Polar News and Notes Ezine Departments

We’re proud to announce the newest addition to the Beyond Penguins project: a monthly podcast series!
 
Each month, join hosts Robert Payo and Stephanie Chasteen as they discuss misconceptions, teaching activities, and the latest news related to the poles. The podcasts are designed to accompany the current month’s issue of the Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears […]

Like the other six continents, Antarctica is warming.
A new study using satellite measurements as well as temperature records from weather stations shows that from 1957 to 2006, temperatures across the continent increased on average 0.2 degrees F per decade. This increase is comparable to warming around the world.
Not all parts of Antarctica are warming at […]

Even though they must have known they would be asked about the similarity to the title of a Beatles’ song, British researchers nevertheless painted a new robot submarine bright yellow. Denying the connection, an engineer said yellow makes it easy to spot the robot when it surfaces from under ice shelves in Antarctica. 
The seven-foot robot […]

In late December near McMurdo Station in Antarctica, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) flight-tested a large, pumpkin-shaped, thin-skinned balloon that will someday carry science experiments to the brink of space.  
According to an NSF press release, this 7 million cubic foot balloon is the largest single-cell, super-pressure […]

Tonight at 7pm EST we’re having an online chat in the TappedIn online learning community - http://tappedin.org. We’ll be working our way through the January 2009 issue of the Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears online magazine. If you can’t join us, you can still take “our tour” below. We meet the first Thursday of each […]

News from the polar regions during December 2008 included studies of methane and its role in climate change, new information about the role of polar bears and snowy owls in the Arctic ecosystem, trouble for the Wilkins Ice Shelf and an Antarctic cruise ship, and an astonishing fact about Antarctica’s biological diversity. Missed these stories […]

The “hope” that developing countries would install technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as they became wealthier is not backed up by evidence so far. A study by researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the University of Colorado warns that continuing economic and technological disparities will make it more difficult than […]

The forecasts of continuing climate change have not prompted public or private organizations to adapt to the dangers posed by higher temperatures, says Robert Repetto, author of The Climate Crisis and the Adaptation Myth and formerly a professor in the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.
The reasons for failure to adapt can be […]

On January 15 and 16, the International Year of Astronomy will be launched with an opening ceremony at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) Headquarters in Paris, France.
One of the goals of the year-long program is to “increase scientific awareness among the general public through the communication of scientific results in […]

The world’s largest neutrino telescope is being constructed on and under Antarctica ice. Known as IceCube, the telescope consists of strings of 60 optical detectors, each string more than half a mile long and frozen in the ice. Atop each string is a pair of 600 gallon tanks filled with clear ice and containing two […]