British Antarctic Survey

24/09/2026

As experts in all things polar, the media often ask us what it’s like working at the ends of the Earth. Sometimes that means interviews, or documentaries. Other times that means advice on how to set up an authentic Arctic research station for a BBC drama.

If you’ve been watching Vigil on BBC iPlayer, you’ll have seen what we’re talking about. The show centres on a murder mystery at a remote Arctic research facility in Svalbard. To bring the set to life, the production team consulted our experts on what a real polar station looks like.

What equipment do polar scientists use? What goes on in an ice core lab?

To make the station as realistic as possible, we provided:

🧊 Ice core drills, kit boxes, and real polar samples for the lab.

🗺️ A suite of Arctic maps.

📖 Stacks of journals and science papers for the station’s library.

You might also see one of our ice core experts in the background of certain scenes…

Hats off to the set designers for bringing it all together so authentically 👏

Do you recognise any of the equipment? Let us know 👇

📸 BBC, Natalie Astridge

23/09/2026

What links Antarctic adaptation to Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease? The answer is in the cells from some very cool fish 🐟

Scientists from British Antarctic Survey and Cambridge University Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology have just looked inside living Antarctic fish cells for the first time. It turns out, surviving sub-zero waters takes some serious adaptation at a cellular level.

🔬 What did they find?
The cold fish cells have bigger, more connected "engines" (mitochondria) to keep energy production going, and larger "recycling bins" (lysosomes) working overtime to clear out proteins that have folded incorrectly in the cold.

🧬 Why does protein folding matter so much?
Proteins only work if they fold into exactly the right shape, a bit like origami. Cold temperatures make mistakes more likely, and a misfolded protein can be useless, or even harmful.

Protein misfolding is also a key feature of human neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. What could we learn to support the treatment of these conditions from Antarctic fish who are great at clearing out their protein mistakes?

Link to the full story in the comments ⬇️

18/09/2026

Shhh, try not to disturb this sleeping crabeater seal as you pass. She's had a big journey.

This is the first recorded sighting of a crabeater seal on Bird Island in over 40 years! There have been just 6 crabeater seals reported around South Georgia since 1985: 5 between the years of 1996 and 2004, and 1 in 2025.

📣 Katherine Thomas, seal scientist & Zoological Field Assistant at Bird Island Research Station, told us:

"This young female crabeater hauled out on 25 August on Landing Beach and spent the day resting. While crabeater seals are the most numerous Antarctic seal species, they rarely travel this far north! They inhabit pack ice around the continent and predominantly feed on Antarctic krill, which they sieve from the water using their multi-cusped post canines."

📸 by Katherine Thomas

17/09/2026

Chatham Island, New Zealand, 2022. Hundreds of long-finned pilot whales strand on a beach. Sadly, it’s a familiar story – navigational error, disease, or human impacts like pollution and underwater noise are often the culprits.

In remote areas, whale and dolphin strandings can go undetected for months, the cause of death unknown – a major problem when strandings can act as an early warning system for the health of our oceans. They can point to pollution or disease outbreaks, or hint at environmental change. Without proper monitoring, these signs may be missed.

That’s where satellites come in.

The satellite images shown here of a stranding on Chatham Island were taken by a satellite orbiting the beach over 600km away. They’re just one example from a new study led by BAS whale expert, Dr Penny Clarke, which has shown for the first time that strandings of smaller species of whales and dolphins can be successfully detected and counted from space.

The grayscale image is from Synthetic Aperture Radar satellite imagery, which takes this even further. Using microwave radiation rather than visible light, they can image coastlines in darkness or through thick cloud cover – so strandings can be spotted in any weather, day or night.

If satellite monitoring of strandings is adopted more widely, it’s good news for whale and dolphin conservation – it can help to:

🐳 Capture baselines and changes to stranding rates.

📈 Understand patterns in stranding events.

⏰ Allow faster responses to stranding events to help determine causes.

🌊 Alert conservation managers to concerns about population and ocean health.

With reports of whale and dolphin strandings on the rise, it’s important we use all the tools we can to help monitor and protect these magnificent species.

📸 Satellite: Vantor, Airbus Space, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR)

📸 Aerial: The Photographic Wanderings of Tamzin S Henderson

16/09/2026

The discovery that changed the world – and was almost missed 😮Today marks 39 years since the signing of the Montreal Protocol to protect our ozone layer.

The ozone layer sits in the stratosphere, 15-35km above Earth’s surface. It absorbs most of the harmful ultraviolet (UV) radiation heading towards Earth.

Just over 40 years ago, British Antarctic Survey scientist Jonathan Shanklin was studying routine data of the UV light reaching Halley Research Station in Antarctica, when he noticed a big problem:

The ozone layer over the station was two-thirds as thick as it should have been. In other words, there was a hole forming.

At first, the finding was almost dismissed. NASA satellites automatically filtered out values that low as an error. And the instruments had to be double and triple checked as scientists assumed there must have been a fault. But there wasn’t.

The culprit was ozone-depleting substances such as Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) found in everyday items like fridges, aerosols and solvents. When they got into the atmosphere, they destroyed ozone molecules, thinning the ozone layer.

Jonathan, together with scientists Dr Joe Farman and Dr Brian Gardiner, rushed to publish their results, which sparked a major reaction around the world. On 16 September 1987, the Montreal Protocol was signed by every member state of the United Nations to phase-out the use of ozone depleting substances.

It proved to be one of the most successful environmental treaties in history. CFCs have measurably declined in the atmosphere, and the ozone hole has been gradually recovering. Scientists project the Antarctic ozone hole could recover to 1980 levels by around the 2060s, if the Montreal Protocol continues to be followed.

Without the Protocol, ozone depletion would have spread globally, damaging crops, disrupting ocean ecosystems, and increasing skin cancer risk. Not to mention the added warming from CFCs as a greenhouse gas themselves.

It’s a perfect example of world governments coming together to tackle an environmental problem. And with the latest report from the UN Environment Programme warning we’ll miss the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C warming target, it’s an example worth learning from 🌎

Happy

08/09/2026

Do you have a young person in your life who is looking for work experience during October half-term? Together with British Geological Survey, we’re inviting 14-19 year olds who are curious about a career in STEM to join our virtual work experience programme. Applications are now open! ✅

Here's what you need to know:
📆 When? 26-30 October.
📍 Where? Completely online!
✍️ How to apply? Fill out our form and answer 4 short questions.

Through training, challenges and group activities, the week includes opportunities to:
🤝 Network with real experts across polar and geoscience.
📏 Take part in independent and collaborative skill-building challenges.
🧭 Learn about alternative careers and unconventional career paths.
✍️ Develop essential career skills - like networking, scientific communication, teamwork, and design.

Apply by 25 September, here:
https://www.bas.ac.uk/jobs/work-experience-opportunities/

07/09/2026

Every September, more than a hundred people gather at British Antarctic Survey HQ in Cambridge - before travelling to Antarctica to work at the UK's research stations and science field camps.

They are with us for Pre-Deployment Training (PDT), which is two weeks of preparation for the jobs, emergencies, practicalities and peculiarities of living and working thousands of miles from home in one of the world's last great wildernesses. Think new starter induction: extreme edition.

In this month's Long Read, we go behind the scenes of PDT and meet some of the people (new and returning) who are doing this year's training ⬇️
https://www.bas.ac.uk/blogpost/inside-the-training-to-work-in-antarctica/

How did they end up becoming Antarcticans? Why is this training period so important? And why does it involve a ceilidh? 💃

Before travelling to work in Antarctica, new recruits take part in two weeks of Pre-Deployment Training. This is a new starter induction that really counts.

04/09/2026

It’s Pre-Deployment Training Week! Meet the wonderful people who will be heading South to live and work on our Antarctic stations in the upcoming season.

There’s a lot to learn before making the trip, but luckily our training covers everything they need to know to make one of the most remote places on Earth feel like home – from understanding how our stations operate, to layering polar clothing and maintaining hygiene in the field 💩

Though there are initial nerves, long presentations, and the difficulty of trying to remember a hundred new names, by the end of the week everyone feels part of a new Antarctic community.

And there’s always the barbecue and Ceilidh to look forward to… 💃

Good luck for the season ahead!

03/09/2026

What does the life of an iceberg look like? Listen to the new documentary from BBC World Service about A23a – an enormous berg with an unusual story to tell. It broke off from the Antarctic continent in 1986 and began a 40-year journey northward into the Atlantic Ocean, getting stuck on the seabed, caught in a rotating wall of water, and set on a near-collision course with the island of South Georgia.

British Antarctic Survey experts Geraint Tarling, Andrew Meijers, and Emma Pearce explore the lifecycle of the iceberg, from its origins on an Antarctic ice shelf, to its final moments breaking apart in warmer ocean waters – and talk about the experience of seeing the iceberg up close.

Pictured is Geraint sailing close to the huge ice wall of A23a in 2023. At the time, it was twice the size of Greater London and stretched off into the horizon as far as you could see.

🔗 Listen to the full programme on BBC Sounds now – link in the comments.

28/08/2026

What’s it like working through winter in Antarctica? While many of our science teams and support staff migrate home for summer in the northern hemisphere, some folks stay south to keep vital science and operations ticking over through the darker months.

At Rothera Research Station, 26 winterers stayed behind to brave the snows. They’ve been surveying sea ice, taking CTD measurements, and diving into frozen waters to collect marine samples. This all contributes to critical long-term datasets – some collected for almost three decades – that reveal how Antarctica is changing.

Though there’s lots of work to be done, our winterers do still get some down time and an opportunity to practice field skills close to the station.

They’re certainly an adventurous bunch, and you don’t have to be a scientist to work down here. It takes a great team with different skills to keep the station going over winter. Pictured are:

Scott Kelly (Plumber), Jack Farr (Met Observer), Alex Forsythe (Electronics Engineer), Tom Davis-Merry (Field Guide), Matt Bell (Marine Biologist), Simon Verspeak (Field Guide), Jasmin Salter (Electrician), Emma Eddy (Diving Officer), Ben Sharp (Boating Officer), Andy Wrayford (Field Coordinator), Ash Drinkall (Carpenter), Michael Lowcock (Chef), Josh Sangwin (Electrician), Ali Hammond (Ocean Scientist), JP Srigley (Marine Operator).

📸 Tom Davis-Merry