While one of the main concerns regarding the ongoing melt of Arctic permafrost is the release of greenhouse gases such as methane previously trapped in the frozen soil, there are other elements, such as ancient viruses and bacteria that could poseread more
A new analysis of ancient DNA has revealed that some species of ice-age megafauna, including woolly mammoths, wild horses and steppe bison, survived much further into the modern era than previously thought. The recovered genetic material taken from soil samples from Canadian permafrost, indicates that some of these species didn’tread more
A significant layer of water ice has been spotted across the mid latitudes of Mars, located just a few feet below the planet’s surface. This new finding adds a new layer to the geological history of the Red Planet, and also may offer a useful source of water for future human expeditions sent there.
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Despite a cool, cloudy summer, the ice levels in the Arctic have shrunk enough to tie with the second-lowest Arctic sea ice minimum, recorded in 2007. "Historically such weather conditions slow down the summer ice loss, but we still got down to essentially a tie for second lowest on the satellite record," reports US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) director Mark Serreze.
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