Polar News and Notes Current News

The Inuit people living in Canada’s North are transitioning from a diet of fish and caribou to one of prepackaged foods and soft drinks, with a resulting “spike in blood pressure,” according to the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada.
The foundation finds that Arctic store-bought foods provide 95 per cent of dietary sodium intake […]

From now until the end of November, a DC-8 aircraft will make 17 low-level flights over West Antarctica to measure the thinning of the ice sheet. A project of NASA and known as Operation ICE Bridge, the flights carry nearly two dozen scientists and their airborne lab.
At 157-feet long, the DC-8 is too big […]

Sun-Earth Day, the annual culmination of programs and events from NASA’s Sun-Earth Connection, will be celebrated in 2010 on March 20. The theme is Magnetic Storms.
In weeks leading up to the event, NASA provides resources for schools and the public to learn more about solar storms, including space activities and demonstrations. 
At the Sun-Earth Day web […]

Life in the Antarctic depends on the lowest members of the global food chain - krill. This would be reason enough for scientists to investigate the comings and goings of the small crustaceans. But researchers also wanted to know why trillions of krill formed swarms so vast the superswarms can be seen from the air. […]

 Aboard a ship in the Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, a tourist from Great Britain spotted a swimming polar bear with a cub on her back. Intrigued by the sight, the tourist got in touch with the Norwegian Polar Institute to ask about the mother bear’s behavior.  
According to an article in the BBC […]