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Graphic shows Chasm-1 has calved a huge iceberg the size of Greater London. Credit: British Antarctic Survey A huge iceberg nearly the size of Greater London has broken off the Antarctic ice shelf near a research station, the second such split in two years, researchers announced Monday. The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) said the formation of the new iceberg—in a natural process called "calving"—was not due to climate change, which is accelerating the loss of sea ice in the Arctic and parts of Antarctica. The iceberg, measuring 1,550 square kilometers (598 square miles), detached from the 150-meter-thick Brunt Ice...

The Obamas' summer break in Martha's Vineyard has already been branded a PR disaster after the couple arrived four hours apart on separate government jets. But according to new reports, this is the least of their extravagances. White House sources today claimed that the First Lady has spent $10million of U.S. taxpayers' money on vacations alone in the past year. Branding her 'disgusting' and 'a vacation junkie', they say the 47-year-old mother-of-two has been indulging in five-star hotels, where she splashes out on expensive massages and alcohol. The 'top source' told the National Enquirer: 'It's disgusting. Michelle is taking advantage...

It is nice and cozy warm up near the ceiling, no matter how many times I chased her off she went back as soon as I wasn't watching. I took everything off the the shelf and put her pad up there!

PARIS: The collapse of two ice shelves in Antarctica has exposed an exquisite seabed ecosystem, including previously unknown species of crustacean and marine anemone. The hidden marine world was revealed by the breakup of the Antarctic Peninsula's Larsen A and B ice shelves, 12 and five years ago respectively. Their collapse laid bare a 10,000-square-kilometre portion of the sea bed - an area almost the size of Jamaica - that had been roofed by ice for millennia. Part of the area was explored by an unmanned robot, lowered from the German Alfred Wegener Institute's research vessel, the Polarstern (North Star),...

Big ice shelf's disappearing act By Kim Griggs The drill rig is near New Zealand and US bases on Ross Island (Image: Cliff Atkins) Sediments extracted from the Antarctic seafloor show the world's largest ice shelf has disintegrated and reappeared many times in the past. Fluctuations in the Ross Ice Shelf are revealed by an early look at cores drilled from the seabed underneath the giant ice slab. The investigation is being carried out by scientists drilling near the US and New Zealand bases on Ross Island. Tim Naish, Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences The long-term aim of the...

The disintegration of the huge Larsen B ice shelf in Antarctica was an unprecedented event in the past 10,000 years of geological history, a study has found. Research by scientists from Hamilton College in New York, based on the scrutiny of six ice cores from the vicinity of the ice shelf, found that a collapse of this size had not happened during the period since the end of the last Ice Age. The piece of ice which sheered away from Larsen B into the sea in 2002 was roughly the size of Luxembourg. The study, published in the journal Nature,...