The Atacama Desert in northern Chile is the driest and oldest desert on earth. It has been an arid place for the last 150 million years, and hyperarid (an extremely dry place) for the last 15 million years. In the Atacama, rain is extremely rare,... click to read more

Tropical coral reefs are one of the most biologically diverse, socially, ecologically and economically valuable, and environmentally sensitive ecosystems of the planet. The engineers of this ecosystem are reef-building corals, close relatives of jellyfish that live in an intimate, mutually-benefitting relationship (symbiosis) with single-celled algae... click to read more

In order to predict the impacts of Global Warming, scientists develop climate models that attempt to represent our real, complicated climate as closely as possible. Climate is the intertwined system of the Earth's atmosphere, ocean, and ice. If we can understand how these variables interacted... click to read more

Oceanographers know how the deepest reaches of the ocean are filled: by very cold and dense waters formed in contact with the polar air and ice of Antarctica. These dense Antarctic waters plunge under their own weight and snake along the global seafloor at depths... click to read more

Antarctic species don't just include the charismatic marine animals, such as killer whales, penguins and seals. There is actually a whole range of purely land-based animals and plants that spend their whole life-cycle on the frozen continent. These include moss and lichen, microbes and many... click to read more