antarctica

Vivian James Rigney is no casual traveler.The executive coach and speaker has visited more than 80 countries and lived on three continents.He's also climbed the highest mountains on all seven continents, the so-called Seven Summits.It's a feat that took him 14 years — one, he estimates, that fewer than 1,000 people have completed.And he did it despite being "terrified of heights," he said.In an interview with CNBC Travel, Rigney talked about what he learned — and how much it cost him — to reach some of the highest points…

Jennie Darlington, left, with Edith ‘Jackie’ Ronne, the first two women to be part of an Antarctic expedition, in 1947. Credit: Polar Journal A federal report that, in the words of its key finding, "sexual assault, sexual harassment, and stalking are problems in the U.S. Antarctic Program community"—and that efforts "dedicated to prevention nearly absent"—drew attention around the world. But as a historian of Antarctic…

Starlink, the satellite internet division of SpaceX rocket company, is now active on all continents Starlink satellite Internet division of Tech billionaire, Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket company, is now active on all continents. With the addition of the McMurdo Station in Antarctica, SpaceX says its orbit-based Starlink broadband service now reaches all seven continents. Starlink internet works by sending information through the vacuum of space, where it travels much faster than in fiber-optic cable and can reach far more…

SpaceX launched its first Starlink satellite in 2019 with a vision of blanketing the globe in high-speed internet, and it has this week ticked off an important milestone in this grand plan. Researchers at the McMurdo Station in Antarctica are now tapping into the space-based internet service, where it's boosting the bandwidth for scientific research at the end of the Earth.SpaceX currently has several thousand Starlink satellites orbiting the Earth, and has plans for many thousands more. The idea is to beam internet down…

Elon Musk's SpaceX has made it to Antarctica and the National Science Foundation (NSF) is testing one of its Starlink internet terminals at one of the most exteme locations in the world.The McMurdo Station at Antartica has nearly 1,000 people living and working there during the summer and they already have satellite internet which is not reliable in rough conditions.There is currently a 17 Mbps link for everone, according to the United States Antarctic Programme. But with Starlink, the internet service will be better and…

Can surgery turn short kings into... regular kings?For $75,000—and one agonizing operation and recovery later—you can add about three inches to your height via leg lengthening. Among the many details in this remarkably written GQ story, one surgeon notes that this procedure is getting more popular among men who work in tech: “I got, like, 20 software engineers doing this procedure right now who are here in Vegas ... I’ve got patients from Google, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft. I’ve had multiple patients from Microsoft.”…

An Antarctic body of ice nicknamed the 'Doomsday Glacier' could melt far faster than previously expected and is holding on "by its fingernails," according to new scientific research.The melting of the Thwaites Glacier – which is around the size of Florida – could raise sea levels by up to two feet.It's that, and the fact that it acts as a buffer between warming seas and the much larger West Antarctic ice sheet, that gives it its ominous nickname.However, the new study, led by the University of South Florida (USF), found…

The 200-foot-tall (60-meter-tall) front of the Getz Ice Shelf in Antarctica is scored with cracks where icebergs are likely to break off, or calve, in this 2016 photo. The first estimate of Antarctic calving has found that since 1997 ice shelves have lost as much ice from calving as from melting. Credit: NASA/GSFC/OIB/Jeremy HarbeckNew <span class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>NASA</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>Established…

Scientists have discovered the first definitive proof that the Moon inherited indigenous noble gases of helium and neon from the Earth's mantle.The discovery, published in the journal Science Advances, adds to the already strong constraints on the currently favoured "Giant Impact" theory that hypothesises the Moon was formed by a massive collision between Earth and another celestial body.It also represents a significant piece of the puzzle towards understanding how the Moon and, potentially, the Earth and other celestial…

Location of Ong Valley. (a) Cropped USGS 1:250 000 scale topographic map of Miller Range, Antarctica, showing the location of Ong Valley. The red rectangle indicates the location of Ong Valley opening perpendicular to Argosy Glacier. (b) WorldView 2 satellite image of Ong Valley, Antarctica (© 2016 Maxar). The dots indicate sampling sites for pit and ice core (orange), Middle drift surface boulders (cyan), and lateral moraine boulders (blue). The…