Picture a deep freezer suddenly failing on a hot summer day. What happens to everything inside? Now imagine that freezer is ...

Methanotrophs, including those that capture methane from the air, seem to outcompete methanogens in dry environments, a new ...

Storms that battered Alaska’s western coast this fall have brought renewed attention to low-lying Indigenous villages left ...

Microbes frozen for 40,000 years in Alaska's permafrost are thawing as temperatures rise, releasing CO2 and posing new ...

When water penetrates rock crevices in permafrost, it transports heat deep underground, where it causes the frozen rock to ...

When ultraviolet light hits ice—whether in Earth's polar regions or on distant planets—it triggers a cascade of chemical ...

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine are private, nonprofit institutions that provide expert advice on some of the most pressing challenges facing the nation and world. Our ...

Igunaq is a delicacy made from fermenting walrus for months underground. But thawing permafrost and unstable ground are ...

Researchers say they have recovered RNA from the remains of a woolly mammoth that lived roughly 39,000 years ago.