Polar Exploration

Just as Australian explorer and pioneer Douglas Mawson was at the forefront of Antarctic exploration, his legacy is being kept alive by the Mawson's Huts Foundation, charged with the protection and promotion of Australia's Antarctic heritage. Beyond the horizon and in the most hostile conditions known to man, Mawson's Huts Foundation looked to a modern-day technical pioneer, SatComms, to support their latest expedition to the Antarctic, with cutting-edge Inmarsat BGAN technology to assist with final confirmation of the exact location of Mawson's historic mono-plane.

Lake Hoare camp manager Rae Spain hooks a sling load onto a helicopter at Lake Bonney in the McMurdo Dry Valleys. Helicopters are vital to the research conducted by the U.S. Antarctic Program. Photo Credit: Charles Hood

EUMETSAT and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) successfully completed the first acquisition of data from EUMETSAT's Metop-A satellite at McMurdo Station, Antarctica, on 19 January 2011. [Track] [Images]

Scientists can now tap into a flow of new data that will help to determine exactly how Earth's ice is changing. This information from ESA's CryoSat mission is set to make a step change in our understanding of the complex relationship between ice and climate.

A researcher examines layers in a snow pit deposited by different storms. Credit: Kendrick Taylor, Chief Scientist, WAIS Divide Ice Core Project Research Professor, Desert Research Institute, Nevada System of Higher Education

New research in the FASEB Journal suggests that there are extensive but reversible changes in the heart when it is exposed to low oxygen levels similar to those caused by many diseases.