CNN
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The Arctic was once a surprisingly warm place — and a haven for unusual creatures.
About 56 million years ago, Earth began experiencing a global warming event. Temperature differences between the poles and regions near the equator narrowed.
Over time, some intrepid animals began to trek north, including two sister species that each resembled a cross between a lemur and a squirrel.
Scientists at the University of Kansas found fossils of these ancient near-primates north of the Arctic Circle, where they lived in a swamplike environment along with crocodiles. The tiny primate relatives adapted to survive the food scarcity of dark Arctic winters for half the year, evolving heartier jaws to crunch on seeds and nuts.
The unexpected discovery of such animals so far north could provide prophetic context for the changes that the northern polar region faces again today, compelling researchers to question what species could flourish — and which ones could disappear — due to a human-driven climate crisis.
Wild kingdom
Two polar bears play on the ice in the Arctic.
Two polar bears play on the ice in the Arctic.
Florian Ledoux
Capturing the Arctic twilight takes a physical and emotional toll on French photographer and filmmaker Florian Ledoux, but the outcome is rewarding. “We push our limits; we feel alive by doing it,” he told CNN.
Ledoux has spent the past two winters filming and photographing polar bears on the fragile sea ice of the Arctic. His work sheds light on the lives of these majestic creatures as their habitat shrinks due to global warming.
Our planet’s core is the size of Mars and is about 3,200 miles (5,150 kilometers) below Earth’s crust. The core has revolved at a different speed than Earth’s rotation.
Scientists studied seismic waves from earthquakes that have passed through the core to track how fast it’s spinning. Since 2009, the inner core’s rotation seems to have paused.
This inactivity doesn’t imply that anything “cataclysmic” is occurring, the researchers said. But the phenomenon does shed light on why the deepest part of our planet is so difficult to study.