations show.
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Space‘Alien Oceans’ argues the search for E.T. should include the outer solar system
In Alien Oceans, a NASA scientist explores the evidence that ice-covered moons host hidden oceans, where life could evolve and thrive.
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LifeA new book captures how genetics fills in the story of life’s evolution
In Some Assembly Required, paleontologist Neil Shubin explores how genetic analyses complement paleontological research.
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PaleontologySmall ‘cousins’ of T. rex may actually have been growing teenagers
Fossil analyses suggest that Nanotyrannus wasn’t a diminutive relative of the more famous behemoth Tyrannosaurus rex.