SciencePoles news
Recent Polar Science and Climate Change news are featured here. Our news RSS feed will inform you when news are published on this website.
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Antarctic Algae Forests Could Provide New Cancer Medicines
24.03.2010
A team of scientists from the University of Alabama at Birmingham are in the middle of a three-month diving expedition at Palmer Station on the West coast of Antarctica. The team is focusing on the creatures living in the algae forest in the cold waters of the Antarctic Ocean in…
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Researchers Looking for Abundant Microbial Life in Antarctic Subglacial Lakes
24.03.2010
As the interior of the Antarctic continent may not be home to the plant and animal life found abundantly on other continents, for a long time it was thought to have little or no life. In reality the opposite is true: Antarctica is home to large numbers of microbes, bacteria…
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High Arctic Animal Populations Declining
22.03.2010
While the number of animals overall in the Arctic to has increased over the last 40 years, according to the first report from the Arctic Species Trend Index (ASTI), which provides information on how the Arctic's ecosystems and wildlife are responding to environmental change, the populations in the high Arctic…
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Antarctica Home to Methane-Producing Microbes
19.03.2010
The newly discovered role of microbes thriving under the thick ice sheet of Antarctica in sublgacial lakes was discussed at a recent American Geophysical Union conference on Antarctic lakes. According to a new study, methanogens - microbes capable of producing methane a very potent greenhouse gas - are thriving in…
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NASA’s Find of Shrimp-like Creature under Antarctic Ice Shelf Puzzles Scientists
19.03.2010
When a NASA team lowered a camera into a borehole to look at the underside of an ice sheet in Antarctica in December 2009, they never suspected they would find anything like a Lyssianasid amphipod, a species distantly related to the common shrimp. The find leaves scientists wondering how such…
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Southern Ocean Winds Open Window to the Deep Sea
18.03.2010
Changes in the winds blowing on the Southern Ocean are responsible for variations in the depth of the surface layer of sea water which regulates the exchanges of heat and carbon dioxide between the ocean and the atmosphere, researchers have found. The findings, to be published in Nature Geoscience, provide…
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Vital Link in Antarctic Food Chain under Threat of Global Warming
18.03.2010
A team of scientists headed by University of South Florida marine biologist Dr. Joseph Torres is bound for the Antarctic Peninsula on a mission to study a vital link in the Antarctic food chain: the silverfish. The fish, a staple of many species of fish, seems to be disappearing at…
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Arctic Reindeer Switch off Circadian Clock to Adapt to Arctic Conditions
15.03.2010
A new study shows that reindeer might have adapted to the Arctic by silencing their circadian clock. The study, to be published in Current Biology, explains that the adaptation may be standard in Arctic animals, helping them to make the most of their harsh environment.
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Svalbard Arctic Vault Totals over 500,000 Samples
15.03.2010
After two years of existence, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault now holds more than half a million samples of seeds, housing the most diverse collection of food crop seeds to have ever been gathered on the surface of the Earth.
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Non-lethal Whale Research Offers New Perspective on Southern Ecosystem
12.03.2010
A team of Australian and New Zealand scientists on board the Tangaroa, a New Zealand research ship, has been able to carry out extensive research into whale behaviour in Antarctic waters without killing the animal. In an attempt to gain better insight into the the migration habits or the marine…
