http://www.physorg.com/ en-us Physorg.com internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. A new study that reconstructed ocean temperatures from millions of years ago could provide new insight into how the Earth responds to climate change. http://www.physorg.com/news178272697.html Space & Earth Tue, 24 Nov 2009 08:12:24 EST news178272697 (PhysOrg.com) -- A new study of Antarctica's past climate reveals that temperatures during the warm periods between ice ages (interglacials) may have been higher than previously thought. The latest analysis of ice core records suggests that Antarctic temperatures may have been up to 6°C warmer than the present day. http://www.physorg.com/news177773495.html Space & Earth Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:32:16 EST news177773495 The Antarctic system comprises of the continent itself, Antarctica, and the ocean surrounding it, the Southern Ocean. In a study for a doctoral degree by geophysicist Kai Rasmus, University of Helsinki, Finland, measurements were made during three Austral summers to study the optical properties of the Antarctic system and to produce radiation information for additional modeling studies. http://www.physorg.com/news177597461.html Space & Earth Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:38:39 EST news177597461 A giant iceberg twice the length of Beijing's "Bird's Nest" Stadium has been spotted floating off Australia and could be headed for New Zealand, scientists said on Thursday. http://www.physorg.com/news177225796.html Space & Earth Thu, 12 Nov 2009 05:40:04 EST news177225796 (PhysOrg.com) -- A study of the genetic structure of viruses in an Antarctic lake has revealed an astonishing genetic richness in the large number of viral families discovered. http://www.physorg.com/news177147268.html Biology Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:40:01 EST news177147268 Large blooms of tiny marine plants called phytoplankton are flourishing in areas of open water left exposed by the recent and rapid melting of ice shelves and glaciers around the Antarctic Peninsula. This remarkable colonisation is having a beneficial impact on climate change. As the blooms die back phytoplankton sinks to the sea-bed where it can store carbon for thousands or millions of years. http://www.physorg.com/news176986161.html Space & Earth Mon, 09 Nov 2009 10:49:50 EST news176986161 The seriousness of current global warming is underlined by a reconstruction of climate at Maxwell Bay in the South Shetland Islands of the Antarctic Peninsula over approximately the last 14,000 years, which appears to show that the current warming and widespread loss of glacial ice are unprecedented. http://www.physorg.com/news176727651.html Space & Earth Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:30:07 EST news176727651 (PhysOrg.com) -- UC Santa Cruz researchers are among the leaders of a major Antarctic research project in which scientists will drill through a half-mile of ice to penetrate subglacial Lake Whillans and study hidden processes that govern the dynamics of the West Antarctic ice sheet. http://www.physorg.com/news175361051.html Space & Earth Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:50:01 EST news175361051 New ground measurements made by the West Antarctic GPS Network (WAGN) project, composed of researchers from The University of Texas at Austin, The Ohio State University, and The University of Memphis, suggest the rate of ice loss of the West Antarctic ice sheet has been slightly overestimated. http://www.physorg.com/news175172992.html Space & Earth Mon, 19 Oct 2009 12:10:33 EST news175172992 NASA begins a series of flights Oct. 15 to study changes to Antarctica's sea ice, glaciers and ice sheets. The flights are part of Operation Ice Bridge, a six-year campaign that is the largest airborne survey ever made of ice at Earth's polar regions. http://www.physorg.com/news174245200.html Space & Earth Thu, 08 Oct 2009 19:10:02 EST news174245200 Scientists from British Antarctic Survey, National Institute of Polar Research, Tokyo, and Hokkaido University, Japan, have recorded the first observations of how albatrosses feed alongside marine mammals at sea. http://www.physorg.com/news174110413.html Biology Wed, 07 Oct 2009 05:30:01 EST news174110413 An innovative technique called L.I.F.E. imaging used successfully to detect bacteria in frozen Antarctic lakes could have exciting implications for demonstrating signs of life in the polar regions of Mars, according to an article published in the current issue of Astrobiology. http://www.physorg.com/news173623760.html Space & Earth Thu, 01 Oct 2009 13:49:59 EST news173623760 The most comprehensive picture of the rapidly thinning glaciers along the coastline of both the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets has been created using satellite lasers. The findings are an important step forward in the quest to make more accurate predictions for future sea level rise. http://www.physorg.com/news172931543.html Space & Earth Wed, 23 Sep 2009 13:50:01 EST news172931543 The link between declining CO2 levels in the earth's atmosphere and the formation of the Antarctic ice caps some 34 million years ago has been confirmed for the first time in a major research study. http://www.physorg.com/news172072921.html Space & Earth Sun, 13 Sep 2009 15:50:06 EST news172072921 A series of record-setting unmanned research flights are providing University of Colorado at Boulder researchers with some of the first 3-D observations of gaping holes in the Antarctic sea ice known as polynyas and the blasting winds that help form them. http://www.physorg.com/news171818910.html Space & Earth Thu, 10 Sep 2009 16:50:01 EST news171818910 The search for the best observatory site in the world has lead to the discovery of what is thought to be the coldest, driest, calmest place on Earth. No human is thought to have ever been there but it is expected to yield images of the heavens three times sharper than any ever taken from the ground. http://www.physorg.com/news170932769.html Space & Earth Mon, 31 Aug 2009 11:08:09 EST news170932769 (PhysOrg.com) -- One major threat of planetary warming is the melting of the great polar ice sheets, and the resulting rise in global sea level. Particularly worrisome to researchers is the fragility of the West Antarctic ice sheet (WAIS), whose bed lies well below sea-level, accelerating the natural flow between the grounded ice sheet itself and the floating ice shelves that make up its boundary. http://www.physorg.com/news170690352.html Space & Earth Fri, 28 Aug 2009 15:00:03 EST news170690352 Fossil coral data and temperature records derived from ice-core measurements have been used to place better constraints on future sea level rise, and to test sea level projections. http://www.physorg.com/news167906285.html Space & Earth Mon, 27 Jul 2009 09:40:05 EST news167906285 Arctic springtails (Megaphorura arctica) survive freezing temperatures by dehydrating themselves before the coldest weather sets in. Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Genomics have identified a suite of genes involved in controlling this extreme survival mechanism. http://www.physorg.com/news167375159.html Biology Tue, 21 Jul 2009 06:14:46 EST news167375159 (PhysOrg.com) -- A new study published this week takes scientists a step further in their quest to understand how Antarctica's vast glaciers will contribute to future sea-level rise. Reporting in the journal Nature Geoscience, scientists from British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and University of Durham describe how a new 3-d map created from radar measurements reveals features in the landscape beneath a vast river of ice, ten times wider than the Rhine, in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. http://www.physorg.com/news167315664.html Space & Earth Mon, 20 Jul 2009 13:50:02 EST news167315664 Forty miles off the Jersey Shore, an international team of scientists is grappling with a worrisome phenomenon: The oceans are slowly rising. The researchers are not studying the sea itself. Living for weeks at a time on this drilling platform, they are burrowing down into the past, pulling up cores of prehistoric sediment from nearly half a mile below the ocean floor. http://www.physorg.com/news167211051.html Space & Earth Sun, 19 Jul 2009 08:31:32 EST news167211051 Southern Elephant seals responded rapidly to climate and habitat change and established a new breeding site thousands of kilometres from existing breeding grounds, according to new research. http://www.physorg.com/news166425287.html Biology Fri, 10 Jul 2009 06:30:01 EST news166425287 It's not just good manners to wait your turn -- it's actually down to evolution, according to new research by University of Leicester psychologists. http://www.physorg.com/news166337233.html Biology Thu, 09 Jul 2009 05:47:46 EST news166337233 A new measurement system for the detection of whales is used for the first time on board of the research vessel Polarstern. Whales are usually difficult to spot. On the one hand, they spend the greater part of their life under water. On the other hand, only a small part of their body can be seen when they surface, and this can even hardly be distinguished from the surrounding water. http://www.physorg.com/news165751020.html Technology Thu, 02 Jul 2009 11:05:45 EST news165751020 Researchers from the British Antarctic Survey subjected species found in Antarctic waters to increasing levels of water temperature to learn how well they would cope with a warmer ocean. The study, to be presented at the Society for Experimental Biology meeting on Tuesday, June 30, shows that several of these species are already living really close to their upper temperature range, and that further increases could easily provoke serious ecological imbalances in this region. http://www.physorg.com/news165566317.html Biology Tue, 30 Jun 2009 07:39:44 EST news165566317 (PhysOrg.com) -- While a total or partial collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet as a result of warming would not raise global sea levels as high as some predict, levels on the U.S. seaboards would rise 25 percent more than the global average and threaten cities like New York, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco, according to a new study. http://www.physorg.com/news161530106.html Space & Earth Thu, 14 May 2009 14:28:52 EST news161530106 Motorway-sized troughs and channels carved into Antarctica's continental shelves by glaciers thousands of years ago could help scientists to predict future sea-level rise according to a report in the journal Geology this month (May). http://www.physorg.com/news160734415.html Space & Earth Tue, 05 May 2009 09:27:17 EST news160734415 (PhysOrg.com) -- Satellite images show that icebergs have begun to calve from the northern front of the Wilkins Ice Shelf - indicating that the huge shelf has become unstable. This follows the collapse three weeks ago of the ice bridge that had previously linked the Antarctic mainland to Charcot Island. http://www.physorg.com/news160141181.html Space & Earth Tue, 28 Apr 2009 12:41:09 EST news160141181 Increased growth in Antarctic sea ice during the past 30 years is a result of changing weather patterns caused by the ozone hole according to new research published this week (Thurs 23 April 2009). http://www.physorg.com/news159528096.html Space & Earth Tue, 21 Apr 2009 10:22:00 EST news159528096 (PhysOrg.com) -- A reservoir of briny liquid buried deep beneath an Antarctic glacier supports hardy microbes that have lived in isolation for millions of years, researchers report this week in the journal Science. http://www.physorg.com/news159111927.html Space & Earth Thu, 16 Apr 2009 14:46:18 EST news159111927