Heli-skiing on virgin snow in Antarctica for a cool $2.2 million. A polar bear safari in an “off-limits” area of Norway’s Svalbard for $300,000. How about tracking snow leopards in the Himalayas with renowned explorers for $100,000? Big-ticket travel experiences like those are indicative of the “quiet luxury” trend which began in the world of … Read more
Researchers working on data from the IceCube Neutrino Observatory buried deep in Antarctic ice think they may have spotted tau neutrinos, a certain flavor of the subatomic particles from space. The seven candidate signals appeared in 9.7 years of observatory data, a testament to just how elusive these little particles are. Do We Have to … Read more
A new NASA experiment will take to the skies on a balloon, scanning the space between the stars of our galaxy and listening for cosmic ingredients to understand how the Milky Way evolved over time. First Full-Color Images From Webb Space Telescope GUSTO, or Galactic/Extragalactic ULDB Spectroscopic Terahertz Observatory, is launching no earlier than Thursday … Read more
WELLINGTON, New Zealand — The watchdog office overseeing the National Science Foundation is sending investigators to Antarctica’s McMurdo Station after hearing concerns about the prevalence of sexual violence at the U.S. research base. Meanwhile the NSF, a federal agency, said it’s furthering its own efforts to address the “pervasive problem.” It announced Friday it is … Read more
This story originally appeared in The Guardian and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Avian flu has reached the Antarctic, raising concerns for isolated populations of penguins and seals that have never been exposed to the deadly H5N1 virus before. The full impact of the virus’s arrival is not yet known, but scientists are … Read more
“This is a groundbreaking study using state-of-the-art underwater technology to explore critical regions of Antarctica in unprecedented detail,” says British Antarctic Survey physical oceanographer Peter Davis, who wasn’t involved in the research. “Never before have we been able to observe the ice-ocean interactions occurring within a basal crevasse at an Antarctic ice shelf grounding line … Read more
NASA may be famous for its space exploits, but it’s just as concerned with what’s happening on our own planet as it is with what’s going on out yonder. Researchers from NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center are tracking sea ice levels on both ends of the globe. A report released this … Read more