The world's largest penguin colony has lost its title 🐧 A remote volcanic island near Antarctica has lost over half a million chinstrap penguins since 2011, a decline so steep it could see the species reassessed as 'Endangered'. 🧵1/2

Everybody wants a bit of Antarctic krill: whales, seals, penguins... and humans 🦐 Krill are heroes of the ocean ecosystem, who also sequester carbon. Now, international negotiators are on their way to Hobart, decide how the Southern Ocean and the permissions for fishing there are managed...

And they’re off! ✈️ The first of our Twin Otter aircraft and their flight teams have begun the journey south, from Calgary, Canada, all the way to Rothera Research Station in Antarctica to start a new season of polar science! 🇨🇦➡️🇦🇶 (1/3)

But ALSO this could be huge for medicine. Protein misfolding is a key feature of neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Huntington’s. What could these extra large and productive protein mistake-binning cells in cold fish help us learn? 🧵7/8

This imaging will help find out why Antarctic species are struggling with climate change on a cellular level. We know that Antarctic animals are incredibly vulnerable to climate change. Raising temperatures just a few degrees can be lethal - so what's the source of these biological limits? 🧵 6/8

Low temperatures make mistakes in protein folding more likely. A misfolded protein can be really harmful, so cold-adapted cells need ways of dealing with them... Well, our guys the cold fish also have bigger lysosomes - which dispose of the misfolded proteins! 🧵 5/8

The cold causes difficulties for normal cell function, like inefficient protein folding - the process which shapes chains of amino acids for jobs in the cell. Cold fish have larger, very active networks of mitochondria (the engines of the cell), which scientists think helps protect them. 🧵 4/8

The team grew cells from Antarctic spiny plunderfish. Huge shout out to our special guy, harpagifer antarcticus 🫡 The imaging reveals how cold fish have adapted to survive at a chilly -1.8ºC to 2ºC on a cellular level: Their bodies are slow - but their cells are very active. 🧵 3/8

It's a story of firsts. This was the first time Antarctic fish cells have been grown (“culturing” cells). They also had to use a new microscope that could do cutting-edge fluorescence microscopy at 0°C. This means we can see the processes inside the living cells! 🧵 2/8

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 @ceb.cam.ac.uk have just looked inside living Antarctic fish cells for the first time... 🧵 1/8

tfw you're napping hard but are also the subject of wildlife photography... These lifestyle candids of a rare visiting crabeater seal on Bird Island are courtesy of seal scientist Katherine Thomas ⬇️

Shhh, try not to disturb this sleeping crabeater seal as you pass. She's a rare first visitor for Bird Island Research Station (a sub-Antarctic island). They normally prefer pack ice near the Antarctic continent and rarely travel this far north! Girl, that's a big journey. Let 👏 her 👏 nap 👏

Hundreds of whales strand on a remote beach – and no one notices for months. Strandings can be an early warning system for ocean health, flagging pollution, disease, and environmental change. But in remote areas, they often go unseen. 🐳 🧵1/2