8 



Antarctic scientific research has made and continues to make in- 

 valuable contributions to our understanding of the history of the 

 earth, the evolution of the universe, and global processes. Espe- 

 cially now, in times of heightened environmental awareness, Ant- 

 arctic research provides crucial understanding and insight into 

 global climate change, ozone depletion, long-range weather fore- 

 casting and other global issues. 



I would like to very briefly describe a couple of examples of excit- 

 ing research currently underway. 



The annual expansion and contraction of the sea ice doubles the 

 area of the sea ice in the southern hemisphere. The sea ice is a 

 habitat for organisms from bacteria to marine mammals. And stud- 

 ies of the dynamics and the thermodynamics of this entire system 

 are critical for understanding the role of the Antarctic in the cli- 

 mate change and world ocean circulation. 



Marine biologists have discovered that Antarctic fish have adapt- 

 ed to their icy habitats by developing an antifreeze protein, in fact, 

 a number of antifreeze proteins. There may be several commercial 

 applications for these proteins since they are 300 times more effec- 

 tive in preventing freezing than conventional chemical antifreezes, 

 and they have other advantages as well. 



For example, they may be useful to prevent food from freezing 

 or to engineer cold resistance in living plants. They may also be 

 used as non-polluting de-icing agents. 



The remarkably transparent ice sheet at the South Pole makes 

 it an ideal location for installing an instrument called the Antarctic 

 Muon and Neutrino Detector Array, AMANDA, we call it. It is an 

 instrument to map the extragalactic neutrinos coming from all 

 around the universe from very high energy events that we have yet 

 to fully understand. 



This recently recognized feature of the ice sheet will open new 

 opportunities for neutrino astrophysics, allowing astronomers to 

 see inside celestial objects such as the cores of galaxies. 



The United States, Russia, and French Antarctic Programs have 

 worked together to obtain the world's deepest ice cores. These ice 

 cores are providing an invaluable record of past climatic and envi- 

 ronmental conditions as far back now as 300,000 years ago, and are 

 providing insights into how the global climate may change in the 

 future. 



Finally, paleontologists have discovered the first dinosaur bones 

 ever found in the Antarctic. They are actually found up here at the 

 tip of the peninsula. Right up in here in this zone we find dinosaur 

 bones. Fossil records that help us understand the Antarctic climate 

 and the evolution of life at a time when the Antarctic was itself 

 part of a super continent, Gondwanaland a very long time ago. 



Antarctic fossil discoveries have also helped clarify the record of 

 destruction of many of the planet's species some 65 million years 



ago. 



The Antarctic continent and the surrounding seas provide an un- 

 matched natural laboratory for scientific research. The National 

 Science Foundation, as the lead agency and manager of the U.S. 

 Antarctic Program, is committed to protecting that natural labora- 

 tory, and to that end has strengthened its environmental manage- 

 ment over the past several years. 



