# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The farthest star ever seen is 9 billion light years away!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Timeline of scientific discoveries - Wikipedia

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The timeline below shows the date of publication of possible major scientific theories and discoveries, along with the discoverer. In many cases, the discoveries spanned several years.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Throughout the ages, people have looked across the sea and wondered at its mysteries. During the last few centuries, a few have stood out amongst the rest and advanced our knowledge of the oceans that surround us. These are the famous oceanographers and scientists who have braved the elements and pushed forward in the face of danger. They are the Ocean Explorers. Click here for a list of credits and sources.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Meet the Ocean Explorers - Famous Ocean Explorers on Sea and Sky

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Throughout the ages, people have looked across the sea and wondered at its mysteries. During the last few centuries, a few have stood out amongst the rest and advanced our knowledge of the oceans that surround us. These are the famous oceanographers and scientists who have braved the elements and pushed forward in the face of danger.

# data[].attributes.headline
What Is Ocean Exploration and Why Is It Important? (OCEAN)

# data[].attributes.subject
What Is Ocean Exploration and Why Is It Important? (OCEAN)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
national oceanic and atmospheric administration

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
office of ocean exploration and research

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What is ocean exploration and why is it important?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Information from ocean exploration is important to everyone. Unlocking the mysteries of deep-sea ecosystems can reveal new sources for medical drugs, food, energy resources, and other products. Information from deep-ocean exploration can help predict earthquakes and tsunamis and help us understand how we are affecting and being affected by changes in Earth's climate and atmosphere.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
2011-2020 - Space Exploration Timeline on Sea and Sky

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Discover the dates and details for milestones in space exploration from the years 2011 through 2020, including the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury, the end of the Space Shuttle program, and the beginning of the commercial space program.

# data[].attributes.headline
30 of the world's most impressive ancient ruins

# data[].attributes.subject
30 of the world's most impressive ancient ruins

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
While modern structures can be more than impressive in their own right with respect to architecture, technological advancement, and beauty, there's something to be said about structures from the past.

Ruins around the world have withstood the test of time and remain standing for travelers to marvel at. (Well, they haven't completely withstood the test of time, or else they wouldn't be called ruins.) Many of the methods used to create these ancient cities, temples, and monuments remain rather mysterious, as building them in this day and age would still be considered an impressive feat.

Check out these 30 awesome ancient ruins around the globe and see for yourself.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
30 of the world's most impressive ancient ruins

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
While modern structures can be more than impressive in their own right with respect to architecture, technological advancement, and beauty, there's something to be said about structures from the past. Ruins around the world have withstood the test of time and remain standing for travelers to marvel at.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Science News - Mathematics, Economics, Archaeology, Fossils

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Phys.org provides the latest news on science, fossils, archaeology, chemistry, mathematics, biology and science technology.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Ocean Exploration Timeline - Ocean Exploration on Sea and Sky

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Sea and Sky's Ocean Exploration Timeline features dates and details for all of mankind's greatest achievements in the exploration of the oceans from the first ships and diving bells to the location of the Titanic wreck and discovery of the deep ocean hydrothermal vents.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
World’s Largest Shark: 7-Metre-Long ‘Deep Blue’ Believed To Be Biggest Ever

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
SUBSCRIBE to the Barcroft network: http://bit.ly/Oc61Hj UNSEEN footage of what experts believe is the biggest great white shark ever caught on camera has been released. The seven metre-long female known as Deep Blue stunned the world last year when video was unveiled of it dwarfing cage divers off the coast of Guadalupe Island, Mexico.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A perfectly preserved British Arctic explorer ship has been discovered after 168 years.

HMS Terror vanished along with its sister ship HMS Erebus in 1840 as they set off in a bid to discover the fabled Northwest Passage.

Now the Arctic Research Foundation say that HMS Terror has been located by a research ship and is a 'perfect time capsule'.

The two ships have long been among the most sought-after prizes in marine archaeology and the subject of songs, poems and novels.

The wreck of the Erebus was found in 2014.

The Terror was discovered in 78 feet of water in Terror Bay, a small indentation on the coast of King William Island.

Canadian Rear-Admiral John Newton said the two ships were found about 31 miles apart from each other.

Sir John Franklin and 128 hand-picked officers and men had set out in 1845 to find the Northwest Passage, the shortcut to Asia that supposedly ran from the Atlantic to the Pacific by way of the ice-choked Arctic.

The death of all 129 men made the Franklin expedition the worst tragedy in the history of Arctic exploration.

Historians believe the ships became trapped in thick ice in 1846 off Prince William Island, and that Sir John and some other crew members died in the ensuing months.

The survivors apparently abandoned the two ships in April 1848 in a hopeless bid to reach safety overland.

Dozens of searches by the British and Americans in the 1800s failed to locate the wrecks, and some of those expeditions also ended in tragedy.

But they opened up parts of the Canadian Arctic to discovery and ultimately found a Northwest Passage, though it proved difficult to shipping because of ice and treacherous weather.

The discovery was sparked by a late-night conversation between scientists and Sammy Kogvik, an Inuk and Canadian Ranger.

Mr Kogvik spoke about something he had seen seven years ago while snowmobiling across the sea ice off Terror Bay.

When he looked behind him to check on his hunting partner when he spotted a large pole sticking up out of the ice.

The two Inuit stopped and took pictures of what looked like a ship's mast.

But when he got home he found he had dropped his camera and lost the shots.

Adrian Schimnowski, the expedition leader of the research ship that located the HMS Terror, said: "He kept the story secret because he didn't want people not to believe him.

"We listened to Sammy's story and changed course to take a look. It is a perfect time capsule."

In the days since the discovery, the crew has identified a number of the Terror's features.

There is video of the ship's bell, a cannon similar to those on the Erebus has been spotted and the ship's helm is still there 'in perfect condition', said Mr Schimnowski.

There are no plans to raise the two ships.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Discovery of perfectly preserved Brit Arctic explorer ship found after 168 years

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A perfectly preserved British Arctic explorer ship has been discovered after 168 years. HMS Terror vanished along with its sister ship HMS Erebus in 1840 as they set off in a bid to discover the fabled Northwest Passage. Now the Arctic Research Foundation say that HMS Terror has been located by a research ship and is a 'perfect time capsule'.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
4 Benefits of Space Exploration & Why It Is Important | Famous Explorers

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Exploring space has been a dream of mankind for several centuries. People throughout history have looked into the stars and studied the motion of the planets

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Top 10 Most Famous Expeditions in the History of Exploration | Famous Explorers

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Explorers throughout history have gone on expeditions to places that nobody has ever been in search of new territories and discoveries. Some explorers spent

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
From the Moon to Mount Everest, our list of the greatest leaps and highest climbs in human history

Corbis

The crew of Apollo 11 faced risks that were literally out of this world. Engine failure could have left them stranded on the lunar surface or forever lost in space. Solar radiation and re-entry heat could have cooked them alive. A space-suit failure could have suffocated them in the most gruesome way. By today's standards, Apollo 11's technology was primitive — the onboard navigation computer contained only 74 kilobytes of memory, not enough to store a single MP3 music file. But as soon as Neil Armstrong took his first tentative step on the lunar surface, the risks were forgotten. For an all-too-brief moment, everyone on the planet was caught up in the thrill of human achievement, of a millennia-old fantasy come to life. Other lunar explorers would follow, but Apollo 11 was the first to take the giant leap for mankind.

Next Scott and Amundsen Race to Reach the South Pole

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Mankind's Greatest Explorations and Adventures - TIME

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
From the Moon to Mount Everest, our list of the greatest leaps and highest climbs in human history The crew of Apollo 11 faced risks that were literally out of this world. Engine failure could have left them stranded on the lunar surface or forever lost in space.

# data[].attributes.headline
10 Greatest Adventures Still to Come: TIME

# data[].attributes.subject
10 Greatest Adventures Still to Come: TIME

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
From the Moon to Mount Everest, our list of the greatest leaps and highest climbs in human history

NASA Hubble Space Telescope / EPA / Corbis

A manned mission to the Red Planet could turn out to be the 21st century's greatest adventure. A journey to Mars would be the fulfillment of centuries-old dreams, as well as a huge shot in the arm for NASA, or any other country's space program. And there's a chance that the mission could uncover some form of microbial life, which would rank as one of the greatest scientific discoveries of all time. Okay, there are still a few wrinkles left to iron out. A one-way trip to Mars would take about seven months, exposing astronauts to potentially dangerous levels of cosmic radiation, and bringing enough food, water, and fuel for a mission lasting well over a year is a boggling logistical challenge. But it wasn't all that long ago that the best minds in the world thought a journey to the moon was utterly impossible.

Next Marianas Trench in the South Pacific

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Mankind's Greatest Explorations and Adventures - TIME

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
From the Moon to Mount Everest, our list of the greatest leaps and highest climbs in human history A manned mission to the Red Planet could turn out to be the 21st century's greatest adventure. A journey to Mars would be the fulfillment of centuries-old dreams, as well as a huge shot in the arm for NASA, or any other country's space program.

# data[].attributes.headline
History's greatest voyages of exploration

# data[].attributes.subject
History's greatest voyages of exploration

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
History's Greatest Voyages of Exploration

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Discover the awe-inspiring tales of the world's most influential explorers. From ancient wayfarers to modern astronauts, intrepid individuals bound the continents together, connected isolated peoples, and sparked a cross-fertilization of ideas, technologies, and even foods. Follow history's adventurers to the frozen Poles, Asia, Europe, the Americas, Africa, the ocean's depths, and the final frontier of space.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
top 10 amazing facts discovered underwater! Subscribe to our channel: http://goo.gl/9CwQhg For copyright matters please contact us at: david.f@valnetinc.com Other Videos You Might Like Description: The ocean is a vast world that we have yet to know as well as our dry Earth.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
10 Incredible Discoveries That Surprise The World || Pastimers

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Most of the discoveries pertain to weird things buried for thousands of years under the land surface. These discoveries may seem unusual and mysterious for someone, but all these discoveries are actually precious and priceless for the researcher as they might carrying the valuable information that reveal some unknown creatures or technologies that existed long ago in this world.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
It was summer in Antarctica, and Erik Gulbranson and John Isbell were on the hunt.

Bundled up in parkas to brave negative temperatures, fierce winds, and blinding days of 24-hour sunlight, Gulbranson, Isbell, and an international team of researchers searched for fossil fragments. Between November 2016 and January 2017, they scaled the snow-capped slopes of the McIntyre Promontory high above the ice fields and glaciers, sifting through the Transantarctic Mountain's gray sedimentary rocks for clues. By the end of the expedition, they had uncovered 13 fossil fragments from trees dating back more than 260 million years, around the time of the world's greatest mass extinction event.

The fossil discovery hints at the coldest, driest continent's green and forested past. ( Read more about a green snap in Antarctica's history.)

A Green History

"The continent as a whole was much warmer and more humid than it currently is today," says Gulbranson, a professor at University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee. The landscape would have been densely forested with a low-diversity network of resilient plants that could withstand polar extremes, like the boreal forest in present-day Siberia.

"Oddly enough, these field sites would have actually been very close to what their current latitude is," he adds.

The fossils preserved the biology and chemistry of the ancient trees, which will help the researchers investigate more on these high-latitude ecosystems to figure out how some plants survived the extinction event, and why others didn't. What's more, fossil microorganisms and fungi have been preserved inside the wood.

The specimens look similar to the petrified forests in Yellowstone National Park, which were fossilized when volcanic materials buried the living trees.

"They're actually some of the best-preserved fossil plants in the world," Gulbranson says. "The fungi in the wood itself were probably mineralized and turned into stone within a matter of weeks, in some cases probably while the tree was still alive. These things happened incredibly rapidly. You could have witnessed it firsthand if you were there."

The researchers found the prehistoric plants could transition rapidly between seasons, perhaps within the span of a month. Whereas modern plants take months to transition and conserve water differently depending on the time of day, the ancient trees could fluctuate quickly between pitch black winters and perpetually sunny summers.

"Somehow these plants were able to survive not only four to five months of complete darkness, but also four to five months of continuous light," Gulbranson says. "We don't fully understand how they were able to cope with these conditions, just that they did."

Mass Extinction

The Permian period, dating between 299 to 251 million years ago, is marked by the emergence of the supercontinent Gondwana. As a mash of continents, environmental extremes plagued the giant land mass, which included parts of modern-day Antarctica, South America, Africa, India, Australia, and the Arabian Peninsula. Ice caps dominated most of the south and tossed it between ceaselessly sunny summers and pitch-black winters, while the north suffered intense heat and seasonal fluctuations.

Prehistoric creatures learned to adapt to the turbulent climate until the Permian extinction, which Gulbranson says was most likely caused by volcanism in present-day Siberia. The event wiped out more than 90 percent of marine species and 70 percent of land animals, later making the way for dinosaurs.

Looking Forward

The team is planning to continue research in Antarctica by revisiting the continent in the coming weeks. John Isbell and other researchers are already making their way down, and Gulbranson will join them at the polar locale November 23.

"It's certainly still a raw and challenging place to try to be as a human being," Gulbranson says.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Antarctica Was Once Covered in Forests. We Just Found One That Fossilized.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
It was summer in Antarctica, and Erik Gulbranson and John Isbell were on the hunt. Bundled up in parkas to brave negative temperatures, fierce winds, and blinding days of 24-hour sunlight, Gulbranson, Isbell, and an international team of researchers searched for fossil fragments.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Two ancient teeth found in southern England are some of the oldest known fossils from the group of mammals that gave rise to humans. The teeth likely belonged to ancient creatures that nibbled on insects and went out only at night-a life strategy that let them avoid the dinosaurs that dominated Earth during the Cretaceous.

The teeth represent two newfound species of early mammal, both of which vaguely resembled small shrews. The smaller animal, named Durlstotherium, in all likelihood ate insects almost exclusively. The larger one, named Durlstodon, may have had hefty enough teeth for processing plant material, but researchers can't be certain.

Grant Smith, then an undergraduate student at the University of Portsmouth, found the teeth in the summer of 2015, when he carefully sieved through 130 pounds of rock he had picked up along the Dorset beach. He and his advisor David Martill suspected that the teeth were mammalian. But to be sure, they summoned Steve Sweetman, a mammal-tooth specialist, to have a look.

According to his analysis, the teeth are roughly 145 million years old, the age of the rock formation in which they were found, and they're dead ringers for eutherian mammals. This group includes today's placental mammals-such as dogs, elephants, and humans-and their now-extinct kin.

"It was a jaw-dropping moment; I was shocked," says Sweetman, a research fellow at the University of Portsmouth. "These were the sorts of things you'd expect to see in the Upper Cretaceous, not way down in the base of the Cretaceous."

The timing of the first eutherians has been a matter of debate. Based on fossil and genetic evidence, some paleontologists suggest that they've been around since at least the late Jurassic, about 160 million years ago, while some studies imply that they may have arisen later.

If this analysis holds, the new fossils, unveiled this week in Acta Palaeontologica Polonica, hold the record for the oldest eutherian remains ever found in Europe, adding a crucial piece of hard evidence to the debate. (The oldest eutherian known today, a Chinese fossil called Juramaia, is about 15 million years older, but some researchers argue that it's not a eutherian.)

"There may well be eutherians coming from other parts of the world from older rocks," says Sweetman. "We'd expect there to be; we just haven't found them yet."

Seeing the Light

Based on skull measurements gleaned from related species, Sweetman thinks these early mammals were probably nocturnal-an interpretation that got an unexpected boost on Monday, when a separate study confirmed that early mammals didn't venture into the sun until dinosaurs were on their way out.

Researchers have long suspected that early mammals were nocturnal. Most mammals have worse color vision than reptiles or birds, and mammals' eye shapes and retinas suggest that their distant ancestors were adapted for night vision.

Why? Blame the dinosaurs. One longstanding hypothesis holds that early mammals had a nocturnal lifestyle, which kept mammals out of dinosaurs' way, ecologically speaking. Once the dinosaurs died out, however, mammals could safely become more active during the day.

Evidence for this "nocturnal bottleneck" has built up through the years, says Roi Maor, a Ph.D. student at Tel Aviv University and University College London. And Maor's new study, published Monday in Nature Ecology & Evolution, adds to that assessment.

Maor peered into the behaviors of long-dead mammals by building a massive dataset of the day-night habits for 2,415 living mammal species. He then mathematically estimated the habits of ever more distant common ancestors, until he arrived at the most recent common ancestor for all mammals.

This ancestral mammal lived either 166 or 218 million years ago, depending on the model, and came out as nocturnal, along with many of its descendants. This means that mammals were probably nocturnal through most of the age of dinosaurs.

This changed, however, once the nonavian dinosaurs bit the dust 66 million years ago. In one model, mammals picked up daytime activity about nine million years before the dinosaurs went extinct; in the other, they started to see sunlight just after the extinction.

"We were surprised to find such a tight fit between theory and our actual findings," says Maor.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Fossils of Some of Our Oldest Mammal Ancestors Found

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Two ancient teeth found in southern England are some of the oldest known fossils from the group of mammals that gave rise to humans. The teeth likely belonged to ancient creatures that nibbled on insects and went out only at night-a life strategy that let them avoid the dinosaurs that dominated Earth during the Cretaceous.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Shutterstock

Adventurous people out there have the resources to explore the farthest reaches of the Earth. But while it seems every last spot will get explored, researched, and photographed, there do remain some places that have barely been touched-or haven't been seen at all. From the deepest depths to the highest peaks, these virgin territories are still out there to spark your imagination and wanderlust.

Gangkhar Puensum, Bhutan

This impressive peak on the border of Tibet and Bhutan is the 40th-highest-mountain in the world and has yet to be summited.

According to history records, aspiring climbers of days past had trouble even locating the 24,280-foot mountain. Maps were pretty inaccurate for quite a long time, and even after people knew where it was, it still proved nigh-impossible to conquer. It's very cold and windy, and there's a ridge before the top that's really really steep. In 1985, a team from Britain attempted the climb, but crew members got sick and had to turn back. In 1986, a monsoon stopped an Austrian climbing team.

In 1987, the government in Bhutan banned climbing Gangkhar Puensum totally. This is because it is said that powerful spirits inhabit the mountain's peak. Those inclined to believe in the supernatural devour stories of strange lights, ghostly figures, magnetic anomalies and even Yeti on the way up the allowed 6,000 meters from the top.

Undeterred by the rumors, a Japanese group of climbers got permission from the Chinese Mountaineering Association to climb the unclimbable mountain from the Tibetan approach. The Bhutanese side disputed this permission, and the group settled for climbing the peak just north of Gangkhar Puensum, known as Gangkhar Puensum North. Even though that peak was also previously unclimbed, the group leader, Tamostsu Nakamura, expressed regret that they could not climb Gangkhar Puensum. No one has gotten as close as they did, and it's possible that no one ever will.

The Mariana Trench

The Mariana Trench is located in the Pacific Ocean, off of Japan and is the deepest place on the entire planet. Just to give some perspective, the Arctic Ocean is 3.407 feet deep, with the Eurasian Basin Trench at 17.881 feet. The Indian Ocean is 12,740 feet deep, with the Java Trench at 25,344 feet deep. The Atlantic Ocean is 12,254 feet deep with the Puerto Rican Trench at 28,374 feet deep. The Pacific Ocean is 12,740 feet deep, and the Mariana Trench is a staggering 36,201 feet deep. Mount Everest, which is the tallest mountain in the world, if placed at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, would still have 7,176 feet of water above it.

The trench was created when one tectonic plate topped with oceanic crust subducted (it slid under) another. It was first discovered in 1951 by the HMS Challenger II, which is why the deepest point is called Challenger Deep.

In 1960, Swiss scientist Jacques Piccard and US Navy Lt Colonel Donald Walsh traveled to the bottom of Challenger Deep in a submarine designed by Piccard's father. It was called the Trieste, and the design was pretty genius. They used gasoline in the submarine's floats, because gasoline is lighter than water. They reached the bottom with 16.000 pounds of pressure per square inch then headed back to the top. More recently, film titan James Cameron launched an expedition to the floor of the Mariana Trench called DeepSea Challenge. Cameron himself traveled to the bottom in a custom submersible that he helped design, and he went with cameras, unlike the 1960s expedition. He filmed lots of squishy creatures, and the discovery of a new species of sea cucumber may have come of his efforts. But since the Trench is still almost entirely unexplored, there are plenty of things we still don't know there, and some discoveries could give us a glimpse as to how our whole world started.

Oodaaq Island, Greenland

There are six total "visited" islands north of Kaffeklubben, Greenland. "Visited" means that someone, at some point, set foot on them, but whether they still exist is up for debate. Confused? Read on.

Take, for instance, Oodaaq Island. It was discovered in 1978 by Uffe Petersen, a Danish geodesist mapping north Greenland with his team. They were hanging out on Kaffeklubben, thought to be the northernmost of the Greenland islands, when they saw a speck out yonder. North! They flew over, and sure enough, there was an "island" there. Well, really a gravel bar, but it counted. Petersen named it after an Eskimo sledge driver who'd been part of Robert Peary's North Pole expedition in 1909. While some sources say it hasn't been seen since it was discovered, that's not technically true.

Fast-forward to the early 2000s, when Dr. Peter Skaffe, a Danish anthropologist, was filming and studying the northern islands. Even though an expedition in the sea north of Kaffeklubben saw no trace of Oodaaq, Skaffe found that only eight days later, his camera had caught a glimpse of the small island. Will Oodaaq be visible more often with the melting arctic regions, or will it disappear completely? Probably best to hang on Kaffeklubben instead and check out the crazy arctic flowers.

Machapuchare, Nepal

In the Annapurna Himalayas, there's a sacred mountain that the Nepalese have made off limits to climbers. It's called Machapurchare, or " Fish Tail Mountain."

In 1957, Wilfrid Noyce and A.D.M. Cox climbed Machapuchare, but they didn't go to the top. Not that they couldn't have, physically. Noyce was, after all the first to climb Everest. But the mountain is sacred because Lord Shiva lives on the top, and that's pretty serious. Nepal's king asked Noyce and his partner not to go all the way up, and they agreed. That was, of course, the only gentlemanly thing to do.

Climbers say Bill Denz, a rogue climber from New Zealand, didn't give a hoot about what the Hindus held sacred and went all the way to the top in the early 1980s. Denz died on Mansaw, another Himalayan mountain, in 1983, so we'll never really know for sure. We have a written account, however, of Noyce's experience, as he wrote a book called Climbing the Fish's Tail.

While you can't climb this sacred mountain to its summit, you can do plenty in the base camp. The mountain is in the Annapurna Conservation Area. That, combined with the peak's religious significance, makes Machapuchare perhaps the last pristine mountain in the Himalayas. Since humans ruin everything, if we could get up there, we'd probably wreck it. Look at Mt Everest, after all. It's estimated that climbers have left behind 12 tons of human poo, 50 tons of garbage and quite a few frozen corpses on that famous mountain. We suck.

Northern Mountain Forest Complex, Myanmar

High in the mountains of Myanmar, the Hkakabo Razi National Park and Hponkan Razi Wildlife Sanctuary make up the Northern Mountain Forest Complex, and the World Heritage Convention proposes to expand the area to include a southern extension of the national park, to create an area of over 7,000 square miles.

A study out of Cambridge found that less than 1.4 percent of the existing forest area in this region of Myanmar is affected by humans, which is pretty extraordinary, though this does not include hunters. So, when we say this area is unexplored, it means that the flora and fauna and wildlife have not been studied, and the area has not been explored by scientific or climbing communities. That doesn't mean that poachers out for tiger parts and other animal products to sell in China haven't set foot in these lush and vibrant forests.

Even though almost half of Myanmar is still covered in forest area, deforestation is a real problem, as is the destruction of wildlife population. Scientists have recently uncovered video footage, of red pandas, and it was apparent that their habitat is declining, even though there are parts of Myanmar that are virtually unexplored.

Antarctica's subglacial lakes

First discovered in 1973, massive subglacial lakes in Antarctica have fascinated scientists for years. While there are now 400 known subglacial lakes in the 5 million square miles of frozen area, plenty are not known. Also unknown are the ins and outs of the complex ecosystem that thrives under so many thousands of feet of ice.

It was very important to Russian scientists to be the first to get a sample from a subglacial lake, and they started digging into Lake Vostok in 1953. The drilling was suspended in the late 1990s, but it seems that they're making good headway now.

Another successful experiment was conducted on Lake Whillans by a microbial ecologist from Montana State University, John Priscu. He got a sample from almost a half mile under the ice and reported that the ecosystem was, indeed, absolutely thriving. While there's so much unexplored and unknown about these ancient, frozen lakes, they're on scientific radars across disciplines and countries, and it's expected that easier access will exist by 2035. So, that's one upside to the whole world melting.

North Sentinel Island

The Andaman Archipelago is in the Indian Ocean's Bay of Bengal. It lies in between Burma and Indonesia and contains about 200 islands, and in it, there's a little island, a little off to the west of the bulk of others, called North Sentinel Island. It's about the size of Manhattan and has between 50 and 400 inhabitants. Nobody knows for sure. That's because that island is totally unexplored. "How can this be?" you might ask, considering that people live there. Well, the island's plenty accessible, but the Sentinelese are notoriously resistant to any visitors whatsoever.

If the island is anything like the other islands in the region, it's home to unique flora and fauna. Most of the Andaman islands contain over 2,000 species of plants, 1,300 of which are not found on the mainland in India. We don't know much more, except that a tsunami in 2004 changed the geography of the island, and that the lagoon is eroded. As of 2015, fishers looking for sea cucumbers (a delicacy in China) were trying to encroach on the waters around North Sentinel, but it would be disastrous for the people there if the fishers could come onto the island. The Sentinelese have not built any immunity to diseases modern people could carry to them, and interference could well wipe them out, which would kind of be a shame.

While it is all well and good to want to explore the unexplored, we shouldn't, like, wipe out indigenous and ancient cultures. And, for that matter, it might be good if we didn't junk up Mount Everest, or step all over someone's religious beliefs to climb a mountain. But that'd be asking humans not to be jerks, which is pretty tough for them to do. And so we'll continue to explore, and perhaps we should all hope that we learn something along the way that makes us not wreck things before we can understand them.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Places on Earth we still haven't explored

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
While it seems every last spot will get explored, researched, and photographed, there do remain some places that have barely been touched-or haven't been seen at all. From the deepest depths to the highest peaks, these virgin territories are still out there to spark your imagination and wanderlust.

# data[].attributes.body
Lots of interesting sites here

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Bizarre Things Discovered Inside Pyramids

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
As a whole, the human race thinks it's pretty darn cool, partially because we build all kinds of incredible things, from tall buildings to super, high-tech ones. But in all fairness, we also have...

# data[].attributes.headline
Top 10 discoveries of 2012: National Geographic

# data[].attributes.subject
Top 10 discoveries of 2012: National Geographic

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Top 10 Discoveries of 2012: Nat Geo News's Most Popular

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The biggest crocodile and the God particle are featured in National Geographic News's most visited coverage of 2011 discoveries.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Out of all the amazing archaeological discoveries made each and every day around the world, those that emerge from the depths of the ocean are among the most captivating. There is something about the underwater world that captures our imagination - perhaps it is the curiosity and intrigue about what else may lie beneath the surface, or the idea that entire cities may be hidden on the ocean floor, out of sight and out of reach. Fortunately, underwater discoveries are not always out of reach and every year more incredible findings are made thanks to advancing technology in the field of marine archaeology. Here we present ten remarkable marine discoveries of 2014.

During the 13th century, the Mongols, led by Kublai Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan, attempted two major invasions of Japan in 1274 and 1281 AD. However, on both occasions, a massive typhoon obliterated the Mongol fleet, forcing the attackers to abandon their plans and fortuitously saving Japan from foreign conquest. The Japanese believed the typhoons had been sent from the gods to protect them from their enemies and called them Kamikaze ('divine wind'). This year, archaeologists found one of the Mongol ships off Takashima island in Nagasaki Prefecture.

The ship was found using sonar equipment, lying 14 metres below the surface, about 1.7 kilometres away from another Mongolian warship that was discovered in 2011. The wreck is comprised of port and starboard structures near the bow of the ship, with preserved planks of wood that are around 11 metres long. Divers also found stone ballast, and archaeologists are hoping that the ship's keel lies underneath. "We plan to clarify details like its structure, size and origin by excavating further," said Yoshifumi Ikeda, a professor of archaeology at the university who is leading the research effort. "It's well preserved, so we expect it to carry a significant load of cargo like porcelains and weapons."

An archaeological team equipped with a mini-submarine made a spectacular discovery while exploring in deep water around the Aeolian Islands of Pantelleria, Lipari and Panarea - a 2,000-year-old sunken ship, complete with dozens of amphorae, plates, bowls, and anchors. One of the most exceptional discoveries was a well-preserved sacrificial altar on a pedestal containing decorative carvings of waves. While historical sources have referred to sailors making sacrifices to the gods to ensure a safe journey or to give thanks for having navigated a difficult passage, this is one of the first examples of an altar on a ship that may have been used for such purposes.

Thrilled with the results, the Superintendent of the Sea, Sebastiano Tusa, said [translated]: "I have seen and touched dozens of ancient and modern wrecks in my long career as an archaeologist, but to be able to reach a wreck of a ship sunk 2,000 years ago, which is in the dark and in the silence of 130 feet deep, gave me an indescribable feeling." The wreck, along with the recovered artifacts, are currently undergoing further analysis to further understand the origin, destination, and life on board the ancient ship.

An excavation site off of Haifa, Israel, revealed a 7,500-year-old water well and Neolithic village, 5 meters (16 feet) underwater due to prehistoric sea-level rise, drowning out what may have been the oldest olive oil production center of the world.

The well is thought to have supplied fresh water to the village. According to Flinders University maritime archaeologist Jonathan Benjamin, "Water wells are valuable to Neolithic archaeology because once they stopped serving their intended purpose, people used them as big rubbish bins." Once sea levels began to rise the fresh well water became salty, and the villagers used it instead for their refuse, throwing in animal bones and food scraps.

Benjamin notes that the location may have been the oldest olive oil production center of the world, based on previous excavations. A study in the Journal of Archaeological Science describes the thousands of crushed olive stones and early olive-oil production technology found in pits at the prehistoric site in the 1990s.

A group of divers discovered a Phoenician shipwreck dating back to 700 BC off the coast of Gozo island in Malta. It is a unique and immensely important finding as it is the oldest known shipwreck in the central Mediterranean, it is among the oldest and most complete Phoenician ships ever recovered, and it will serve to shed light on inter-regional trade and exchange in antiquity.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Out of all the amazing archaeological discoveries made each and every day around the world, those that emerge from the depths of the ocean are among the most captivating.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The oceans cover more than 70 percent of the earth's surface, yet their depths remain largely unknown. It's a frontier that scientists are racing to explore.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
It is a matter of historical record that the high state of development of modern astronomy is due entirely to the efforts and observations of thousands of stargazers from all parts of the earth, and throughout much of mankind's history. However, the science of astronomy has very few "Eureka!" moments, and most, if not all, of the important discoveries are the result of generations of scientists working to either prove, or disprove hypotheses, theories, and sometimes nothing more than hunches. There have been literally thousands of discoveries made by ceaselessly questioning convention, rethinking scientific dogma, and re-evaluating ideas and evidence over the last thousand years, and to list them all would be an impossible task.

So below, but in no particular order, is a list of ten of the most important astronomical discoveries of comparatively recent times, discoveries that have completely changed the way modern science looks at the Universe just as previous discoveries in earlier times had done.

Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation

With only very small variations, the Universe is filled with a uniform form of radiation known as cosmic microwave background radiation, which was discovered quite by accident by two Bell Telephone employees while they were working on satellite communication experiments. The implications are profound, since the uniformity of the radiation seems to confirm the notion that the Universe originated in a single event from which everything else flows, such as the rapid, and accelerated expansion of the universe. Moreover, if the fact that on really large scales, all visible and detectable matter in the Universe is distributed almost evenly and uniformly is taken into account, it could mean that the Big Bang did in fact occur, although proving this is another matter entirely.

Since the exact mechanism, or even driving forces behind the acceleration of the rate of expansion of the Universe is unknown, the existence of a form of energy, dubbed "Dark Energy" has been proposed. However, the discovery has less to do with the nature, or even existence, of this energy than it has to do with the fact that the Universe has been discovered to be expanding at an ever-increasing rate. The nature of the proposed Dark Energy is still unexplored and the cause of heated debate in cosmological circles, but it is conceivable that it is a property of space-time, as opposed to a form of energy. For the moment though, Dark Energy accounts for an astounding 74% of all the energy in the Universe. Which of course means that at best, we have only a 26% understanding of how the Universe works.

Another major discovery is that of Dark Matter, which seems to dictate the gravitational effects within galaxies. At the heart of the matter is the fact that the observed velocity of some stars within galaxies as they orbit the cores of galaxies differ wildly from what calculated values should be. The problem is that much of any given galactic disc rotates around the core at the same velocity, which according to calculations based on known gravitational values is clearly impossible, given the fact that the outer stars are much further removed from the core, and should thus orbit the core more slowly than stars that are closer to the core. From appearances, it would seem that galaxies are entirely embedded in a form of matter that is currently unknown, undetectable, and likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. Nonetheless, the existence of this form of matter is the only explanation for the observed behavior of galaxies, unless there are some undiscovered properties of gravity that still elude science.

There was time when the mere idea of planets existing outside of our own solar system was considered to be scientific heresy, but the discovery by Dr. Aleksander Wolszczan of the first such planet (51 Pegasi b) in 1992, had the effect of changing how astronomers look at the Universe, and especially at how stars form. Although most exoplanets have many times the mass of Jupiter, and are therefore called "Hot Jupiters, because the orbit very close to their parent stars, improved technologies and techniques have made it possible to discover ever-smaller planets, some of which orbit stars not unlike our Sun. Today, there are more than 3,000 exoplanets known, which disproves the erstwhile scientific doctrine that "...planets are the exception, rather than the rule."

Long suspected to exist, but only proven through the work of physicist Steven Hawking, black holes are the invisible remains of massive stars that have collapsed under their own gravity. Since stars exist only because of the (almost) equilibrium between their own gravity and the outward-pushing pressure of the nuclear furnaces in their cores, a massive star can contract to the point of invisibility if the outward pressure ceases to counteract gravity. Moreover, since light consists of matter that has mass, the enormous gravitational field of a black hole prevents photons (the physical components of light) to escape, which makes it impossible to detect a black hole in optical light.

The enormous gravitational forces involved when a black hole "swallows" an object, such as a star, tear the star apart when it crosses the "event horizon", which is a theoretical limit around a black hole beyond which escape is impossible once an object crosses it. The destruction of the object releases huge amounts of X-rays and other radiation, which reveals the location, or presence of a black hole. Recent research has shown that all galaxies with a central bulge contain a black hole, some of which have millions, and even billions of Solar masses, but also that there exists a close correlation between the mass of the central bulge in galaxies and the mass of the black hole it contains.

Among other things, Einstein 's Theory of General Relativity predicted that since mass and energy are essentially the same, light that passes by a massive object would be bent by the gravity of the massive object. Although the mechanisms are different, the principle can be demonstrated by viewing a drinking straw in a glass containing water; the straw seems to bend where it enters the water. This is roughly analogous to the displacement of objects by the deflection of light as it passes massive objects. This was proven to be the case when observers noted that the planet Mercury was "out of place", and not where it was supposed to be relative to the Sun at certain times.

British physicist Alfred Eddington proved that it was caused by the deflection of light by the Sun when he measured the displacement of background stars relative to the Sun during a total solar eclipse. Further proof of this is the existence of Einstein Circles, which is the distorted images of less massive galaxies behind more massive structures between Earth and the objects whose light is being distorted as it passes by the more massive, intervening structure.

Red-shifting of Objects in the Universe

With the discovery of Cepheid variable stars nearly 100 years ago, it became possible for Edwin Hubble to prove that the Milky Way was just one of billions of galaxies in the Universe. This discovery led to ways to measure the speed at which some of these galaxies are either approaching us, or receding from us. By comparing the light spectrum of an object with that of a stationary object, it is possible to measure the amount of red-shift of the spectrum, which is the displacement of the entire spectrum toward the red, longer wavelength part of the electro-magnetic spectrum. The amount of displacement is tiny to be sure, but the amount of shift is directly related to the velocity of the receding object, thus, the higher the red-shift, the further the object is away from us.

The distance is also directly related to the velocity of the object, which means that in practical terms, the further away an object is, the faster it is receding. The operating principle here is the fact that as an object recedes, the light from it is "stretched"; similarly, the light from an object that approaches us is "compressed", thus moving the entire spectrum of such an object toward the blue, shorter wavelength part of the EM spectrum. Which is how we know that M31, or the Andromeda Galaxy which is our closest big neighbor, is approaching us at a velocity of 250,000 m/ph, with the collision expected in about 4 billion years.

Long a mystery, the massive bursts of Gamma rays that reach earth from all point in the sky are now known to be the result of the biggest explosions in the Universe, when massive stars explode in titanic detonations that are so energetic that they can outshine their entire host galaxies for several months. The resulting dispersion of stellar matter forms intricate formations of gas and dust such as the beautiful Crab Nebula. This nebula is still expanding as the result of the explosion that destroyed a massive star in about the year 1054. Gamma ray bursts can also occur when a neutron star, which is the remains of a previous stellar explosion detonates due to the accretion of matter from a companion star in a close binary system.

Age of the Universe and the Hubble Constant

Although the use of red-shift measurements was instrumental in determining the age of the Universe, the first attempts fixed the age of the Universe at only about half of the modern accepted value, which is 13.75 billion years. The problem involved the facts that the wrong class of Cepheid variable stars was used in the calculation that was made in the mid 1920's, and that the rate of the expansion of the Universe was based on incorrect assumptions. It was only several decades later with the discovery of a second class of Cepheid stars, that had twice the period of the first, and thus a different relationship between luminosity and distance, that astronomers re-applied the original calculation but with different values. The result was in perfect agreement with geological evidence for the age of the earth, and by extension, the Universe. The rate at which the Universe expands, known as the Hubble Constant, is still not fixed accurately, but is now accepted to be somewhere between 50 (km/sec)/Mpc and 100 (km/sec)/Mpc. The large margin of uncertainty is the result of the unknown rate at which the expansion of the Universe is accelerating.

Big Bang and Inflationary Theory

Although the origin of the Universe is untraceable, the Big Bang theory is still best at explaining it. Recent advances in cosmology (and computer modelling) seem to confirm that the Universe originated in a single, infinitely dense, and infinitely massive singularity, which is the word used to describe that which cannot be described. The observed, and uniform expansion of the Universe can now be traced back to a single point in time, but beyond that, the laws of physics as we know and understand them, no longer apply. The tentative "confirmation" of the Big Bang Theory can be seen as a discovery of sorts, but much uncertainty remains, and it is almost certain that the origin of the Universe will never be known with any degree of accuracy or certainty.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Top 10 Greatest Discoveries In Astronomy

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
It is a matter of historical record that the high state of development of modern astronomy is due entirely to the efforts and observations of thousands of stargazers from all parts of the earth, and throughout much of mankind's history. However, the science of astronomy has very few "Eureka!"

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Space scientists have announced an exciting discovery that could help them get closer to answering the question of whether there is life on Mars.

The US space agency Nasa has released high-tech satellite pictures which, they say, shows evidence of flowing water on the red planet.

It's big news because, if it's confirmed, it could prove there is the potential for life there.

Researchers have seen small streaks that change in different weather.

What does it all mean?

Measuring less than five metres wide these streaks appear during warm seasons and then fade when it get colder.

Water is a vital part of life on Earth and this discovery could make it easier for humans to explore Mars further.

It could also mean that the planet could be suitable for certain types of life.

Further exploration

Researchers have also examined four different locations on Mars and found salt minerals which are normally made in salty water.

They think the salts have been left by water flowing down the sides of hills.

The discovery has come using data gathered by Nasa's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft.

Dr Joe Michalski, a Mars expert from the Natural History museum in London, said: "These results provide strong evidence that salty water flows on the Martian surface, even today."

Atmosphere changes

Scientists had thought that Mars used to have rivers and oceans billions of years ago but changes in the atmosphere has made it much colder.

It's thought some of the water is locked in polar icecaps and possibly underground.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Is there life on Mars? Nasa announce discovery of water

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Space scientists have announced an exciting discovery that could help them get closer to answering the question of whether there is life on Mars. The US space agency Nasa has released high-tech satellite pictures which, they say, shows evidence of flowing water on the red planet.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Pluto has blue skies and frozen water on its surface - CBBC Newsround

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Nasa's latest pictures of Pluto show that it has blue skies and patches of frozen water on its surface.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Top 5 amazing space discoveries - CBBC Newsround

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
As Nasa announce they've found ice on Pluto we look back at the most incredible space discoveries ever.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Pythagoras calculated that the earth was round in the sixth century BC. Aristotle believed that as there was a landmass in the northern hemisphere, that there must be a balance of land in the southern hemisphere. The northern most land was named Arktos, meaning the bear, for the constellation Arktos. Then, Aristotle named the supposed opposite end in the south, Antarktikos, meaning opposite of the north. Throughout early history, there were many theories about what might lie to the very south of the planet Earth, including belief that there were a lot of people in a lush land to the south.

Sir Francis Drake reached 57 degrees south in the late 1570's. And, between 1772 and 1775, Captain James Cook sails within 100 miles of Antarctica. Finally, in 1820, the Russian explorer, Fabian von Bellingshausen was said to sight land in Antarctica for the first time. It is also claimed, in different expeditions that year, that Antarctic land was also seen by William Smith, Edward Bransfield, and Nathaniel Palmer.

Most likely, it is believed that American Captain John Davis, a sealer, set foot on Antarctica in 1821. And, in 1841, Sir James Clark Ross claimed Antarctica for Queen Victoria of Britain.

The true age of Heroic Exploration began in the early 1900's. There were many names associated with this period of voyages into unknown inland areas, but the four that stand out are, Douglas Mawson, Ernest Shackleton, Roald Amundsen, and Robert Falcon Scott.

Robert Scott led his first expedition to Antarctica from 1901 to 1904. This was The Discovery Expedition. This was both a journey of exploration and one of scientific discovery. Ernest Shackleton was with Scott, but was sent home early, due to exhaustion, while Scott discovered the Polar Plateau. Shackleton did not go home without a protest. Scott went home a hero. Although his second expedition to Antarctica, on the Terra Nova, proved to be a one-way journey. The Terra Nova Expedition began in 1910 and ended in a frozen death in March 1912. This is the expedition where Scott was tricked into a race to the Pole with Roald Amundsen. Scott was intent on reaching the Pole as a goal for taking this expedition, but he did not plan to compete with Amundsen. In fact, a big part of the expedition, once again, was devoted to scientific research. Scott's scientific work was so important in the early years of exploring Antarctica. After he died, 35 lbs of fossils, meteorological logs, a diary, and notes were found in his tent when a search party found his body eight months later. Among the fossils, was found an extinct beech like tree that was 250 million years old!

Roald Amundsen, from Norway, had originally planned to go to the Artic, but upon hearing that Frederick Cook and Robert Peary had both claimed to be the first to make it to the North Pole, Amundsen changed direction and went south. His ship, The Fram, made it to Antarctica in 1910, and the rest is history. Amundsen was in Antarctica for one purpose only, to become first to the South Pole. He was better prepared, as he and his team were excellent skiers, trained to use their well-chosen dog team, and took a different route to the Pole. Amundsen and his advance team made it the the South Pole on the 14th of December, 1911. Scott and his advance team arrived on the 17th of January, 1912, devastated to find that Amundsen had already been there. Scott and his team died due to bad luck, bad weather, and physical exhaustion the end of March, 1912.

Douglas Mawson was born in England, but moved to Australia as a small child. He was trained as a geologist. He was the first person to ascent Mount Erebus in Antarctica, and part of the first team to reach the South Magnetic Pole. He turned down an expedition on the Terra Nova with Robert Scott in 1910 in order to lead his own expedition in 1911. During this expedition, terrible luck came upon Mawson during a three-man exploration team. Two of the men died, one falling into a crevasse, and the other dying from eating dog liver, causing death from extreme levels of vitamin A, found in husky liver. Mawson made it to reach his ship, only to find out it had just left and he had to wait another in year staying in Antarctica, before going home.

One of the most impressive stories in Antarctica is that of Ernest Shackleton. Born in Ireland, but moving to England at the age of 10, he grew up to become a Merchant Navy Officer. He was interested in going to Antarctica when the opportunity arose. His first voyage was on The Discovery (1901-1903), led by Robert Scott. The purpose of the journey included scientific and geographical work. Shackleton joined Scott and Edward Wilson to journey further south, and they achieved being the first to reach the furthest south, at a latitude of 82°17′. Unfortunately, the men were worn down, and Scott ended up demanding that the weakened Shackleton return home.

On the 1st of January, 1908, Shackleton left New Zealand, leading the Nimrod expedition to Antarctica. On the 9th January, 1909, Shackleton, Frank Wild, Eric Marshall, and Jameson Adams, reached a new record south of 88° 23′, which was only 112 miles (180 km) from the South Pole.

In 1914, Shackleton embarked on his most famous voyage, The Endurance. At this point, Amundsen had already become the first person to reach the Geographic South Pole in 1911. Shackleton had a new goal, and that was to be the first to cross Antarctica on foot. He would only bring dogs this time, and 27 men.

A wonderful choice was made in enlisting James Francis Hurley as the expedition photographer. To this day, we have many incredible photos that tell the story of this journey, including some moving pictures!

To make a long story short, The Endurance ran into ice packs and was stuck in the Weddell Sea in January 1915. The ship remained frozen in place for 326 days, until the ice broke up, then the ship broke up and sank! The men escaped onto the ice floe, which was about 300 miles (484 km) from land. They lived for months on this floe, eating penguins and seals.

They finally decided that they had to move on. They launched out in the lifeboats towards land. They had to sadly put the dogs down, as they could not bring them. This broke their hearts, as they loved these dogs. After seventy stormy difficult days, the team reached Elephant Island. While this was land, it was clear that the men could not stay there for long. There was no food source other than penguins and seals. It as desolate, cold, and unwelcoming. Shackleton decided to leave the bulk of the team to hold out on Elephant Island, while he took 5 men with him in the strongest of the lifeboats, the James Caird. The boat was prepared by the ship's carpenter for the long voyage. The remaining lifeboats were used to build a shelter for the remaining men awaiting rescue.

Shackleton and the five chosen men left for an 800 mile (1,290 km) journey towards South Georgia Island, where they knew there was help to be had at the whaling station there. After 15 days at sea in ferocious storms, they spotted the island. While it was difficult to land, they finally made it to shore, only to find that they had a mountain between them and help. They succeeded in crossing this inhospitable terrain in 36 hours and were able to then return back to Elephant Island, after three attempts, to rescue the remaining men. This was the 30th of August, 1916. Not one life was lost during this entire period of time and the men all made it back home safely.

In September of 1921, Shackleton decided to take a last expedition to Antarctica. He left with his team on The Quest. He was not feeling very well along the way, but continued his journey. On the 5th of January, 1922, Shackleton died of a heart attack while at South Georgia Island. His wife requested that he be buried in his beloved Antarctica, and he is buried on South Georgia Island.

He will always be remembered for his courage, selflessness, perseverance, and incredible leadership. He never let any of his men down. Shackleton lived life to the fullest, and accomplished more than most people do in twice as long a life!
Robert Scott and Roald Amundsen-The Race to the South Pole 1910-1912. The story of Douglas Mawson's fight for survival. The amazing survival of Ernest Shackleton and his team.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Pythagoras calculated that the earth was round in the sixth century BC. Aristotle believed that as there was a landmass in the northern hemisphere, that there must be a balance of land in the southern hemisphere. The northern most land was named Arktos, meaning the bear, for the constellation Arktos.

# data[].attributes.headline
Young explorer: Water contamination detection device

# data[].attributes.subject
Young explorer: Water contamination detection device

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Indian-American Gitanjali Rao, 11, was announced the winner of Discovery Education's 3M Young Scientist Challenge 2017 on Wednesday for her prototype water lead contamination detector, called 'Tethys'. The sensor-based device detects the quality of water and shares the results to a mobile application via bluetooth. The aim of the competition, open to citizens of the US who are enrolled from Class 5 to 8, is to identify a solution to an everyday problem that directly impacts either the contestant or the global population.

"Millions of people around the world are exposed to water containing lead and its harmful side affects. My solution addresses a core issue of speedy detection of lead contamination, allowing preventive action and saving lives," the Class 7 girl said. "There are over 5,000 water systems in the US alone with lead contamination issues. Detection and preventive action can help mitigate the problem," Gitanjali, who studies at STEM School and Academy in Colarado, added.

On asked why she entered the competition, Gitanjali said, "I entered the Young Scientist Challenge because it combines my love of science, solving problems by new inventions, and creating films." She hopes to be a geneticist or an epidemiologist down the line, to try and find cures for diseases "that cause lot of pain."

The winner of the competition is awarded $25,000 along with the title of 'America's Top Young Scientist 2017'.

For all the latest World News, download Indian Express App

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Indian-American girl wins 2017 Young Scientist Challenge for water contamination detection device

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Indian-American Gitanjali Rao, 11, was announced the winner of Discovery Education's 3M Young Scientist Challenge 2017 on Wednesday for her prototype water lead contamination detector, called 'Tethys'. The sensor-based device detects the quality of water and shares the results to a mobile application via bluetooth.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Some Famous Archaeologists - Archaeology for Kids

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In the summer of 2017, a team of scientists led by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution ventured a thousand kilometers off the coast of Brazil to explore the seafloor around a little-known cluster of islets called St. Paul's Rocks. One of those scientists, Diva Amon, a deep-sea biologist from the Natural History Museum of London, describes what it's like to venture into a dark, unknown world 1,000 meters (3,280 feet) below the surface-and why this type of research is key to understanding and protecting our oceans.

Travel down Into the Deep Unknown aboard the M/V Alucia research vessel in this bioGraphic video by Novus Select, then learn more in bioGraphic's corresponding article: Life on the Rocks.

While the deep ocean below 200 meters (650 feet) represents 70 percent of the habitable space of the planet, Amon tells me that less than 1 percent of it has been explored. The largest animal communities and the majority of biomass on the planet live there. And the threats they face are many. Pollution, trawl-fishing, mining, and climate change all put this environment and the estimated 750,000 undiscovered species down there at risk.

"We could be destroying the deep ocean habitat, and its inhabitants, before we even know what's there," says Amon. "I think it's imperative to document it all while we still can."

Previously on the Alucia: 1000m beneath the Antarctic ice, where no human has gone before. Plus: Discovering A Second Species of Giant Manta Ray, Dr. Sylvia Earle, world-renowned oceanographer and explorer, and When Your Job Is Saving The Ocean.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Into the Deep Unknown with deep sea biologist Diva Amon | The Kid Should See This

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In the summer of 2017, a team of scientists led by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution ventured a thousand kilometers off the coast of Brazil to explore the seafloor around a little-known cluster of islets called St. Paul's Rocks. One of those scientists, Diva Amon, a deep-sea biologist from the Natural History Museum of London,...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
NASA Telescope Reveals Record-Breaking Exoplanet Discovery

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has revealed the first known system of seven Earth-size planets around a single star. Three of these planets are firmly located in the habitable zone, the area around the parent star where a rocky planet is most likely to have liquid water.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
ClimateForce: Antarctica 2018

The Story of our planet has lasted billions of years, and the reality of climate change has the power to radically reshape our future. The need for massive action to combat this issue has never been more important. Antarctica represents both our past and future within its ice. If the ice sheets keep melting at the current rate of deterioration, the sea levels will rise and the disastrous effects will be felt on a multi-national scale. Join our team, formerly known as International Antarctic Expedition (IAE), this special voyage, now called ClimateForce: Antarctica (CFA), equips leaders with resources and actionable solutions to become a part of a global force of change.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
2041 ClimateForce | IAE/ClimateForce '18

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
2041 was founded by polar explorer, environmental leader and public speaker Robert Swan, OBE, the first person in history to walk to both the North and South Poles. Swan has dedicated his life to the preservation of Antarctica by the promotion of recycling, renewable energy and sustainability to combat the effects of climate change.

# data[].attributes.headline
Man who searched for the Yeti for 60 years

# data[].attributes.subject
Man who searched for the Yeti for 60 years

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In 1951, a British explorer named Eric Shipton looking for an alternative route up Mt. Everest found a footprint that appeared to be hominoid. He took a picture, and the mystery of the Yeti-a Sherpa word for "wild man"-cast a spell over the world. Daniel Taylor, author of Yeti: The Ecology of a Mystery, has been searching for signs of this "Abominable Snowman" in the high Himalayas since he was a child.

Talking from his home in West Virginia, Taylor explains what he thinks made that human-like footprint, how his search eventually led to the creation of a national park, and why, in an age where we have become disconnected from nature, we have a deep need to believe in mysteries.

The photograph was taken on the Menlung Glacier, west of Mount Everest, on the Nepal-Tibet border. Shipton and Michael Ward were searching for an alternative Everest route when they came across the prints. Shipton was one of the most highly respected Everest explorers, so if he is bringing back a print, it is a real print. Nobody ever questioned that. But what is it?

What was captivating about the prints was that they're really sharp. The snow was hard so the photo looks like a sort of plaster of Paris cast. The second feature was that the prints looked like a human footprint, but with a thumb. So, you get this primate-like feeling but hominoid at the same time. Its enormous size-13 inches-also suggests a magnificent hominoid, a King Kong type of image! And the media grabbed it.
Numerous expeditions were sent out in search of the Yeti. Give us a brief timeline.
The most important one was the Daily Mail one in 1954. That's when Yeti fever took off, though the name for the Yeti was given as the Abominable Snowman. Then American oilman Tom Slick mounted several expeditions. One of them had 500 porters and spent 6 months in the field. They even took along bloodhounds to track the scent.

The World Book Encyclopedia then got captivated by the Yeti and approached Edmund Hillary. He had been somewhat of a believer in the 1950s but he said, "We shouldn't go just Yeti searching, we should study how people live at high altitude." So they built a house at 19,000 feet and did a bunch of experiments on how humans acclimatize. They're the ones who first made the distinction between the Sherpa belief in the Yeti and the Yeti as a mysterious hominoid that lives in the mountains.
Describe how you first became fascinated by the Yeti.
My grandmother came from Cincinnati; my grandfather was a cowboy in Kansas. They met in medical school in Kansas City in hard times and decided to go to India as medical missionaries. In 1914 they ended up in an area near India's western border with Nepal: dense, rich jungle, made famous by Jim Corbett, in books like Man-Eaters of Kumaon.

I come into the picture in 1946, when my own parents went to India to take over running a hospital. It was a fabulous childhood. My grandparents had bought a property at the top of a mountain near the old British hill station of Mussoorie. It was a lovely old compound with jungle all around.

One Saturday, during the monsoon, I saw the famous picture of the Yeti's footprint in a magazine. I knew most of the jungle animals so when the curator at the British Museum said he thought these were prints of the langur monkey, I said, "This is outrageous! I know the langur monkey, bouncing on the tin roof all the time. Some other animal must have made this mysterious, human-like footprint."

I must have gone to my father and grandfather and they said, "Danny, that's the Yeti!" I said, "What is the Yeti?" They said, "The Yeti is a wild man that lives out in the mountains, and that's his footprint." That's when the spark was lit.

Due to its microclimate, the Barun Valley brings in more moisture than any other valley in the Himalayan system. That means the Barun is really dense jungle with a lot of rain. That is why people didn't settle it. If you're looking for the last read-out of the wild, it is this valley. It is so dense that very few people have actually entered it, even the locals who live on its edge.

I was advised to go there by the King of Nepal, who said, "If you want to go to the wildest place, where the Yeti might be, it is the Barun." And when the King says that, you go, because he really knows his country.

Once I got in that valley I found footprints. I'd seen footprints before but these were fresh and I had no doubt I had found the Yeti.

The question was, what made them?

A local hunter I worked with said he thought what I'd found was a tree bear. I'd never heard of a tree bear in this region. Suddenly we had an explanation for where the thumb came from. A bear that lives in a tree forces an inner digit down so it can make an opposable grip. Normal bears cannot make an opposable grip. But if you're spending a lot of time in the tree, you train that one thumb to grab a branch or break bamboo. So I spent two years trying to figure out whether it was a species, sub-species, or a juvenile bear.

They created a lot of confusion! A professor from Oxford makes a global call for all Yeti artifacts-hair, fingernails, bones, fragments-and he gets many, many artifacts, mostly bits of bear or sheep. He then does DNA analysis and finds that two appear to be bear-like, but can't be explained by any known animal. The closest DNA connection is the polar bear but with mysterious DNA sequences.

After he publishes his research, the Yeti myth gets reactivated worldwide. A couple of doctoral students then decide to check his DNA sequencing. They show that he made a mistake and that rather than proposing a new animal it is the incomplete sequence of a known animal. Once again, we come back to the bear.

In my search for the Yeti, I had stumbled into, arguably, the greatest wilderness on the planet. But it was not a protected area. Villagers were moving in and making the Barun into fields. On the Tibetan side, the Chinese were making a road into the valley immediately north of the Barun to clear-cut the timber! This is one of the world's three or four most majestic places on the planet, so I said, I've got to do something to protect it!

I'm not the World Wildlife Fund. So I decided to take my family heritage of community-based solutions in healthcare and apply it to nature protection, working with the local community to manage the whole landscape rather than just creating pockets. When I initiated this in the mid 1980s the idea had been kicked around but nobody had ever done it. So it was extremely exciting to take the idea of participatory, zone-based conservation and do it in the highest place on Earth. Now, tourists are walking on the Yeti Trail through a pristine, wild park.

You have spent 60 years searching for the Yeti, Daniel. What are your final thoughts? And how did this odyssey change your life?

In this series of discoveries, I came to what I and many other biologists now believe is a completely new understanding of biology, which I call bio-resilience. As we look to save life itself we are concentrating on the diversity of DNA. But there are certain life forms like the crow, cockroaches, or zebra mussels which are more resilient than others and can deal with temperature and moisture changes due to climate change. The lesson of the Yeti is that we have to treasure and build up the resilience in biology if we are going to save life itself.

It changed my life because I understood life in a different way. In a world that's increasingly urban, it is important that we understand we are part of life, connected to life. There are Yeti legends all over the world. There's a Russian legend about the Jungle Man, and there's a Chinese legend. This leads us into the question, what is this human hunger for these humanoid apparitions? I'm convinced it evolved out of the Victorian age when people were circling the world looking for the missing link.

The deep mystery at our core is that we want to be connected to the great beyond. And we need symbols to help us understand the connection. That's why we believe in God or angels or the Loch Ness Monster. Throughout human history, and across human cultures, we have developed messengers from the great beyond. Ultimately, that's what the Yeti is.
This interview was edited for length and clarity.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
This Man Searched for the Yeti for 60 Years-and Found It

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In 1951, a British explorer named Eric Shipton looking for an alternative route up Mt. Everest found a footprint that appeared to be hominoid. He took a picture, and the mystery of the Yeti-a Sherpa word for "wild man"-cast a spell over the world.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This story appears in the March 2017 issue ofNational Geographic magazine.

'Don't worry, you can't get lost down here.' Larisa Pozdnyakova's words, in her thick Russian accent, float to me from within the cave 's seemingly endless black void. Apparently, she can read my mind: All I can think about is not getting lost a mile inside the Earth. For the past several hours I've struggled to keep up as she leads me deeper into a frozen underworld known as Dark Star.

Larisa, a 30-something veteran caver from the Ural Mountains, moves with fluid, snakelike ease along our twisting route, while I grunt and heave my way after her like the clumsy rookie that I am. The cold blackness swallows the light of our headlamps just a few feet from our heads, forcing us to move like moles, scuttling, slithering, feeling our way along hundreds of feet of stiff, mud-caked ropes that help guide us through myriad passages known in caving argot as "squeezes," "meanders," and "shafts."

These passages have already been mapped, but as we crawl up and down, side to side, I feel disoriented by the nightmarish spiral of icy mud and wet gravel. For a climber and mountaineer like me, this is an altogether different kind of navigation. I'm accustomed to moving across dangerous terrain, but down here printed maps are often useless, GPS doesn't work, and there are no celestial guides to offer reassurance. And despite what Larisa tells me, I know I could never find my way out of this soul-sucking labyrinth on my own.

When I finally catch up, she has stopped at a ledge overlooking what our headlamps reveal to be a body of water-one of Dark Star's many subterranean lakes. She grabs a lanyard attached to her harness and clips it on a gritty rope attached to a bolt hammered into the rock above us. The rope leads out over the lake and disappears into the black. The setup acts as a sort of zip line to ferry cavers across the frigid lake, too cold to swim in without a wet suit. She gives me a perky smile and steps off the ledge. Her blond ponytail whips wildly in the beam of my headlamp before she vanishes into the darkness, leaving me alone with my fears.

I'm in this predicament because I signed on with a 31-member expedition-composed mostly of non-English-speaking Russians-to explore this monstrous limestone cave system inside a mountain in a remote corner of Uzbekistan. The Russians spotted an entrance to the cave in 1984, but British cavers were the first to reach it and began exploring the system in 1990; they named it after a satirical American sci-fi movie from the 1970s. In the decades since, Dark Star, along with neighboring Festivalnaya (the two systems may someday be found to be connected), has drawn hard-core cavers from around the world.

The allure of this huge system is similar to that which big mountains hold for climbers-with one difference: We know that Mount Everest is Earth's highest peak, but the potential for conquering new and enormous subterranean voids is almost limitless. More is known about the terrain of Mars than about what lies hidden beneath the Earth's surface. Krubera Cave in the republic of Georgia is currently the deepest known cave, at 7,208 feet. But Dark Star, with so many areas still to survey, is a prime candidate to take over the title.

To date, eight expeditions have identified nearly 11 miles of Dark Star's passageways, the deepest lying about 3,000 feet below the surface. But the system hasn't been fully mapped, partly because of its remote location in a politically unstable region and partly because its vastness requires advanced technical abilities and a lot of equipment. Many expeditions have simply run out of rope. I can immediately see why. Just a thousand feet from our entry point, Larisa and I had already negotiated nearly a dozen roped sections.

She and I had been paired at base camp: her assignment, to guide the "Amerikanski" (I'm sure I heard them calling me that) to Gothic camp, more than a mile inside the mountain. I would spend two nights recording the team's progress in mapping new parts of the cave and collecting scientific data.

Never mind the perilous trip following Larisa to Gothic camp-the aboveground journey to our base camp at the foot of the mountain was no walk in the park either. To meet up with the expedition team-an ensemble of world-class cavers and scientists ages 22 to 54 that, in addition to the Russians, included Italians, Israelis, and one German-I traveled to Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan. From there we traveled together a little over a hundred miles by bus, with hundreds of pounds of food and gear for three weeks in the field, across the arid plains. We took a popular tourist route that follows the ancient Silk Road to Samarqand. Then we turned off the beaten path, heading south toward the Afghan border to Boysun, where we loaded everything into a six-wheeled Soviet-era troop transport.

As we lumbered into the Boysuntov (also known as Baysun-Tau) Range, the mountains gradually rose to 12,000 feet and then dropped off in a jagged line of spectacular cliffs. In the deep valleys between we could see a hodgepodge of small villages where Tajiks and Uzbeks have lived for centuries, herding goats and harvesting watermelons, plums, apples, and walnuts and fetching water from springs fed by the underground rivers that perforate these mountains.

It was some 30 years ago that Igor Lavrov, the heavily bearded, bespectacled geologist who now sat across from me in the back of the truck, discovered the towering limestone cliff called Xo'ja Gurgur Ota that he and his fellow cavers are still exploring all these years later. This wall, 1,200 feet high and 22 miles long, was formed when tectonic forces thrust ancient beds of limestone into vertical walls of rock. Igor was a 24-year-old junior member of the Sverdlovsk Speleological Club, which had learned about the Boysuntov by studying old Soviet geologic maps. One day, following a tip from an itinerant shepherd, he and a companion, Sergei Matrenin, met the schoolmaster of a small village named Qayroq. The man had spent years exploring nearby grottoes with homemade torches. "Where can I find these caves?" asked Igor. "There," said the schoolmaster, pointing to the monolithic limestone wall at the head of the valley. From the bottom of the rock face, the two cavers first spotted the mysterious hole halfway up the cliff that was to be our entrance to Dark Star.

Once the route became too steep for the truck, we hiked for two days with 15 donkeys to haul our supplies up to the base camp, perched on sloping terraces at the foot of the limestone escarpment. All of Dark Star's seven known entrances are found on this face and can only be reached via technical climbing or rappelling.

It took us several days of rigging ropes to access the cave and haul up gear. But finally I hoisted myself up a 450-foot rope to the cave's main entrance (dubbed Izhevskaya, or R21). I began to see why cavers think of Dark Star as a living, breathing entity. Down at base camp, the temperature hovered around 100°F, but up here I was shocked to find myself bracing against a freezing wind blasting out of Dark Star's mouth.

No one fully understands the cave's ventilation system, but this particular entrance "exhales" when the barometric pressure outside is high and "inhales" when the pressure is low. If Dark Star was exhaling here, it must have been sucking in air somewhere else. But where? As I scurried down a frost-covered slope into the cave, I couldn't shake the distinct feeling that I was stepping into the maw of a prehistoric beast.

Just inside the entrance, Tonya Votintseva, a Russian molecular biologist, stopped to attach a small white disk to the wall. Her official assignment is to map any newly discovered areas of the cave, but she admits she is more interested in science than exploration. This data logger is one of several she will install throughout the cave to record the temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide level, and barometric pressure for the next two years. Then they'll be collected and taken to a lab for analysis.

A lot of science can be gathered underground, much of it contained in speleothems-mineral deposits called stalagmites and stalactites that rise from cave floors and descend from the ceilings. In the same way that scientists use ice core samples taken from glaciers, they can gather data from speleothems. By analyzing the chemical components delivered to these formations by drip water over millennia, they can get clues to Earth's climate at various points in time.

Each year the team collects samples from different parts of the cave system to gain insight into not only the climate history of Central Asia but also the cave's ventilation system and architecture-knowledge that helps future cavers determine where to find promising new passages to explore. Following Tonya, I duck under an archway of translucent blue ice and enter a massive chamber some 820 feet long and a hundred feet tall-the Full Moon Hall. Turning my headlamp to its full brightness, I pan across the room. The walls are covered with delicate feathers of hoarfrost that blink in the light like millions of tiny mirrors, illuminating the hall like galaxies of stars in a crystal clear night sky.

Two days later I am at the edge of a lake with Larisa, who's out of sight, waiting for me on the other side. At least I hope she is. Since I joined the team, the Russians have seemed intent on reminding me of my rookie status, telling campfire stories of cavers who met with tragic ends, including a young explorer who made a wrong turn and got lost in a cave in Britain. "One year later they found his body," one of them tells me. They've also been poking me with random challenges that seem designed to determine whether the Amerikanski can hang with them-seeing how heavy a load I can carry, how good my rope skills are, how much I'll let them screw with me.

There's only one thing to do. I clip my harness to the rope and slide to the other side of the lake, touching down on a ledge that leads into a small domed chamber roughly the size of a large igloo.

Larisa is not there. The current challenge seems to be to see whether I can find my way alone. So far, I've met their tests with competence and a good-natured laugh. But I'm not laughing now. A quick pan with my headlamp reveals two passages that spoke off from the chamber. I strain to hear any noise that might reveal which one Larisa has disappeared into, but all I can hear is the sound of water dripping from the ceiling into the lake.

As I contemplate my options, I turn off my light to conserve the batteries. The blackness that envelops me is absolute. Photons of light travel billions of miles through the universe in straight, unobstructed lines, but they cannot bend. The twisting path that leads deep into the mountain restricts the only light that will ever shine on these walls to the beams of headlamps. I think about how the lost British caver must have felt as his lamp died, lying alone in what would become his tomb.

"LARISA!" I yell, but the sound just bounces off the walls in the tiny chamber. It suddenly becomes clear: Her "don't worry, you can't get lost" thing is some kind of insiders' joke, because actually you can, quite easily.

The first passageway I follow turns quickly, mercifully, into a dead end. The second one leads me to a ledge of glossy flowstone formed by thin sheets of minerals deposited by a consistent flow of water. Larisa is sitting on it.

On we go to a T-shaped intersection where two brightly colored tents, glowing with light, sit atop a pile of jumbled boulders: Gothic camp. A headlamp beam bobs in our direction and the voice of Zhenya Tsurikhin booms: "Welcome to Gothic Chamber." Zhenya is the group's elder statesman, on his 10th caving expedition to the Boysuntov. He breeds fish for a Russian state institute, but Dark Star is his true life's work, and no one understands the cave's complex networks better than he does. "He knows where new passages will lead before they are explored," one of the younger Russians tells me.

Zhenya gestures toward one of the tents. Steam pours from its opening, and I can hear a stove purring inside. I slip out of my coveralls and follow him into the tent, where a few team members are huddled around a map of Dark Star. Passages discovered during each expedition are rendered in different colors, and the map looks like a multicolored schematic of the human circulatory system. Tracing a sinuous green line with a muddy finger, Zhenya taps a spot and begins speaking rapidly in Russian. He's pointing to where the previous expedition ran into an impasse at a 120-foot waterfall. It has yet to be climbed.

I spend my first night deep in the bowels of the Earth, jammed into a tent with two other team members. Down here, day and night are irrelevant, and the team comes and goes, sleeps and eats, on a schedule unhindered by the position of the sun. I awake to the loud arrival of three Israeli cavers who have spent four days worming through a rubble-filled crack at the bottom of the cave. One of them is Boaz Langford, a young geologist who tells me he thinks they've reached the nonporous rock underlying the limestone. "We need to find a new direction," he says. "We are going to explore the Red Lakes. You should come with us."

Instead of waiting for me to suit up, he rattles off some quick instructions and is gone. Half an hour later, I am alone in the dark again, facing another fork in the road. There are two ropes: One drops straight down through a slot in the floor; the other angles upward and traverses an abyss-a deep pit or possibly a lake, I can't tell-and disappears into a hole 20 feet above me. I opt for the slot in the floor and descend between overhanging walls of rippled orange flowstone to find another intersection of three passages with no indication of which way the Israelis might have gone.

I pick the least worst option: a tube about the size of an air duct filled with four inches of water. I shove my backpack in and nudge it forward with my head. I hold my torso out of the water by perching on my forearms and toes, inching forward in a gut-crushing plank position. The ceiling lowers until I'm forced to slither on my belly. Suddenly the tube turns almost straight down. It's so tight that just flexing my muscles keeps me from diving down the shaft.

As the blood rushes to my head, another caving horror story comes to mind. A young American medical student was exploring a virgin passage in Utah's Nutty Putty Cave in 2009 when it suddenly took a downward turn. He dropped in headfirst, assuming it would eventually open up. Instead it got tighter, and he ended up trapped upside down. Rescuers found him and were even able to get food and water to him as they worked. They almost got him out, but their equipment failed. They weren't able to extract his dead body, so the passage was filled with concrete.

I am more fortunate, and when the tube spits me out into a water-filled corridor, I hear the sound of cave suits scraping against rock. I've found the Israelis. And they have found another small hole that drops even farther into the unknown depths of Dark Star. They are arguing over who gets to go in first. "It's mine," one says in Hebrew as he shoves his friends aside and dives into the hole.

As time runs out on the expedition, most of the hoped-for new passages have proved to be dead ends. The team has exited the cave and is preparing for the long journey back to Tashkent, but Zhenya, along with an ambitious young Russian named Aleksey Seregin, insists on making one more push to climb the big waterfall and find a new passage.

When they finally return to the base camp, where we're still waiting for them three days later, they are coated with grime and brimming with the news that they climbed the waterfall and after hours of shimmying in tight meander, it pinched down to a slot, barely nine inches wide. Aleksey tried to enter the fissure, but his head simply wouldn't fit. Refusing to give up, Zhenya tried, jamming his head into the crack, his temples scraping against the icy rock. Tilting his shoulders and sucking in his belly, he wormed up a twisting chimney. After 30 minutes of contorting himself to move inch after painstaking inch, he finally popped through the crack into a passageway as big as a Moscow subway tunnel and reverberating with the roar of a fast-flowing river.

Was this the passage that he'd been seeking for more than 20 years? The one that will finally reveal Dark Star to be the Everest of caves? He desperately wanted to keep going, to see where it would lead. But alas, the expedition's time had run out.

As the men relate their story, the jolt of the new discovery pulses through the team, and it becomes clear, even to the Amerikanski, that this is exactly how great caving expeditions should end: with the discovery of a mysterious passage snaking into the unknown-and the promise of a new adventure waiting deep inside the Earth.

Society Grant Your National Geographic Society membership helped fund this photo project. Find out how you can help support the Society's missionhere.

Mark Synnott's search for unclimbed rock walls has taken him on some 30 expeditions around the world. He wrote about the Aral Sea for a June 2015 feature inNational Geographic. Robbie Shone is based in Innsbruck, Austria. This is his first story for the magazine.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This story appears in the March 2017 issue ofNational Geographic magazine. 'Don't worry, you can't get lost down here.' Larisa Pozdnyakova's words, in her thick Russian accent, float to me from within the cave 's seemingly endless black void. Apparently, she can read my mind: All I can think about is not getting lost a mile inside the Earth.

# data[].attributes.headline
First dinosaur tail found preserved in Amber

# data[].attributes.subject
First dinosaur tail found preserved in Amber

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The tail of a 99-million-year-old dinosaur, including bones, soft tissue, and even feathers, has been found preserved in amber, according to a report published today in the journal Current Biology.

While individual dinosaur-era feathers have been found in amber, and evidence for feathered dinosaurs is captured in fossil impressions, this is the first time that scientists are able to clearly associate well-preserved feathers with a dinosaur, and in turn gain a better understanding of the evolution and structure of dinosaur feathers.

The research, led by paleontologist Lida Xing of the China University of Geosciences, was funded in part by the National Geographic Society's Expeditions Council.

The semitranslucent mid- Cretaceous amber sample, roughly the size and shape of a dried apricot, captures one of the earliest moments of differentiation between the feathers of birds of flight and the feathers of dinosaurs. ( Learn more about the evolutionary relationship between dinosaurs and birds.)

Inside the lump of resin is a 1.4-inch appendage covered in delicate feathers, described as chestnut brown with a pale or white underside.

CT scans and microscopic analysis of the sample revealed eight vertebrae from the middle or end of a long, thin tail that may have been originally made up of more than 25 vertebrae.

Based on the structure of the tail, researchers believe it belongs to a juvenile coelurosaur, part of a group of theropod dinosaurs that includes everything from tyrannosaurs to modern birds.
Feathered, but Could It Fly?
The presence of articulated tail vertebrae in the sample enabled researchers to rule out the possibility that the feathers belonged to a prehistoric bird. Modern birds and their closest Cretaceous ancestors feature a set of fused tail vertebrae called a pygostyle that enables tail feathers to move as a single unit.

"[A pygostyle] is the sort of thing you've seen if you've ever prepared a turkey," says study co-author Ryan McKellar, curator of invertebrate paleontology at Canada's Royal Saskatchewan Museum.

The dinosaur feathers feature a poorly defined central shaft (rachis) and appear to keel to either side of the tail. The open, flexible structure of the feathers is more similar to modern ornamental feathers than to flight feathers, which have well-defined central shafts, branches, sub-branches, and hooks that latch the structure together.

In a report in June of this year by the same research team, Cretaceous-era bird wings preserved in amber revealed feathers remarkably similar to the flight feathers of modern birds.

The current study concludes that if the entire length of the dinosaur tail was covered in the type of feathers seen in the sample, the dinosaur "would likely have been incapable of flight." Rather, such feathers may have served a signaling function or played a role in temperature regulation, says McKellar. ( Could dinosaurs fly?)

Maybe we can find a complete dinosaur.

The weakly developed tail feathers also suggest that the owner of the Cretaceous tail falls somewhere lower down on the evolutionary tree of theropod dinosaurs, "perhaps a basal [primitive] maniraptoran," Xing suggests, referring to the subgroup of coelurosaurs that includes oviraptorosaurs and therizinosaurs. ( See the oviraptorosaur that paleontologists have dubbed the "chicken from hell.")
Destined for Jewelry, but With a Silver Lining
The amber sample-formally called DIP-V-15103 and nicknamed "Eva" in honor of paleobotanist Eva Koppelhus, the wife of co-author Philip Currie -comes from a mine in the Hukawng Valley in Kachin state, northern Myanmar. Amber from this region most likely contains the world's largest variety of animal and plant life from the Cretaceous period.

It was one of more than a dozen amber samples with significant inclusions that were collected by Xing and his research team in 2015 at a well-known amber market in Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin state. Two of the other samples contained the dinosaur-era bird wings published earlier this summer.

The majority of Burmese amber is used in jewelry and carvings, and the "Eva" sample had already been subject to shaping by the time it was collected by the researchers.

The modification had a silver lining, however: It offered "a nice cross section" through the tail that enabled the scientists to study the chemistry of the exposed surface, notes McKellar.

That study revealed the presence of ferrous iron, a decomposition product from the blood hemoglobin that was once present in the dinosaur's soft tissue.

"The fact that [the iron] is still present gives us a lot of hope for future analysis, to obtain other chemical information on things like pigmentation or even to identify parts of the original keratin," says McKellar. "Maybe not for this particular specimen, but for other [samples] down the road."

Meanwhile, Xing believes that the "nearing end" of a decades-old conflict between the Myanmar government and the Kachin Independence Army, which controls the Hukawng Valley, will lead to increased scientific access to the amber mines and, in, turn, to an increase in spectacular discoveries.

"Maybe we can find a complete dinosaur," he speculates, rather confidently.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
First Dinosaur Tail Found Preserved in Amber

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The tail of a 99-million-year-old dinosaur, including bones, soft tissue, and even feathers, has been found preserved in amber, according to a report published today in the journal Current Biology .

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Is There Life on Enceladus? - NASA's Unexplained Files | Science

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
According to NASA scientists, Enceladus may be the best place to look for alien life. It has a warm core, an ocean, and organic compounds.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.entities[].name
Discovery Channel Strange Deep Sea Creatures Sea Animal National Geographic

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.entities[].name
Most Mysterious & Unexplained Sea Creatures

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Haley Chamberlain and Rob Nelson from the UntamedScience series, Ecogeeks go deep with submarine builder Karl Stanley. But have no fear, this deep dive didn't get us wet... Oh no. We stayed dry in our snug submersible on our quest to penetrate the 2000 foot depths.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Find out more about the history of Vikings, including videos, interesting articles, pictures, historical features and more. Get all the facts on HISTORY.com

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Seven miles is a long way down... more than a mile deeper than Mt. Everest is up. To reach the deepest part of the Mariana Trench, James Cameron had to descend past some pretty amazing milestones on his record-breaking dive. Here's a glimpse.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A wreck from the Ottoman period

Forty-one astonishingly well-preserved shipwrecks, dating from the ninth to the 19th centuries, have been found at the bottom of the Black Sea. Some have masts still standing, and ropes, rigging and even decorative carvings still intact. The wrecks were discovered by chance by researchers using sonar and remotely controlled vehicles to examine a long-submerged coastline: some 12,000 years ago, the Black Sea grew as temperatures rose and water from the Mediterranean poured into what had been a lake. Ironically, it was this merging of river and sea water that created the conditions that preserved the wrecks, by creating two distinct layers: an oxygenated, low-salt layer on top, and an oxygen-free saltier layer beneath. The ships are at a depth below 150 metres, where the oxygen levels fall to zero and the organisms that destroy organic materials can't exist. Some of the wrecks - for instance, a ninth century Byzantine vessel, and an Italian one dating to the time of Marco Polo - provide the first glimpses of ship types that historians knew about from contemporary sources but had never seen.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Forty-one astonishingly well-preserved shipwrecks, dating from the ninth to the 19th centuries, have been found at the bottom of the Black Sea. Some have masts still standing, and ropes, rigging and even decorative carvings still intact.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Astronomy For Kids - Mars Exploration - KidsAstronomy.com

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Learn about Mars Exploration With KidsAstronomy.com

# data[].attributes.body
National Geographic

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
National Geographic's latest stories about oceans

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Kids Ahead - Subjects - Deep Sea Exploration

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Kids Ahead program is an initiative to increase the number of kids with science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) competencies and interests.

# data[].attributes.body
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
national oceanic and atmospheric administration

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
NOAA Office of Exploration presents ~ My Submarine Explorer

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Welcome to the My Submarine Ocean Explorer for kids! Calling all children who want to learn about the ocean and its environment. Take a journey inside your own submarine and explore the ocean through NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research expeditions.

# data[].attributes.body
50 Years of discoveries (Nat Geo)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Solar System Exploration: 50 Years and Counting | Nat Geo Live

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
We fund and support groundbreaking scientists, conservationists, educators, and storytellers. Every one of them is a National Geographic Explorer - infinitely curious about our planet, committed to understanding it, and passionate about helping make it better.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
There are no blank spots left on the map, no uncharted mountain ranges or unknown expanses of the oceans and seas. We've sent humans to all four corners of the globe and launched satellites above the sky to photograph the most remote and inaccessible areas of the planet. The explorers of old aren't quite extinct, but they're an endangered species whose native land is fast disappearing. And out of their death comes the rise of the modern explorer-pioneers and navigators who look inward to explore the sheer breathtaking limits of human potential. These men and women have inspired and amazed millions by showing us what humanity is truly capable of.

On May 23, 2012, Gary Connery jumped out of a helicopter 2,400 feet (731.5 meters) above the ground. A minute later, clocking speeds of 80mph (128 kph), he landed. Without a parachute.

Wingsuit jumping is the sport of skydiving with specially designed suits that allow the wearer to glide, sometimes for miles, before releasing their parachute and drifting through the final descent. Gary Connery simply decided that the parachute wasn't necessary anymore, and opted instead for a makeshift landing strip of stacked cardboard boxes.

At the age of 42, Connery has completed more than 1,350 jumps, and you've probably seen him dozens of times without realizing it. He has worked on over 100 films and TV shows as a stunt coordinator and performer, and stood in as a stunt double on films like Indiana Jones, Batman Begins, and the latest Sherlock Holmes adaptation. In other words, he's the guy they turn to when Batman needs to act more like a superhero.

Geoff Mackley has made a career out of being in places where no human would ever want to be. He's a photographer who has provided footage from more than 70 fatal natural disasters, including tsunamis, category 5 hurricanes, and blazing forest fires-when everybody else is fleeing for their lives, Geoff Mackley is elbowing through the crowds in the opposite direction, camera in hand.

In 2010, Geoff Mackley and his crew climbed into the crater of the Marum Volcano in Vanuatu- while it was erupting. They traveled down more than 500 yards (457 meters) below the rim of the crater inside heat-resistant suits to capture their footage while the lava bubbled and sprayed almost close enough to touch. And according to Mackley, they would have gone farther, but they "ran out of rope."

Freediving is sort of like scuba diving, but without all those pesky oxygen tanks. Freedivers hold their breaths the entire time they're underwater, usually while competing for distance or depth records. Sometimes that means holding your breath for 15 minutes or more, while swimming and experiencing extreme pressure changes on your body. Perhaps the most influential freediver is Guillaume Nery, who broke his own world record in 2006 for freediving to a depth of 109 meters below the surface (though the current record is 124 meters, set by Herbert Nitsch).

In 2010, Guillaume Nery dove Dean's Blue Hole, which at 203 meters is the world's deepest known underwater vertical cave. Because of its depth, it rapidly changes from aquamarine to near pitch black. The video above shows Nery gracefully floating down to the sandy seabed, then literally climbing hand-over-hand up the rock wall to get back to the surface.

At 27 years old, Alex Honnold is one of the most prolific free solo climbers in the world. "Free soloing" is the act of rock climbing without the use of a harness or a rope, and Alex Honnold takes it to an extent that would make any mother cringe.

On September 6, 2008, Honnold free soloed the Northwest Face of Half Dome, a peak in Yosemite National Park. The kicker: The distance from the bottom to the top of the cliff measures about 2,000 feet (600 meters) of vertical rock. And he did it without a single rope.

Then, in 2012, he did it again, but this time he went for two other peaks in Yosemite at the same time, completing all three-a total climb of about 6,500 feet (2000 meters)-in just under 19 hours.

Spelunking, otherwise known as caving, is the sport of exploring underground caves. Like with any sport, there are hobbyists all the way through extremists, and Robbie Shone falls somewhere close to the extreme end of the scale. He's traveled across the globe from Borneo to Papua New Guinea in an effort to find the most remote and bizarre caves, and he does it all while lugging along pounds of camera equipment, hoping to capture "the perfect shot."

Between floods, falls, and cave-ins-not to mention losing your way in the subterranean maze-caving can be incredibly dangerous, but Robbie Shone takes plenty of precautions, despite climbing into some unusual vantage points to get a picture. And then there are unforeseen dangers, one of which Shone describes from a three month trip to Papua New Guinea: "During that trip I even had a leech stuck to my eyeball for a couple of days. We tried coaxing it off with some raw meat and salt."

If you're going to put years of preparation and training into breaking a world record, why not just break three at the same time? That's apparently what Felix Baumgartner set out to do on October 14, 2012, when he broke the records for highest parachute jump, highest manned balloon flight, and maximum speed outside a vehicle-blasting through the sound barrier at Mach 1.25 (that's 843 mph).

To be perfectly clear, Baumgartner's record-setting jump took place from the stratosphere at 24 miles (39 km) above sea level-not space, which is officially set at 62 miles (100 km) up. However, the altitude (three times higher than commercial airliners fly) still required him to wear a fully enclosed pressurized suit to protect him from the thin atmosphere and freezing temperatures.

Dan Osman was one of the pioneers of the sport of free soloing, but he took it to an entirely different level. Not only did he make a habit of climbing hundreds of feet without the safety of a rope, he did it as fast as possible. The rock climbing documentary Masters of Stone IV shows Dan Osman speed climbing Bear's Reach, a cliff face in the Lake Tahoe region of California.

In only four minutes and twenty-five seconds, Dan Osman scaled 400 feet (122 km) of vertical rock, at times leaping upward with nothing below him but air. Unfortunately, his thrill-seeking nature led to his death in 1998, when a rope snapped during a free fall in Yosemite National Park. He remains an inspiration to thousands of people and climbing enthusiasts today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VVbtUDC81M

The Amazon River runs for approximately 4,000 miles, starting as a stream in the Andes mountains before running through some of the most dangerous and unexplored territory left on the planet. Eventually it builds into the widest river in the world, a roaring deluge 150 miles (240 km) across by the time it spits out into the Atlantic Ocean. In 2008, Ed Stafford began walking down the Amazon River and didn't stop until two years later on August 9, 2010 when he reached the Atlantic, becoming the first person to walk the entire length of the river.

For supplies he carried rice and beans, picked up a few necessities as he passed through villages, and fished for piranha. Throughout the trek, the ex-stockbroker was faced with anacondas, crocodiles, tropical illnesses, and was even captured by a tribe of natives at one point-all while bringing global awareness to the deforestation of the Amazon forest.

Lynne Cox swims like most people drive. She began to get attention in the 70's for setting the speed record for swimming the English Channel-she held it twice in two consecutive years. In 1987 she became the first person to swim across the Bering Strait from Alaska to the Soviet Union, spending over two hours in the frigid water that averages 40 F (4 C)-on a good day. It was so cold, and over such a length of time, that she had to be enclosed in a heated chamber to bring her body temperature up to safe levels.

But then in 2003, Lynne Cox did something that made all of her previous accomplishments pale in comparison-wearing nothing but a swimsuit and goggles, she swam 1.22 miles (1.96 km) through the waters of the Antarctic, spending 25 minutes in water cold enough to kill a person after only 5 minutes.

Perhaps the most inspiring person on this list, Erik Weihenmayer is a mountaneer, skydiver, ice climber, distance biker, and skier-despite the fact that he lost his eyesight at the age of 13. In 1995 he climbed 20,320 ft. to the top of Mt. McKinley, and two years later he reached the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro. In 2001, Erik Weihenmayer became the first blind person to climb Mt. Everest.

Rather than bask alone in his achievements, Weihenmayer works with blind teens in Tibet, leading them on small mountain climbing expeditions in a project called Climbing Blind. Now, he's got his sights set on kayaking, training himself to guide the kayak based on the sound of the rapids and the feel of the flowing water beneath him in preparation for paddling the Grand Canyon.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
10 Modern Explorers Who Pushed The Limits - Listverse

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
There are no blank spots left on the map, no uncharted mountain ranges or unknown expanses of the oceans and seas. We've sent humans to all four corners of the globe and launched satellites above the sky to photograph the most remote and inaccessible areas of the planet.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The age of the explorer, some would argue, is over. We live in a world where satellites can take photos of people's faces from space, where the highest heights of land and deepest depths of ocean have been explored, where novelty and discovery are often nostalgically regarded as a relic of the twinkling past, the "good old days."

But exploration is not over - humans will always find ways to go beyond what went before. In fact, I'd argue that this is the essential impulse of life: to strive for a state of deeper being and deeper understanding. The difference that the 21st century has brought, it seems, is that explorers must now do more than merely visit some unseen place; they must find the meaning therein, and share that meaning with the world.

These five contemporary explorers have heeded the call to the wild. They have proven their knack for adventure. But more importantly, they are bringing to light some of the most important issues we face as a global society.
Erden Eruç
At 41 years old, after an education in engineering and a long career in consulting, Erden Eruç left his so-called "real job" to pursue his passion for human-powered outdoor adventures. For his warm-up" journey, Eruç loaded a touring bicycle and trailer up with the necessary high-altitude mountaineering gear and set out from his home in Seattle in February 2003. He rode up to the edge of Denali National Park, snowshoed in to the Kahiltna Glacier base camp, and climbed to the summit of Denali on 29 May 2003. Then he loaded up his kit and rode home.

Thus began his Six Summits Project, with the goal to climb the highest peaks on every continent except Antarctica after reaching them by human power alone. The effort was inspired by the death of Eruç's climbing partner, Göran Kropp. Beginning in 1995, Kropp rode a bicycle from his native Sweden to Nepal and climbed Mount Everest. Several years later, Kropp was tragically killed in a climbing accident in Washington - in 2002, Eruç was belaying him when he fell 60 feet after a piece of protection didn't hold and a carabiner broke.

Inspired by Kropp and driven by his own unfathomable motivations, on July 10, 2007 Erden Eruç set out to become the first person to circumnavigate the globe by human power alone. The first 312 days were dedicated to rowing across the Pacific Ocean, from California to Australia. Eventually successful, his incredible solo journey covered 41,196 miles by rowboat, sea kayak, touring bicycle, and foot.

He started a non-profit organization, Around-n-Over, with the aim of educating children around the world through his travels and raising money for various charities. Along the way Eruç took side trips to climb Mount Kosziusko in Australia and Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa, and has so far completed half of his Six Summits Project. With the summits Elbrus, Aconcagua, and Everest remaining, Erden Eruç has much more adventuring ahead of him.

As so eloquently stated on Around-n-Over.org: "Why is it that we accept as final our boundaries, and never reach beyond them?"
Follow Erden Eruç on Instagram.
I met Kt Miller on a skinning trip in Cooke City, Montana last winter. After a week with a crowd of grungy mountain men I was instantly taken by her effervescent personality and thoughtful optimism. Little did I know, Miller is an incredibly talented skier and photographer on the verge of redefining much of the ski industry.

Miller has found her way into photographing some of skiing's most innovative expeditions in the past few years - Alaska and Romania and her native Beartooth Mountains outside of her hometown of Bozeman, Montana. She claims that before she was six months old she was skiing around Bridger Bowl in her dad's backpack; now, at 24, Miller is a leading light in the big mountain ski world.

After a stint in photography school Miller made her way back to the mountains and found a way to unite her passion for skiing with camera in hand. It didn't take long for me to realize why she has been called on by some of the industry's biggest players - Backcountry Magazine, Patagonia, Zeal: I just needed to try to keep up with her leading the crew up the skin track. Her hard work and talent have landed her sponsorships from Dynafit and Lowepro.

Miller is more than a solid photographer who can rip, though. Along with her positive attitude, she brings a thoughtfulness and respect for the mountains into every project; rather than "bigger, higher, harder," she considers the meaning behind her objectives.

In Spring 2014, Miller was a member of the all-female Shifting Ice, Changing Tides expedition. The five set sail from Iceland, bound for Greenland. The purpose of the journey was to document and raise awareness of climate change and to ski first descents on the island of Greenland, all while inspiring other women to adventure and explore.

Kt Miller has a long career ahead of her - keep an eye on this one.
Follow Kt Miller on Instagram.
Matt Rutherford had a rough childhood. Growing up in Annapolis, he struggled with learning disabilities and acted out. At 17, he found himself sitting in a jail cell contemplating his life trajectory. Some switch flipped and he decided to commit blindly: Rutherford bought a sailboat off the internet and taught himself how to sail. Four years later he embarked on a successful double trans-Atlantic single-handed sail on his 32-foot Pearson sloop. That is, he sailed from Maryland to Europe and back, alone.

For most sailors this would be accomplishment enough (single-handing a small sailboat across an ocean is not for the faint of heart). But Rutherford, as an explorer does, wanted to push his boundaries.

On June 11, 2011, Rutherford set out from Annapolis, MD on a small Swedish-built sailboat on an attempt to circumnavigate the Americas, single-handed, non-stop. 309 days and 27,077 nautical miles later Matt Rutherford became the first person in history to solo through the Northwest Passage, down the Pacific coast of the Americas, around Cape Horn, and back to his starting point. He did not touch land the entire journey: any supplies were transferred to him at sea. The voyage was for charity - Rutherford was supporting Chesapeake Regional Accessible Boating, an organization dedicated to providing disabled people with the chance to sail. He had no radar on board: "If you die doing what you love, it's not a tragedy..."

The Northwest Passage was first successfully sailed in 1906 by the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen (the same one who was the first human to the South Pole, and the first to undisputedly reach the North Pole). This treacherous route through the Arctic has only recently become possible to unfortified vessels; in 2007 the European Space Agency announced that pack ice in the Arctic had receded enough for a navigable route water route to open for boat other than Arctic ice-breakers.
Above: A film documenting Rutherford's experience circumnavigating the Americas is available for purchase on Vimeo.
Since his accomplishment, Matt Rutherford has set to pursuing scientific research by sail. He founded the Ocean Research Project and led the Trans-Pacific Plastic Pollution Survey, a 7,000 mile sail from Sausalito, CA to Yokohama, Japan collecting information and samples for analysis by various scientific groups. He continues his work to understand the Earth's oceans and to educate people on how to preserve this resource.

James Balog tries to pop our bubbles of reality through his photography: "Photographers are like the antennae of civilization. We are an integral part of the sensing mechanism of the human animal. We are out there feeling in the darkness, trying to see what's around us and reveal what hasn't been revealed before."

While an undergraduate at Boston College, Balog discovered a deep love for the outdoors and witnessed the birth of a lifelong passion for mountaineering. After cutting his teeth in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, he began traveling much further afield to climb - Europe, Alaska, and Asia. Toting a camera along on his climbs, Balog realized that his passion for photography and adventure could be combined with the deep understanding of geomorphology he gained as a Masters student at the CU Boulder. And so he began a career as a professional photographer devoted to challenging humanity to consider their relationship with nature and how it could be improved.
Above: The trailer to Balog's 2012 master stroke, Chasing Ice. Follow James Balog on Instagram. Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner
Over the course of his thirty-year career, James Balog's photography has been seen by millions, printed in books, magazines, and online, and made into films. More recently, Balog started the Extreme Ice Survey, a project with the aim of documenting the effects of climate change in an immediately graspable way.

To do this, Balog and his team fixed high-resolution cameras to shoot time-lapse imagery of glaciers. His incredibly stirring results were presented in the 2012 documentary, Chasing Ice. This month Balog's newest film project, 1000 Cuts, will debut at Mountainfilm in Telluride. The film documents the effects of oil drilling in one of America's most beautiful and tenuous landscapes, the Greater Canyonlands of Utah.

Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner attempted K2 seven times before she reached its summit. She could have hired a high-altitude porter or brought an oxygen bottle to ease the journey - she opted against it. Kaltenbrunner is an idealist, and remained committed to her values through the duration of an ultimately successful 13-year journey to climb all the 8,000 meter peaks in the world.

Kaltenbrunner's upbringing in a village in northern Austria injected a deep love for the mountains in her constitution. At 27, Kaltenbrunner summitted Cho Oyu on the Tibet-Nepal border and began the long relationship with the high Himalaya that culminated on the summit of K2 in August 2011. Just a year earlier Edurne Pasaban, a Spanish mountaineer, had become the first woman to successfully climb all the 8,000 meter peaks. However, Pasaban had used oxygen on Everest in 2001 and employs the use of high altitude porters. The two women often climbed together and both humbly denied the presence of a negative competitiveness between them - both were committed to the same goal, but didn't see it as a race. Rather, it was a challenge, and they could help each other achieve that challenge.

Kaltenbrunner and her husband, Ralf Dujmovits (another alpinist), are involved in a Nepalese charitable organization, Beilngries. The non-profit has built schools, health projects, and an orphanage in the Nepali Himalaya. Kaltenbrunner's discipline, conviction, and strong ethical grounding have earned her a place amongst mountaineering's venerable elite.

These people have made it their lives' work to inspire others. We each ought to strive to find our own greatest contribution to the world, as they have found theirs.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
5 Modern Day Explorers You Should Look Up To. And Why. | The Inertia

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The age of the explorer, some would argue, is over. We live in a world where satellites can take photos of people's faces from space, where the highest heights of land and deepest depths of ocean have been explored, where novelty and discovery are often nostalgically regarded as a relic of the twinkling past, the "good old days."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
New World Explorers for Kids and Teachers - Learning Modules, Games, Activities, Lessons, Powerpoints - FREE American History Lesson Plans & Games for Kids

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Christopher Columbus: Columbus was an Italian explorer. He is credited with discovering America, even though Lief Erickson discovered it about 500 years earlier, and Native Americans found it much earlier than that. The round trip, including his adventures in the New World, took Columbus eight months. He was well paid for his trip.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
NASA encourages you to visit NASA Kids' Club and use its games and activities to inspire the next generation.

# data[].attributes.body
The mission to send man to Mars

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Mars One's Journey (2011 - 2021)

Humanity has explored Mars since 1960, and we've never been closer. The next logical step for Mars exploration is permanent settlement, where crews that go to Mars stay and build a new society. Humans settling on Mars will inspire us all to make Earth a better place. Technology, scientific understanding, cooperation - is there anything we cannot achieve?

Mars One was founded in 2011 with the goal of sending humans to Mars to stay. Instead of trying to return them, more crews would be sent every two years, establishing a permanent, ever-growing settlement on the Red Planet.

Permanent settlement missions place even higher demands on the crew than a return mission. A first permanent settlement crew would be on Mars for two years before the second crew joins them. They would be able to communicate with friends and family on Earth, but only with time delays. Crew selection, training and testing on Earth would be necessary to make sure they can deal with this. Besides that, they would need to learn all the skills to survive on Mars without support from Earth, other than information. They would need to be able to fix every technical and medical problem, grow food and expand the settlement with hardware for upcoming crews. Crew selection is the biggest challenge of a permanent settlement mission to Mars.

Mars One had a business plan for such a mission to Mars, which can be summarized as monetizing the media value of the adventure of humans going to Mars. The Olympic Games are worth more than $4 billion dollars in broadcasting rights and sponsorships. The 1969 Moon landing is still the TV program with the highest viewership density ever. Imagine the value of a mission to Mars in the current media era. Mars One raised funds by having investors invest in a Mars One media company that held the rights to the mission.

In 2011, Mars One met with aerospace companies around the world to discuss the plan, including SpaceX, Hamilton Sundstrand, ILC Dover, MDA corporation, Paragon Space Development Corporation and Thales Alenia Space. With their feedback, Mars One developed a plan that was feasible, affordable and that had an acceptable risk. In 2012, the plan was announced, later followed by a job vacancy for Mars settlers. More than 200,000 people registered their interest on the Mars One website. More than 10,000 potentials finished the job application process, and Mars One narrowed down the applicants, first to 1058 round 2 candidates and then to 100 round three candidates.

In 2013 and 2014, Mars One had feasibility studies performed by Lockheed Martin, for a first robotic mission and with Paragon Space Development Corporation, for Mars suits and life support systems.

In 2016 Mars One ran out of funds and was unable to continue the selection program and the technical studies. In the years after that, several attempts were made to raise additional funds, but they were unsuccessful.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Humanity has explored Mars since 1960, and we've never been closer. The next logical step for Mars exploration is permanent settlement, where crews that go to Mars stay and build a new society. Humans settling on Mars will inspire us all to make Earth a better place.

# data[].attributes.body
David Attenborough returns in this breathtaking documentary showcasing life on Planet Earth.

# data[].attributes.headline
International Antarctic Expedition 2016 Film

# data[].attributes.subject
International Antarctic Expedition 2016 Film

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
International Antarctic Expedition 2016 Film

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
FIND OUT MORE - www.2041foundation.org FACEBOOK - Robert Swan and 2041 Foundation INSTAGRAM - @2041foundation TWITTER - Robert Swan / 2041 Foundation