By Elizabeth Devitt Sea ice extent is at record, and near record, lows for this time of year in both polar regions, leaving ...

Polar bears are the planet’s biggest land-based carnivores – although they actually spend most of their lives around water and ice (their Latin name means ‘sea bear’). So they’re at particular risk ...

Polar bears don’t have to worry about skipping a wash day. The sebum, or natural oil, on the mammals’ fur helps them survive the harsh Arctic weather by making it hard for ice to stick to them ...

Polar bears on ice in Northern Canada. Nano-physicist Bodil Holst's interest in polar bear fur began while she was watching a German quiz show. "I learned that polar bears are invisible in ...

This story appears in the January 2018 issue of National Geographic magazine. We see evidence of the kill first: a shockingly broad spread of scarlet, probably the blood of a ringed seal, on snow ...

Two-thirds of the world's polar bears could be extinct by 2050 if greenhouse gas-fueled global warming keeps melting their Arctic sea-ice habitat. The Center has led the charge to save polar bears ...

Today, the island harbours the greatest concentration of polar ... bears swim to its shores Every summer, an estimated thousand or more bears swim to its shores, as they wait for the sea ice ...

But, Holst noticed, polar bear fur did not freeze after getting wet. "I was very puzzled," she says. "When they go into the water and out again, why do they not get covered in ice?" The work could ...