Our Antarctic and sub-Antarctic research stations observed ANZAC Day in the traditional manner this year.

The Australian Antarctic Division is donating surplus extreme-cold weather clothing and equipment to Hobart City Mission for people sleeping rough this winter.

South Polar Skuas are talented survivors that venture where others dare not go, with some of the longest migration routes on record. 

Diplomacy: 17 Nations from around the world are officially supporting the privately organised expedition ANTARCTIC BLANC. Challenging in ten days under sails twice the Drake Passage to Antarctica to establish a peaceful international dialogue.

Presentation of the ANTARTIC BLANC expedition flag to the Dutch Arctic Ambassador at The Netherlands 2018 Polar Symposium in The Hague

By Hannah Hickey UWNEWS While winter sea ice in the Arctic is declining so dramatically that ships can now navigate those waters without any icebreaker escort, the scene in the Southern Hemisphere is very different. Sea ice area around Antarctica … Continue reading →

By Jessica Corbett Common Dreams “The most robust study of the ice mass balance of Antarctica to date,” scientists say, “now puts Antarctica in the frame as one of the largest contributors to sea-level rise.” Scientists are expressing alarm over … Continue reading →

Retired Cmdr. David Beyl, a longtime Mercer Island resident and career Navy pilot who did several tours abroad, including in Antarctica, died March 23 at Overlake Hospital. He was 85.

An 82-year-old Australian scientist said it seemed appropriate to name a newly discovered species after climate activist Greta Thunberg, given its habitat.

After six weeks in lockdown and quarantine, a couple who contracted COVID-19 while on an Antarctic expedition have finally made it home.

Scientists say it is likely a fragile little penguin colony skipped a breeding season due to crucial ocean occurrence — called the Bonney upwelling — running late.

Another "quite fat" king penguin is spotted on the Tasmanian mainland, with one wildlife officer calling the sighting especially rare "unless you're on a tourist ship going to Antarctica", although no cause for concern.

A ship left Melbourne in January 1954 to set up Australia's first Antarctic base. Facing harsh conditions and the unknown, the pioneers built Mawson Station.

Rob Dickson has gone from looking after 100 expeditioners in Antarctica to being a GP for the 1,755 people who live in the remote town of Queenstown on Tasmania's west coast. He says regional Australia can be more isolating.

Scientists hope a drill that can plunge 3 kilometres down into an Antarctic ice cap and withstand temperatures of -55 degrees Celsius will help solve one of the last great puzzles in climate science.

An iceberg 1,636 square kilometres in size, or about the size of urban Sydney or Scotland's Isle of Skye, breaks off Antarctica.

Sometimes, the simplest solutions are the best, as a team of scientists found when building an underwater drone which had to do things no robot had done before.

Towns in regional NSW experience snowfall for the first time in 20 years as a deep polar vortex, which battered south-east Australia yesterday, moves north.

Telling Stories about the Byrd Second Antarctic Expedition: Findings from the Byrd Archives  Wednesday, May 13, 2020 3 – 4 p.m. EST Register here Join the Byrd Center in a virtual webinar with Dr. Anneke Schwob from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This is a special seminar and collaboration between the Byrd Center and Polar […]

A team of scientists has observed, for the first time, the presence of warm water at a vital point underneath a glacier in Antarctica--an alarming discovery that points to the cause behind the gradual melting of this ice shelf while also raising concerns about sea-level rise around the globe.

With sadness weve left the South Georgia Islands behind. We can imagine that many a passenger have felt similar emotions and in an effort to buoy our spirits Quark threw a BBQ on the aft deck What kind of craziness is this A bit frigid but stimulati

There are a heck of a lot of reasons not to.

Thwaites Glacier is melting fast. But to understand how climate change is driving its decline, scientists need to send instruments through 2,000 feet of ice into the water below.

Three London firefighters, and three from South Wales, will be strapping on skis for an arduous 1900km trek across the Antarctic.

Travelling to Antarctica is usually a once in a lifetime experience, and one many people have on their bucket lists. It’s not surprising, considering the dramatic icebergs, huge areas of wilderness and sensational lagoons. Just...

The post 5 Ways To Get The Most Out Of A Trip To Antarctica appeared first on Geeky Traveller.

The 5,100 sq km behemoth which broke away from Antarctica in 2017 drops its own large chunk of ice.

Antarctica

The Amateur Traveler talks to again to Chris Willis (Swimming with Whales off Tonga - Episode 38, Ethiopia - Episode 79, Mountain Gorillas in Uganda and Rwanda - Episode 80, Travel to Mongolia - Episode 111) about his cruise with Quark Expeditions from Ushuaia, Argentina to Antarctica via the Falklands, South Georgia and South Orkney islands. We talk about wildlife photography of penguins, sea birds, whales and bad tempered fur seals.

Part of the Antarctic diary promo for the BBC UK Homepage

Part of the Antarctic diary promo for the BBC UK Homepage

Part of the Antarctic diary promo for the BBC UK Homepage

To mark International Polar Year, BBC science producer Martin Redfern is spending a month on board a research ship in the Antarctic. Follow his exploits online.

(Queensland University of Technology) Robots that fly, swim and drive are being designed and built by internationally renowned Australian scientists from QUT.

The find could help pin down when the South Pole turned icy

A Crabeater Seal (Lobodon carcinophaga) swimming by an iceberg in Antarctica on a snowy day.

Efforts of all the countries to stop the damage to the Ozone layer seem to be paying off as the damage to the Ozone layer above Antarctica has recovered.

The Uruguayan government agency Instituto Antarctico Uruguayo (IAU) is collaborating with ABB, Uruguayan utility company UTE and the Ministry of Industry, Energy and Mining (MIEM) to provide a second solar power installation at the IAU’s research base in the Antarctic.

A NASA science balloon picked up two high-energy particles and a new analysis reveals that they can't be explained by the standard model of particle physics

Scientists are setting out to drill for the world’s oldest ice, in a bid to shed light on a dramatic tipping point in the world’s climate 900,000 years ago

Interstellar dust has been found in Antarctic snow samples. The discovery could provide a way of mapping the clouds of dust Earth has passed through in space

The ice shelves in eastern Antarctic peninsula seem to have been thinning since around 1700, leaving ice shelves such as Larsen B vulnerable to their recent break-up as human-caused climate change took hold

It took 20 years of planning and lots of hot water to drill 2 kilometres into Antarctica. Andy Smith describes a ground- breaking achievement

A massive research effort is under way to understand Antarctica's Thwaites glacier before it is too late. If it collapses, it could trigger catastrophic sea level rise, putting London and New York at risk

The Pine Island glacier has three tipping points that could lead to the collapse of the entire West Antarctic ice sheet, potentially raising sea levels by 3 metres over centuries

ABSTRACT

By modulating the structure, diversity, and trophic outputs of microbial communities, phages play crucial roles in many biomes. In oligotrophic polar deserts, the effects of katabatic winds, constrained nutrients, and low water availability are known to limit microbial activity. Although phages may substantially govern trophic interactions in cold deserts, relatively little is known regarding the precise ecological mechanisms. Here, we provide the first evidence of widespread antiphage innate immunity in Antarctic environments using metagenomic sequence data from hypolith communities as model systems. In particular, immunity systems such as DISARM and BREX are shown to be dominant systems in these communities. Additionally, we show a direct correlation between the CRISPR-Cas adaptive immunity and the metavirome of hypolith communities, suggesting the existence of dynamic host-phage interactions. In addition to providing the first exploration of immune systems in cold deserts, our results suggest that phages actively challenge niche communities in Antarctic polar deserts. We provide evidence suggesting that the regulatory role played by phages in this system is an important determinant of bacterial host interactions in this environment.

IMPORTANCE In Antarctic environments, the combination of both abiotic and biotic stressors results in simple trophic levels dominated by microbiomes. Although the past two decades have revealed substantial insights regarding the diversity and structure of microbiomes, we lack mechanistic insights regarding community interactions and how phages may affect these. By providing the first evidence of widespread antiphage innate immunity, we shed light on phage-host dynamics in Antarctic niche communities. Our analyses reveal several antiphage defense systems, including DISARM and BREX, which appear to dominate in cold desert niche communities. In contrast, our analyses revealed that genes which encode antiphage adaptive immunity were underrepresented in these communities, suggesting lower infection frequencies in cold edaphic environments. We propose that by actively challenging niche communities, phages play crucial roles in the diversification of Antarctic communities.