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It’s no secret that the world is warming. Scientists are studying how climate change affects all kinds of things, from icecaps to oceans, and single species to entire ecosystems. And there’s a lot to consider. When was the last time you thought about soil?

It’s the middle of winter in our part of the world. And if you live in southern parts of Australia, you might think it’s a bit chilly. But there are places on Earth that are much colder. New research has found places in Antarctica colder than we have ever measured before!

You might think we know everything there is to know about climate change. We know that greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane, are trapping heat. And we know that average temperatures are climbing worldwide. But there’s still lots for us to learn, and new discoveries are being made all the time.

In some ways, Venus is Earth’s twin – it’s the closest planet to Earth, and it’s almost exactly the same size. But poor Venus flies too close to the Sun. Brighter sunlight and a runaway greenhouse effect makes Venus unbearably hot, with temperatures averaging more than 450 degrees Celsius.

It’s been really busy at Double Helix headquarters in the last few weeks. We’ve moved office, to the CSIRO Discovery Centre in Canberra. There are lots of cool things at our new workplace, including a whole museum of CSIRO science!

In a recent blog post we reported on farts, a type of methane emission. When talking about these emissions, we made an omission. That is, we should have mentioned burps as well as farts.

Written by Julia Cleghorn Cow farts and burps are a big, smelly problem. They contain a lot of methane – a greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change. Kangaroos, on the other hand, produce a lot less methane when they toot.

You may have heard a climate scientist talking about ‘parts per million’ or ppm. If you want to get a handle on what that means, and how much CO2 is in our atmosphere, you’ve come to the right place!

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has released the first part of its latest report. It might not sound like a big deal – most of us have written a report at some point for school or work. Yet we aren’t talking any old paper.

Australia’s most powerful supercomputer – Raijin – has been officially launched. Imagine arming the population of Earth with calculators and setting them to work for 20 years. Raijin is so fast it could complete the same number of calculations in one hour!