As a science reporter – Mr Perlman has reported on events both on this planet – earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, dinosaur discoveries – and beyond it, chronicling the US-Russia space race, as well as shuttle and satellite launches.
He was one of the first reporters to cover what became the AIDS epidemic, writing a small piece in 1981 about men in the San Francisco area who had been affected by a disease called Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia. He went on to report extensively on the crisis, forming close bonds with both patients and doctors.
“If I started my career knowing what I know [now], I’d do the same thing,” he told Poynter.
“I've been all over the world. I've been in Antarctica, the South Pole, the north slope of Alaska, China, Israel, Europe — God knows where. I've just been everywhere covering the kinds of stories that I specialise in.
“How many people get to go watch a dig in Ethiopia to uncover the remains of a prehuman called Ardipithecus...and watch paleoanthropologists digging up fossils in the desert?”
