For much of the last century, Antarctica was widely considered a world of its own — remote, inhospitable and largely insulated from human influences and invasive species.
But that’s changing.
Tourism is bringing more humans into contact with the frozen continent. Climate change is threatening to melt away its protective shield of surrounding sea ice.
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And now, scientists say they’ve identified another threat to Antarctica’s fragile ecosystem. New experiments suggest that floating debris can reach its icy shores from much longer distances than researchers previously believed — even as far as New Zealand or South America.
