NEWSWORTHY
Icebreaker Shirase leaves for Antarctica carrying freight for Japanese research expedition
The Maritime Self-Defense Force's icebreaker Shirase left Harumi pier in Tokyo on Saturday bound for Antarctica. It is transporting freight for Japan's 60th Antarctic expedition team. With most members of the team getting on board in Australia on Nov. 26, the Shirase is expected to ...
Plans for in Antarctic ocean sanctuary, world's largest, blocked by Russia, China and Norway
A plan to create the world's largest marine sanctuary in Antarctic waters has been shot down when a key conservation summit failed to reach a consensus, with environmentalists on Saturday decrying a lack of scientific foresight. Member states of the organization tasked with overseeing the ...
It is essential that China be a good citizen of Antarctica, and honor the legal and diplomatic conventions that govern behavior there.
Two male penguins who paired up as a "same-sex couple" have incubated a baby chick and are "doting" on their tiny offspring, an Australian aquarium announced Friday. Gentoo penguins Sphen and Magic are happily "taking turns caring for their baby chick," born on October 19 ...
Nobel Prize in economics 'will help' climate change movement, winner William Nordhaus says
The 2018 Nobel Prize in economics, which recognized a leading researcher into the effects of climate change, should give momentum to policies aimed at minimizing the damage, according to the Yale University professor who shared the award. "Yes it will help," William Nordhaus said Monday ...
Preventing an extra single degree of heat could make a life-or-death difference in the next few decades for multitudes of people and ecosystems on this fast-warming planet, an international panel of scientists reported Sunday. But they provide little hope the world will rise to ...
Experts float idea of massive propping up of glaciers to avoid cataclysmic sea level rise
As global warming outpaces efforts to tame it, scientists have proposed building massive underwater structures to prevent an Antarctic glacier the size of Britain from sliding into the sea and lifting the world's oceans by several meters. The more modest of two engineering schemes — ...
Scientists probe why New Zealand's Tawaki penguins swim halfway to Antarctica and back yearly
Each year in December, penguins with long blonde eyebrows swim away from the shores of New Zealand for a two-month marathon swim halfway to Antarctica and back. The breathtaking distance was recorded by researchers, who for the first time managed to track the birds. Penguins, universally ...
A breakthrough in the study of ghostly particles called high-energy neutrinos that traverse space, zipping unimpeded through people, planets and whole galaxies, is giving scientists an audacious new way to expand our understanding of the cosmos. Researchers say that for the first time they have ...
Thaw of Antarctic ice lifts up land by up to 4 cm a year, might slow sea level rise: scientists
Antarctica's bedrock is rising surprisingly fast as a vast mass of ice melts into the oceans, a trend that might slow an ascent in sea levels caused by global warming, scientists said on Thursday. The Earth's crust in West Antarctica is rising by up to ...
Ice caps live-blogging human history
At the dawn of the 20th century, when the first humans set foot on Antarctica's seemingly pristine ice cap, pollution had beaten them there. Lead and other heavy metals quickly amassed in the ice in 1888 and beyond, leaving a record of the industrial revolution. ...
Hotter seas seen threatening catastrophic loss of marine life by 2100
Polar bears and other iconic animals could be extinct by the end of the century if ocean temperatures continue to rise at the current rate, marine biologists warned Monday. Warming temperatures caused by climate-changing emissions may result in a catastrophic loss of marine wildlife and ...
