This week on SciShow News, we’re talking about things that have been lost, and things
that have been found.
But you might find -- when you’re dealing with the world -- things that are lost might
be lost forever.
And things that have been found … well, they’re not always exactly new.
For example, one thing that we’re losing, and fast?
Ice.
We’ve talked many times before about how some of the world’s biggest ice sheets are
shrinking, like those in Greenland and in West Antarctica.
But this week, researchers said that they’d discovered a huge and sudden melt going on
where they’d never seen it before: the Southern Antarctic Peninsula.
While ice sheets in other nearby parts of Antarctica have been losing mass as the climate
warms, the Southern Peninsula has stayed unusually stable … at least, until 2009.
That’s when, according to scientists from the University of Bristol, the coastal glaciers
that feed the peninsula’s ice sheet suddenly began to melt.
Fast.
Over the last five years, they say, the glaciers there have released 300 trillion liters of
water into the ocean -- that’s a 3 followed by 14 zeroes.
This rapid melt was originally detected by the CryoSat-2 satellite, which uses radar
to measure the thickness of Earth’s polar ice.
And its data showed that some of the glaciers on the Southern Peninsula were thinning by
as much as 4 meters a year.
The melt was then confirmed by another satellite, called GRACE, which found that the peninsula
lost enough mass, in the form of ice, to actually cause a measurable change in the region’s
gravitation.
However, researchers say that this melting doesn’t seem to be caused by the same factors
we’ve seen elsewhere, like a decrease in snowfall, or a rise in air temperature.
Instead, these glaciers are melting from underneath.
Ice shelves that surround the glaciers used to give them some protection from rising temperatures.
But changes in wind patterns around Antarctica have brought warm ocean currents right up
to the coast of the peninsula, and they’ve been -- as the scientists put it -- “eating
away” at the ice.
Eventually, the ice shelves got so thin that they weren’t doing much shielding anymore,
and the glaciers started to melt.
So, considering that Antarctica is basically hemorrhaging fresh water into the ocean as
we speak, the researchers say that Step One in understanding this problem is to start
broadening our study of the polar ice caps beyond just the biggest and most obvious problem
areas.
Because, it turns out, we might be losing more ice than we knew about.
Alright, let’s go to the “Found” department, because it’s time we welcome some new forms
of life into the scientific record.
Every year around this time, the International Institute for Species Exploration, based out
of the College of Environmental Science and Forestry in New York, celebrates the birthday
of everyone’s favorite founding taxonomist, Carl Linnaeus, by announcing the 10 most important,
most endangered, or just plain weirdest new species that have been discovered in the past
year.
For example, allow me to introduce you to this Sulawesi fanged frog.
Yes, it is a frog with fangs -- or, more accurately, two spikes that protrude from its jaw.
But that’s not even the weirdest thing about it -- it’s also the only known frog that
gives birth to tadpoles.
Most frogs lay eggs in the water, which are then fertilized externally.
But a handful of frogs are known to fertilize their eggs internally -- and then lay fertilized
eggs, or give birth to tiny “froglets.”
But this new species, named L. larvaepartus, takes the middle route, and gives birth to
live, but immature, tadpoles.
How do we know?
Well, scientists in Indonesia got a clue when a biologist picked up a specimen, and it suddenly
went into frog-labor and spurted out a bunch of tadpoles into her hand.
Not amazing enough for you?
Well then, what could’ve made this?
I’m not saying it’s aliens ….
...No, I mean I’m literally not saying it’s aliens.
But it did take 20 years or so for scientists to figure out who was behind these strange,
perfectly symmetrical formations on the sea floor.
Last year, biologists in Japan figured out that they were the work of the white-spotted
pufferfish.
Underwater photographers first identified the weird formations in the mid-1990s, and
after years of scouting around Japan’s Ryukyu Islands, scientists discovered that male puffers
made these ornate patterns as nests to attract mates.
The puffers with the most fastidious nests get the ladies, it seems, but the nests are
only used once, to spawn, and then they’re abandoned.
But the fancy circles aren’t just for show -- scientists determined that male pufferfish
shimmy over the sand to create its ridges and hollows, which protect the fertilized
eggs from ocean currents.
And then there are the discoveries that remind us that being new to science is by no means
the same thing as being quote, “discovered.”
Botanists came across this plant in the mountains of southern Mexico, where locals have been
using it for centuries in their annual Christmas displays.
But scientists had no idea that it was its own species until last year.
It turns out to be a type of bromeliad,, a mostly-tropical plant with stiff, colorful
leaves.
The one that you probably most recently saw was a pineapple.
But this newly-discovered species only grows on cliffs and rock faces in Mexican forests
between 1800 and 2100 meters in elevation.
These bromeliads’ bright pink and green leaves have made them favored by locals for
use in Christmas nativity scenes, so scientists gave this unusual new plant the species name
“religiosa” or “religious,” in honor of how it’s been used since wayyyy before
scientists knew it was a thing.
Thanks to scientists for discovering all kinds of great stuff, and thank you for discovering
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