Hernán Cortés was a Spanish conquistador, or conqueror, who is best remembered for conquering the Aztec Empire in 1521 and claiming Mexico for Spain. He also helped colonize Cuba and became a governor of New Spain, a vast area that included large parts of North, Central and South America, as well as several Pacific island archipelagos. 

"Like many explorers we know about today, Hernán (also known as Hernando) Cortés's role in the Age of Exploration was influential but controversial," said Erika Cosme, formerly the administrative coordinator of education and digital services at The Mariners' Museum and Park in Newport News, Virginia. "He was a smart, ambitious man who wanted to appropriate new land for the Spanish crown, convert Native inhabitants to Catholicism and plunder the lands for gold and riches."

Early life

Cortés was born in 1485 in Medellín, Spain. He was the only son of noble parents, though his family was not wealthy. He was apparently a clever but difficult child and was the source of much anxiety to his parents, according to Britannica. Cortés' secretary, who wrote a history of Cortés' New World expedition that contained some biographical information, described the conquistador, in general,  as ruthless, haughty, mischievous and quarrelsome. 

At age 14, Cortés was sent to study law at the University of Salamanca in Spain, but he was unhappy and craved a life of action, so he dropped out after two years. Cortés became fascinated with tales of Christopher Columbus' New World explorations. 

Columbus and his expedition members were the first Europeans to see the West Indies when they landed at San Salvador Island in the Bahamas and explored other islands in 1492. Columbus had set sail hoping to find a route to Asia or India. He wanted to profit from and hasten trade for nutmeg, cloves and pomander (a ball of fragrant spices) from the Indonesian "Spice Islands," and pepper and cinnamon from India, which were in high demand, Cosme told Live Science.

However, Columbus' expedition failed to reach its intended destination and instead stumbled upon the Americas, which were completely unknown to Europeans at the time. (Columbus was initially convinced he'd reached Asia, which is why the region is called the "West Indies," according to Britannica.) Reports of Columbus' journey caused a wave of excitement in Spain and Europe, and several more expeditions set out to explore this "New World" in the following years.  

Cortés was eager to be part of the dynamic movement. "For individual explorers, gaining public fame could potentially make them rich," Cosme said. According to the Thought Company, a website that covers history and science, many of these explorers were ambitious men who had been professional soldiers or were mercenaries and often acted on their own initiative rather than seeking funding from the Spanish Crown. Consequently, their expeditions were often privately funded. At the same time, they could not simply decide to mount an expedition without official sanction; they had to seek authorization from colonial officials. 

Cortés decided to seek fortune and adventure in Hispaniola (modern-day Dominican Republic and Haiti). In 1504, at age 19, Cortés set sail for the New World.

In the Caribbean

Cortés spent seven years on Hispaniola, living in the town of Azua and working as a notary and farmer. In 1511, he joined Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar's expedition to conquer Cuba, which was occupied by at least two major Native American groups, the Taíno and the Guanahatabey. After the conquest, Cortés served as a clerk to the treasurer and later as mayor of Santiago, a town which had been established after the conquest and served as the island's capital for a brief time until the establishment of Havana in 1515. Cortés' time in Cuba made him wealthy because he was able to buy enslaved people and have them work the land he had acquired. He was able to purchase a house in Santiago and gain considerable influence among the colonists, according to Britannica. 

Despite his success, Cortés was hungry for more power. In 1518, he convinced Velázquez, who was by that time the governor of Cuba, to grant him permission to lead an expedition to Mexico, which the Spanish had come into contact with earlier that year. Velázquez appointed Cortés' captain-general of the expedition, according to Britannica, but soon grew increasingly jealous of Cortés' power and influence. Velázquez canceled the voyage at the last minute, but Cortés ignored his orders and set sail with 11 ships and more than 500 men.

Arrival in Mexico

In February 1519, Cortés' ships reached the Mexican coast at Yucatán, which was the domain of Mayan-speaking peoples. The Spanish  were eager to settle in the region, and Cortés was also interested in converting Native Americans to Christianity. "His view on the Indigenous people was similar to the majority of Europeans of that day — they were inferior culturally, technologically and religiously," Cosme said. In Cozumel, an island off the Yucatán coast that was one of the first places the Spaniards landed, Cortés learned of various rituals, "including human sacrifice of the Natives to their many gods," Cosme said. "He and his men removed and destroyed the pagan idols, and replaced them with crosses and figures of the Virgin Mary."

Cortés' force then continued sailing west to Tabasco, where it encountered resistance from Native warriors. The Spanish force overpowered them, and the Natives surrendered. Not only did the Spaniards' armaments — steel weapons, arquebuses and crossbows — prove superior in the clash, but so did Cortes' horses. He brought 16 horses along on the expedition; the Indigenous people were not familiar with them and were reportedly terrified of the beasts. Bernal Díaz del Castillo, a soldier who marched with Cortés and later wrote a history of the expedition called "The True History of the Conquest of New Spain," described the Natives' encounter with the horses: "The Indians, who had never seen any horses before, could not think otherwise than that horse and rider were one body. Quite astounded at this to them so novel a sight, they quitted the plain and retreated to a rising ground." 

The Natives provided the Europeans with food, supplies and 20 women, including an interpreter called Malintzin (also known as La Malinche or Doña Marina). La Malinche became an important figure in Cortés' life and legacy. 

"She became bilingual, speaking Aztec and Mayan languages, which made her very useful to Cortés," Cosme said. "She eventually learned Spanish and became Cortés' personal interpreter, guide and mistress. She actually had a pretty high status for both a woman and a Native during this time and place among the Spaniards."

Díaz described La Malinche as "an excellent woman and fine interpreter throughout the wars in New Spain, Tlaxcala and Mexico … This woman was a valuable instrument to us in the conquest of New Spain. It was, through her only, under the protection of the Almighty, that many things were accomplished by us: without her we never should have understood the Mexican language, and, upon the whole, have been unable to surmount many difficulties." 

Cortés and La Malinche had a child together named Martín, who is sometimes called "El Mestizo." He was one of the first children of mixed Indigenous and Spanish heritage. Eventually, in 1522, Cortés' Spanish wife, Catalina Suarez, came to Mexico. After her arrival, historians are unsure if Cortés continued to acknowledge La Malinche or Martín, Cosme said. "It would seem his desire to maintain his reputation and standing among the Spanish community was stronger than his need to be a husband and father to Malinche and Martín." Nonetheless, Catalina died under mysterious circumstances soon after arriving, and eventually Cortés took another Spanish wife when he returned briefly to Spain in 1528, according to Britannica. 

After a few months in Yucatán, Cortés sailed west again. On the southeastern coast of what is now Mexico, he founded Veracruz, where he dismissed the authority of Velázquez and declared himself under orders from King Charles I of Spain. He disciplined his men and trained them to act as a cohesive unit of soldiers, and prepared them for the long march to Tenochtitlán, the Aztec capital. And in an act that signified his fierce determination, he burned his ships to make retreat impossible, though some scholars have disputed this story. 

Díaz related how Cortés exhorted his soldiers on the eve of their long march. "Cortes then adduced many beautiful comparisons from history, and mentioned several heroic deeds of the Romans,” Díaz wrote "We answered him, one and all, that we would implicitly follow his orders, as the die had been cast, and we, with Caesar, when he had passed the Rubicon, had now no choice left; besides which, everything we did was for the glory of God and his majesty the emperor."

Conquering the Aztecs

Cortés had heard of the Aztecs (also known as the Mexica) and knew that they, and their leader Montezuma II (also spelled Moctezuma), were a primary force in Mexico. According to Britannica, the Aztec Empire ruled a large swath of what is today modern Mexico and parts of central America during the 15th and 16th centuries. The Aztecs were accomplished warriors, engineers, artisans and agriculturalists known for creating a thriving society that ruled over a surrounding, often hostile amalgam of various Native Americans with different languages and cultures. Although the Aztecs had been one of many small groups in the Valley of Mexico, they had expanded aggressively during the 15th century by conquering their neighbors, according to World History Encyclopedia. At first, the Aztecs had ruled with the help of two other cities in the region, Texcoco and Tlacopan, a confederation known as the Triple Alliance. Eventually, however, the Aztecs came to dominate the Triple Alliance and ruled alone. 

"Cortés arrived in the great Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán [on Nov. 8] in 1519," Cosme said. "Although he was kindly received by the Aztec emperor Montezuma, Cortés' intentions were less benevolent." He set out to rule them. 

Tenochtitlan was the religious and political center of the Aztec Empire. It was much larger than many European cities of the time and hosted a population of about 400,000 people, according to Britannica. (By comparison, the city of Paris in the 16th century had an estimated population of 225,000, according to the website Statista.) It had been founded in A.D. 1325 on two small islands in the middle of Lake Texcoco and was connected to the mainland by several broad causeways. In the heart of the city was the temple district, which boasted the Great Temple, or Hueteocalli as the Aztecs called it. This imposing structure, which loomed above the surrounding city, was dedicated to two Aztec gods: Huitzilopochtli, the war god, and Tláloc, the rain god. Other prominent buildings included the pyramid of Tezcatlipoca, a creator god, and the temple of Quetzalcoatl, the "feathered serpent" and the god of art and learning who was associated with the planet Venus.  

Díaz described the awe Tenochtitlan inspired among the Spaniards upon arriving: "When we gazed upon all this splendor at once, we scarcely knew what to think, and we doubted whether all that we beheld was real. A series of large towns stretched themselves along the banks of the lake, out of which still larger ones rose magnificently above the waters. Innumerable crowds of canoes were plying everywhere around us; at regular distances we continually passed over new bridges, and before us lay the great city of Mexico in all its splendor."

In some accounts, Cortés' arrival coincided with an important Aztec prophecy. The Aztec god Quetzalcoatl was set to return to Earth. In this interpretation, Montezuma was hesitant to confront the Spanish for fear of angering the returned god. However, this interpretation has been disputed by many modern scholars who have argued that it is essentially a myth that was propagated many years after the conquest as a way for Europeans to justify their actions and foster the notion that the Aztecs saw the Spanish as superior. 

Montezuma sent out envoys to meet the conquistador as he neared the capital. The Spanish fired shots from their arquebuses and cannons, which stunned the Natives and further intimidated them.

Cortés entered the city, and at first the meeting between the two leaders, though tense, was peaceful. Montezuma gave the conquistador gifts of gold. But things changed quickly. Cortés took Montezuma hostage and sacked the city. La Malinche helped Cortés manipulate Montezuma and rule Tenochtitlán through him. "It is also said that she informed Cortés of an Aztec plot to destroy his army," Cosme said. 

The Spanish army had help sacking the city. Though Cortés enslaved much of the Native population, other Indigenous groups were fundamental to his success, according to Cosme. Among them were the people of Tlaxcala, who helped him regroup and take Tenochtitlán. "The Aztecs were not always popular rulers among their subjected cities. When Cortés learned of this, he was able to use this to his advantage," Cosme said. "Xicotencatl, a ruler in the city Tlaxcala, saw an ally in Cortés and an opportunity to destroy the Aztec Empire. They formed an allegiance, and Cortés was given several thousand warriors to add to his ranks. While the Spaniards still had superior weaponry — cannons, guns, swords — the additional knowledge on Aztec fighting styles and defenses given by Xicotencatl, plus the additional men, gave Cortés a helpful edge."

The siege of Tenochtitlán

While Cortés held Tenochtitlán through Montezuma, a Spanish force from Cuba landed on the coast of Mexico in the spring of 1520. It had been sent by Velázquez to unseat Cortés. When Cortés heard of this, he took a force of Spanish and Tlaxcalan soldiers and marched on the new Spanish force, according to World History Encyclopedia. Cortés defeated the Spanish force, but when he returned to Tenochtitlán he found the Aztecs had launched a major attack on the Spanish garrison. 

At first, Cortés tried to quell the attack by forcing Montezuma to address the Aztec forces that had gathered. But, by now, the Aztecs were distrustful of their king. In an event that is still debated by scholars, Montezuma was killed. It is unclear whether he was killed by his own forces — some accounts have him being stoned by his warriors — or by the Spanish, according to the Thought Company. In the Aztec accounts, Montezuma survives the attack by his warriors but is later strangled to death by the Spanish. 

Cortés and his men fled the city. But their retreat was costly and they suffered significant losses, including most of the plunder they had stolen from the city.  

However, the Spanish were there long enough to start a smallpox epidemic in Tenochtitlán. One of Cortés' men contracted smallpox from a member of the force from Cuba. That soldier died during the Aztec rebellion, and when his body was looted, an Aztec caught the disease, which spread like wildfire because the Aztec people had no immunity to it, according to History.com. Between one-quarter and one-half of the inhabitants of the Valley of Mexico, including Aztecs and other Native Americans, succumbed to the disease, according to Suzanne Alchon, a historian and author of the book A Pest in the Land, New World Epidemics in a Global Perspective  (University of New Mexico Press, 2003).

With help from the people of Tlaxcala, Cortés' army regrouped and returned to Tenochtitlán on June 25, 1520. They found that the city's society had crumbled. Nonetheless, the Aztec warriors, under their new leader Cuauhtemoc, resisted the Spanish and a long siege ensued.  Finally, after 93 days of siege, the Aztecs, weakened by disease, hunger and having incurred significant losses following many pitched battles, surrendered, according to World History Encyclopedia. This surrender unleashed a storm of violence, looting, rape and carnage as the Spanish and their Tlaxacalan allies descended on the city. 

Once the city fell, Cortés began building Mexico City on the ruins. It quickly became a pre-eminent city in the Spanish colonies, and many Europeans came to live there. To reward his success, King Charles I of Spain appointed Cortés governor of New Spain.

The conquest of Mexico by the Spanish ended in 1525, though some Aztecs and their allies continued to resist the Spanish according to World History Encyclopedia. Nonetheless, the change to Spanish rule had massive and long-lasting consequences. Many of the Indigenous people were now forced into the role of subservience and a new, almost caste-like social order was created with the Spanish occupying the highest positions of power and the Indigenous people the lowest. This social dynamic would characterize Mexico for centuries.

Later years

In 1524, Cortés organized an expedition to Honduras, a part of central America that had not yet been conquered by the Spanish. He stayed for two years, establishing a city and appointing a governor,  but when he returned to Mexico, he found that the allies he had left in Mexico City had turned against him, according to Britannica. He found himself removed from power, and accused of illegally enriching himself. Cortés traveled to Spain to plead with the king, but he was never again appointed to governorship. In Spain, he married for a second time, to a Spanish noblewoman named Dona Juana de Zuniga, a union that produced three children. 

The king did allow him to return to Mexico, albeit with much less authority. Cortés explored the northern part of Mexico and discovered Baja California for Spain in the late 1530s. In 1540, he retired to Spain and spent much of his last years seeking recognition and rewards for his achievements.

Frustrated and embittered, Cortés decided to return to Mexico. Before he could go, however, he died in 1547 of pleurisy, an inflammation of the tissues that line the lungs and chest cavity.

Legacy

Cortés is a controversial figure, especially in Mexico, because of his treatment of Natives. Unfortunately, "when it came to the Indigenous people, Cortés was not unique in his treatment and mindset," Cosme said. "He enslaved much of the Native population, and many of the Indigenous people were wiped out from European diseases such as smallpox. Both scenarios would unfortunately become a common theme among many explorers' interactions with Natives."

Nevertheless, Cortés was important in reshaping the world. "Cortés' victory secured new and profitable land and opportunities for the Spanish monarch. He helped oversee the building of Mexico City, which is still Mexico's capital today," Cosme said. "He opened the door for further exploration and conquest of Central America to the south, and eventually led to the acquisition of California toward the north."

Originally published on Live Science on Sept. 28, 2017 and updated on July 5, 2022.

Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci is best known for his namesake: the continents of North and South America. But why were these continents named after him, especially since his voyages happened after Christopher Columbus arrived on the continent, in 1492? 

Vespucci was the first person to recognize North and South America as distinct continents that were previously unknown to Europeans, Asians and Africans, according to Avihu Zakai ("Exile and Kingdom: History and Apocalypse in the Puritan Migration to America", Cambridge University Press, 2002). Prior to Vespucci's discovery, explorers, including Columbus, had assumed that the New World was part of Asia. Vespucci made his discovery while sailing near the tip of South America in 1501, according to The New World Encyclopaedia.

Amerigo Vespucci was one of many European explorers during the Age of Exploration, or Age of Discovery, which took place from the mid-1400s to mid-1500s. "The Age of Exploration was prompted by different motivations," said Erika Cosme, administrative coordinator of education and digital services at The Mariner’s Museum and Park in Virginia. "In the 15th century, Europe, Asia, and Africa were at the epicenter of a global exchange of goods; also, for Europeans, curiosities of different cultures continued to emerge. This Afro-Eurasian economy created an interwoven connection between India, China, the Middle East, Africa and Europe."

Spurred by curiosity and economic incentive, explorers traveled distances that were great feats for their day. But what makes the time period so important, said Cosme, was the role it played in "shaping the world that we know today." Recognizing the Americas was a major part of that understanding. 

Early life

Amerigo Vespucci was born on March 9, 1454, in Florence. As a young man, he was fascinated with books and maps, according to the Mariners Museum. The Vespuccis were a prominent family and friends with the powerful Medicis, a family who ruled Italy for more than 300 years and were prominent during the Renaissance. After being educated by his uncle, Vespucci himself worked for the Medicis as a banker and later supervisor of their ship-outfitting business, which operated in Seville, Spain. He moved to Spain in 1492, according to Biography.com

This business allowed Vespucci to see the great explorers' ships being prepared and to learn about the business of exploration. Goods like salt from Mali, coffee beans from Ethiopia, spices from India and the Molucca Islands and ginger, silk and tea from China were in high demand, said Cosme, who works in developing The Mariners' Museum's extensive Age of Exploration area.

Countries profited off trade and hoped to find riches like gold, silver and gems, Cosme explained . "European leaders saw exploration as a way to expand their empires and increase national glory."

At the time, explorers were searching for a northwest route to the Indies — the lands and islands of Southeast Asia — which would make trade easier and bring their country wealth, according to Britannica. "It would often take years to complete a trip," said Cosme. "By the mid-15th century, Muslims controlled the majority of the trade routes to Asia. This meant they could charge high prices for incoming and outgoing goods and vessels traveling to and from Europe and Asia. The desire to find ocean routes that were faster, safer, and cheaper stimulated a search to find a better way of getting to these places."

Vespucci's business helped outfit one of Columbus's voyages, and in 1496 Vespucci had the opportunity to talk with the explorer. Both men were fascinated by the works of Marco Polo, who influenced many explorers' love of seafaring and exploration, said Cosme. 

This meeting further encouraged Vespucci's interest in travel and discovery. Like many explorers of the age, he wanted to gain new knowledge and see the world with his own eyes. "The Age of Exploration coincided with the Renaissance, which lasted from about 1300 to 1600," said Cosme. "Many people were gaining genuine curiosity about the world. Sciences like astronomy and cartography were surging. People wanted to know more about the geography, people, and cultures outside their own."

Vespucci's business was struggling, which made his decision to voyage even simpler. Furthermore, he possessed critical knowledge for seafaring, like cartography and astronomy, which were essential tools for early navigation, said Cosme. Now in his 40s, Vespucci decided to leave business behind and embark on a journey while he still could.

First voyage and letter controversy

"Amerigo Vespucci took at least three voyages westward," said Cosme. There is some controversy among historians about when Vespucci set sail on his first voyage. Many accounts place the sail date in 1499, seven years after Columbus landed in the Bahamas. On the 1499 voyage, Vespucci sailed to the northern part of South America and into the Amazon River. He gave places he saw names like the "Gulf of Ganges," thinking, as his explorer contemporaries did, that he was in Asia. He also made improvements to celestial navigation techniques. Vespucci predicted Earth’s circumference accurately within 50 miles, according to Springer.

But a letter dated in 1497 suggests that the 1499 voyage may have in fact been Vespucci's second trip, according to Fordham University. The letter is written in Vespucci's voice, though some historians dispute his authorship and the facts of the document, claiming it a forgery. The letter, written to the Gonfalonier of Florence (a high official on the city-state's supreme executive council), accounts a 1497 expedition to the Bahamas and Central America. If the accounts of this letter are true, then Vespucci reached the mainland of the Americas a few months before John Cabot and more than a year before Columbus.

1501 voyage and recognition of South America

On May 14, 1501, Vespucci set sail to the New World under the Portuguese flag on what would be his most successful voyage, according to Edward Shaw ("Discoverers and Explorers," Weitsuechtig, 1900.)

Vespucci's ships traveled along the South American coast down to Patagonia, according to The New World Encyclopaedia. Along the way, he encountered the rivers Rio de Janeiro and Rio de la Plata. During this voyage, Vespucci came to suspect that he was looking at a continent entirely different from Asia. 

"Vespucci was both familiar with and fascinated by the accounts of Marco Polo and his time in Asia. The book by Polo gave great detail on the geography, people, and rich opportunities of the continent. Based on this information, Vespucci could make assumptions about the land they were exploring," Cosme said. 

"For starters, Vespucci noticed that the sky which they sailed under had different constellations that were not visible in Europe," Cosme said. "He also took note of the coastlines they traveled, recording their distance and length of time traveled. Vespucci, again a very skilled cartographer and astronomer, carefully studied and pondered over all of his information. 

"He found that the areas and land masses they had explored were actually larger and different than previous accounts of Asia's descriptions. This led him to the conclusion that what they had explored was indeed an entirely new continent."

He verified his suspicion when sailing south to within 400 miles of Tierra del Fuego, the southernmost tip of South America, according to an article by Wired. This confirmed that he was encountering a new continent that extended far further south than anyone had guessed.

While on this voyage, Vespucci wrote letters to a friend in Europe describing his travels and identifying the New World as a separate continent from Asia. These letters also chronicle his encounters with the indigenous people and describe their culture. Vespucci described the natives' religious practices and beliefs, their diet, marriage habits, and, most appealingly to readers, their sexual and childbirth practices. These letters were published in several languages and sold well (better than Columbus' letters, according to Stanford University) across Europe. This pleased Vespucci who, who recorded his adventures to better leave "some fame behind me after I die." 

Later voyages and other accomplishments

Vespucci's later voyages were not as successful as the 1501 expedition, and , according to Britannica, scholars are unsure of exactly how many later voyages he embarked upon. In 1503, he sailed to Brazil, but when his fleet failed to make any new discoveries, the ships disbanded. Vespucci pressed on, however, and discovered the island of Bahia and South Georgia before returning to Lisbon ahead of schedule ("The First Four Voyages of Amerigo Vespucci," Forgotten Books, 2017) .

Vespucci may have gone on two more voyages, in 1505 and 1507, but accounts are unclear. In 1505, he became a naturalized citizen of Spain, and in 1508, he was named a Pilot Major of Spain, according to Frederick J Pohl ("Amerigo Vespucci", Columbia University Press, 1944). This was a prestigious position that required him to use his considerable navigational skills. Vespucci helped develop and standardize navigational techniques and to select new pilots.

He worked at this post until his death on Feb. 22, 1512. He contracted malaria and died in Spain at nearly 58 years of age. Vespucci is buried in Florence.

The naming of America

Vespucci's reputation has gone through periods of ridicule, and at times he has been viewed as a schemer who attempted to steal glory from Columbus, according to History.Info. But in reality, it wasn't Vespucci's ambition that got two continents named after him: it was the work of a German clergyman and amateur cartographer called Martin Waldseemüller.

In 1507, Waldseemüller and some other scholars were working on an introduction to cosmology that would contain large maps, according to the U.S. Library of Congress. Waldseemüller proposed that a portion of Brazil that Vespucci had explored be named "America," a feminized version of Vespucci's first name. Waldseemüller wrote, "I see no reason why anyone should justly object to calling this part ... America, after Amerigo [Vespucci], its discoverer, a man of great ability."

The name stuck. Waldseemüller's maps sold thousands of copies across Europe. Some reports suggest, for example the Library of Congress, that Waldseemüller had second thoughts about the name America, but it was too late. In 1538, a mapmaker named Gerardus Mercator applied the name "America" to both the northern and southern landmasses of the New World, according to Yale University and the continents have been known as such ever since.

Regardless, there is no underestimating the value of Vespucci's contributions to Europeans. Cosme said, "Amerigo Vespucci used his own knowledge and skill, plus the written knowledge from scholars and explorers before him to uncover a Mundus Novus (Latin for "new world") to Europeans."

Additional resources

To learn more about the Waldseemüller map from which America would get its name, check out this article from the Library of Congress. To learn more about Vespucci himself, read this piece from The Mariners' Museum. Or try this article from PBS World Explorers.

Bibliography

• Avihu Zakai ("Exile and Kingdom: History and Apocalypse in the Puritan Migration to America", Cambridge University Press, 2002)
• Amerigo Vespucci, The New World Encyclopaedia
• Amerigo Vespucci, Ages of Exploration: Mariners Museum
• Amerigo Vespucci, Biography.com
• The Sea Route West to Cathay, Brittanica.com
• Edward Shaw ("Discoverers and Explorers", Weitsuechtig,1900.)
• Randy Alfred, "The Man is a Continent…Or Two" Wired, March 9th 2020
• Amerigo Vespucci, "The First Four Voyages of Amerigo Vespucci",Forgotten Books, 2017
• Frederick J Pohl ("Amerigo Vespucci", Columbia University Press, 1944)
• "1512: Amerigo Vespucci- The Man Who Stole The Glory From Christopher Columbus", History.Info
• John R Herbert, "The Map That Named America", Library of Congress
• "Mapamundi of 1538", Yale University
• Gyula Pápay, "Amerigo Vespucci's Contribution to the Modernization of Cartographic Representation" Springer (17th Century, 2020) 

As a polar explorer lay frostbitten and starving in a frozen Greenland cave, he smeared a black spot onto the bottom of his last journal entry. More than a century later, that dark smudge has revealed grim new details of the dying man's final hours.

His name was Jørgen Brønlund; he was a Greenland-born Inuit and was part of a three-man team on the Denmark Expedition to Greenland's Northeast Coast, conducted from 1906 to 1908 and led by Danish ethnologist Ludvig Mylius-Erichsen. Brønlund died in November 1907 and was the last of the team to perish — and the only one whose body was ever recovered. 

He recorded his final thoughts in a diary, and the last page included a heavy black smudge. Researchers recently conducted extensive analysis of the spot, finding that it contained burnt rubber, oils and feces. These traces hint at Brønlund's desperate and unsuccessful attempts to light a life-saving petroleum burner before he succumbed to cold and hunger, scientists wrote in a new study.

Related: Photos of Greenland's gorgeous glaciers

Brønlund died during the team's return to base camp from Greenland's northern coast, as they were traveling over inland ice. Mylius-Erichsen and Niels Peter Høeg Hagen, the expedition's cartographer, had already died of exposure and exhaustion by the time Brønlund made it to a sheltering cave near the depot, he wrote in his journal. 

"I reached this place under a waning moon, and cannot go on, because of my frozen feet and the darkness. The bodies of the others are in the middle of the fjord," read the diary's bleak final entry, according to a report published in 1908 in Scottish Geographical Magazine. Another expedition had discovered Brønlund's body and journal in March 1908; they buried him at the site of his death, and the diary was added to the collection at the Royal Library in Copenhagen.

Under Brønlund's signature on that last diary page was "an adhered black spot," according to the new study. The mysterious mark was so intriguing that it prompted an unnamed researcher to surreptitiously remove it for analysis in 1993 without prior permission, said lead study author Kaare Lund Rasmussen, a professor in the Department of Physics, Chemistry and Pharmacy at the University of Southern Denmark.

"The spot was immediately brought to the National Museum [of Denmark] for examination. There was no commercial or otherwise gain for this person," Rasmussen told Live Science in an email. "Nowadays, we do not analyze samples without written authorization, but it was entirely different then."

At the time, experts with the National Museum's Natural Science Unit were unable to determine the chemical makeup of the strange spot. For the new study, scientists reexamined the spot using techniques that didn't exist in the 1990s — such as X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) — to analyze the mark at the atomic level and pinpoint its chemical elements. 

Along with carbon in the charred fragment, the researchers discovered calcium, titanium and zinc. But that trio of signatures didn't match any known rock formations in northeastern Greenland, Rasmussen said. Further analysis of the spot solved the puzzle, identifying the minerals calcite, rutile and zincite, which contained those elements. These minerals were used as fillers in rubber production, suggesting that the diary spot included burnt rubber. That likely came from a charred gasket on a kerosene stove or burner that Brønlund was trying to light, according to the study.

The researchers also detected three groups of organic compounds: lipids — such as vegetable oil, animal fat, and fish or whale oil — petroleum and human fecal matter (in his severely weakened and desperate state, Brønlund may have tried burning his own excrement to get the stove to light).

"At this time, Brønlund had starved for weeks, was tired beyond his capacity, and he was freezing," the scientists wrote. "It is likely that his hands were shaking when he used the matches from the depot to pre-heat and turn on the stove in the small cave." 

Such stoves metabolized alcohol for preheating before they could be lit, and there was none in the depot. Brønlund may have left the mark on his diary page after attempting — and probably failing — to preheat the stove with anything he could find, and the presence of feces in the mark speaks to the dire circumstances and poor conditions during his "last dismal days," the study authors reported.

The findings were published online Nov. 16 in the journal Archaeometry.

Originally published on Live Science.

In 2007, two Russian submarines plunged down 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) into the Arctic Ocean and planted a national flag onto a piece of continental shelf known as the Lomonosov Ridge. Rising from the center of the Arctic Basin, the flag sent a clear message to the surrounding nations: Russia had just laid claim to the vast oil and gas reserves contained in this underwater turf.

Russia's dramatic show of power had no legal weight — but it isn't the only nation that's trying to stake claims to the Arctic's vast depository of oil and gas. The United States, Norway, Sweden, Finland and China are all trying to cash in. It's no wonder: Projections show that the area of land and sea that falls within the Arctic Circle is home to an estimated 90 billion barrels of oil, an incredible 13% of Earth's reserves. It's also estimated to contain almost a quarter of untapped global gas resources.

Most of the oil that's been located in this region so far is on the land, just because it's easier to access. But now, countries are making moves to start extracting offshore, where the vast majority — 84% — of the energy is believed to occur. But long before this oil race began, how did the Arctic become so energy rich? [How Does Oil Form?] 

"The first thing you realize [if you look at a map] is that the Arctic — unlike the Antarctic — is an ocean surrounded by continents," Alastair Fraser, a geoscientist from Imperial College London, told Live Science. Firstly, this means there's a huge quantity of organic material available, in the form of dead sea creatures such as plankton and algae, which form the basis of what will ultimately become oil and gas. Secondly, the surrounding ring of continents means that the Arctic Basin contains a high proportion of continental crust, which makes up about 50% of its oceanic area, Fraser explained. That's significant because continental crust — as opposed to ocean crust, which makes up the rest of the area — typically contains deep depressions called basins, into which organic matter sinks, he said.

Here, it gets embedded in shale and preserved in 'anoxic' waters, meaning they contain little oxygen. "Normally, in a shallow sea with lots of oxygen, it would not be preserved. But if the sea is deep enough, the ocean will be stratified, meaning the oxygenated waters at the top will be separated from the anoxic conditions at the base," Fraser explained. Conserved within these oxygen-deprived basins, the matter maintains compounds that ultimately make it useful as an energy source millions of years in the future.

As mountains erode over millennia, the continents also provide a wealth of sediment, transported via huge rivers into the sea. This sediment flows into the basins, where it overlays the organic material, and over time, forms a hard but porous material known as "reservoir rock," Fraser said. Fast-forward millions of years, and this repeated layering process has put the organic material under such immense pressure that it has begun to heat up.

"The temperature of the sediments in basins increases roughly 30 degrees Centigrade [54 degrees Fahrenheit] with every 1 kilometer [0.6 miles] of burial," Fraser said. Under this intensifying pressure and heat, the organic material very gradually transforms into oil, with the highest temperatures forming gas.

Because these substances are buoyant, they begin moving upward into the gaps within the porous sedimentary rock, which becomes like a storage container — the reservoir — from which oil and gas are extracted.

So it's the combination of these ingredients — huge quantities of organic matter, abundant sediment to lock in the oil and gas, the ideal underlying geology and the huge scale across which these occur — which makes the Arctic Ocean so unusually energy rich. (On land, where a smaller percentage of the Arctic's overall oil and gas lies, these reserves were most likely formed in a time when the land was covered by sea.)

Into the wild

However, just because the energy is there doesn't mean it should be extracted, many conservationists and scientists say. The Arctic's remoteness, its dense, moving sea ice and drifting icebergs will make it a huge logistical challenge to safely extract oil and gas. [How Are Oil Spills Cleaned?]

"I really don't support it, because the industry does not have the technology to do it safely and in an environmentally friendly way," Fraser said. "Some people will argue that you never can do it in the Arctic in an environmentally friendly way."

Even on land, plans to expand oil and gas development in the Arctic are treated with concern. This year, the United States government intends to start leasing land in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to energy companies, because the refuge contains a vast, 1.5 million-acre (607,000 hectares) coastal plain that's rich in oil. But, it's also a biodiverse landscape that's home to huge migratory herds of caribou, hundreds of bird species and polar bears. "It's been called America's last great wilderness; it's one of the ecologically richest landscapes in the U.S.," said Garett Rose, an attorney with the Alaska Project at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

It's not just the increased risk of oil spills if drilling goes ahead that's concerning; conservationists also worry about seismic exploration, which "involves running these giant trucks over the landscape to send shock waves into the ground that return information on the underlying geology," Rose told Live Science. That would cause obvious disruption to wildlife. Construction of roads and pipelines will slice up this intact landscape and bring in increasing numbers of people — which will intensify the pressure on wildlife.

"[The refuge] is a dynamic and interconnected landscape that's extremely sensitive to change," Rose said. He also said he was concerned about the U.S. government's recent (but failed) attempt to open the Arctic off Alaska's coast to offshore drilling, too. "This is part of a wholesale attempt to expand oil and gas development across the Arctic," Rose said.

Indeed, the situation in the Alaskan Refuge provides just a taster of what could unfold in other parts of the Arctic, if oil and gas extraction projects forge ahead. The risk of oil spills is enlarged offshore, because they'd be impossible to contain — with untold potential effects on sea life. And some scientists say the greatest ultimate threat is climate change. Bringing these fossil fuels to the surface would only lead to more fuel use, and more emissions being pumped into our atmosphere.

We're not there yet: Countries need to ratify an international United Nations agreement if they want to extract fossil fuels from parts of the continental shelf that fall beyond their offshore jurisdiction. That's slowing the Arctic rush. Still, international pressure is mounting, with countries like Russia having already staked out their claim on the seafloor.

And it could be a hard sell to make countries see that those reserves should remain untapped. In short, said Fraser, "I hope this region doesn't become too important [for energy production]."

• In Photos: A Conveyor Belt for Arctic Sea Ice
• 10 Things You Need to Know about Arctic Sea Ice
• On Ice: Stunning Images of Canadian Arctic

Originally published on Live Science.

In the 1960s, NASA's first astronauts tested the limits of human endurance far above the planet. Meanwhile, teams of intrepid divers explored similar boundaries in an equally inhospitable environment here on Earth: the dark, numbingly cold and high-pressure depths of the ocean.

Dubbed "Sealab," the grueling program was launched by the U.S. Navy during the Cold War. Participants called "aquanauts" trained to survive underwater in a pressurized environment for days at a time, at depths that created enormous physical challenges. Over three stages, the Sealab environments descended to greater and greater depths. But with the death of a diver in 1969, officials decided that the risks were too great, and they terminated the program.

The long-forgotten story of the aquanauts surfaces in a new documentary called "Sealab," airing Feb. 12 on PBS at 9 p.m. ET (check local times). [Gallery: Declassified US Spy Satellite Photos & Designs]

From the 1950s into the 1960s, the U.S. and the Soviet Union were engaged in a heated race into space. But they were also eyeing each other's progress in the development of deep-sea technology for submarine warfare. To that end, the U.S. Navy established a program to test just how deep into the ocean humans could go, Stephen Ives, director and producer of "Sealab," told Live Science.

"Ironically, the ocean is far more accessible than the stratosphere, and yet, it's remained more of a mystery than space," Ives said.

The deep ocean exerts crushing pressure on the human body, compressing oxygen in the lungs and tissues. The deeper a diver descends, the more time is required for the body to return safely to normal surface pressure. Rising from the depths too quickly releases nitrogen bubbles in body tissues, causing the bends — excruciatingly painful cramps and paralysis, which can be lethal.

Deeper and deeper

For the project's first undersea laboratory — Sealab I, in 1964 — the Navy introduced a new technique called saturation diving. The aquanauts inhabited a special environment that saturated their bloodstream with helium and other gases that were at the same pressure as the surrounding water, enabling the explorers to spend longer periods in the deep sea without risk of decompression sickness, according to a report published in June 1965 by the Office of Naval Research (ONR).

For 11 days, four aquanauts lived and worked in a seafloor laboratory near Bermuda at at depth of 193 feet (59 meters) below the surface, breathing a mixture of helium, oxygen and nitrogen, the ONR reported.

In 1965, Sealab II touched down on the seafloor at a depth of 203 feet (62 m), near La Jolla, California. The successful 30-day mission earned aquanaut Scott Carpenter a congratulatory phone call from President Lyndon B. Johnson on Sept. 26, 1965. Carpenter spoke to the president while still decompressing from the experience, and his voice was unusually high-pitched from the helium-rich environment, according to the National Archives.

In a recording of the call, Johnson appeared unfazed by Carpenter's cartoonish voice, enthusiastically thanking him and saying, "I want you to know that the nation's very proud of you."

An enduring legacy

But tragedy struck the project in February 1969 after Sealab III was lowered to the sea bottom off the coast of San Clemente, California, to a depth of 600 feet (183 m). When divers descended to fix a helium leak in the still-unoccupied habitat, aquanaut Berry Cannon died of carbon dioxide asphyxiation. His death put an end to Sealab and all of the U.S. Navy's saturation-diving experiments, according to the U. S. Naval Undersea Museum.

Though Sealab ended nearly half a century ago, it had a lasting impact on marine research and deep-sea exploration, Ives said. One current endeavor that owes much to the program is the Aquarius Underwater Laboratory — the world's only fully equipped undersea laboratory — formerly owned by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and now owned and operated by Florida International University.

Located near Key Largo in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, Aquarius rests on the seafloor about 60 feet (18 m) below the surface, allowing researchers to live and work underwater for missions that typically last 10 days, according to NOAA.

But another important part of Sealab's legacy was sparking a long-standing scientific commitment to study the deepest parts of Earth's oceans and to investigate how they affect climate and ecosystems worldwide, Ives said.

"It helped lead the way to a new understanding of how important oceans are to our world — they're the planet's life-support system," Ives said. "And I think Sealab helped us to see that."

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• 9 Craziest Ocean Voyages

Editor's note: This article was updated to reflect that NOAA no longer owns the Aquarius underwater laboratory.

Originally published on Live Science.

A new undersea video is going viral for all the right reasons. Specifically: fish-on-fish-on-snail action, as well as a shocking twist.

The video, released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Ocean Exploration and Research Program, opens on a scene somewhere off the coast of the Southeastern United States, where an an Atlantic midshipman fish (Porichthys plectrodon) lays in wait, buried face-up in a shallow hole. Arrayed around its grim, ugly face are the local invertebrate bottom-dwellers, a sea snail and several quill worms. They all inch toward the precipice as if they're curious, apparently oblivious to the danger.

"It's a race to the burrow," an unseen NOAA researcher says over the video's spooky music. "The snail is winning."

The researcher seems unaware of what's going to come next, and indeed it looks as if the snail might march carelessly right into the not-very-well-hidden trap.

But then...

...a shock of blue enters from the left of the frame, as if hurtling deliberately into the hole. It's a barracudina in the family Paralepididae, according to a NOAA statement. A substance like dark, liquid smoke rises from the hole to fill the frame as predator and prey briefly struggle. When it clears, neither are visible. Only the snail remains, still perched on the very edge of the hole while the quill worms look on.

In one final moment of strange undersea grace, the snail leans too far past the edge of the burrow and plunges in as well.

The video was collected as part of NOAA's 2018 Windows to the Deep expedition, a series of robotic dives from the ship Okeanos Explorer to explore the region off the eastern coast of Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas.

Editor's note: This story was updated at 10:15 am Eastern, July 20 to correct the name of the fish captured. It was a barracudina, not a barracuda.

Originally published on Live Science.

Mount Everest has a mountain of a problem: human waste. And not just leftover camping meals, beer and fuel cans, but human poo, too.

So, how much poopy and other garbage calls the planet's highest mountain home?

A Tech Times story describes the mountain as "the world's highest garbage dump." But Alton Byers, a mountain geologist at the Institute for Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado Boulder, said this description is not entirely accurate. The problem, he told Live Science, is worse in areas off the mountain than on it. In surrounding areas, you'll find dozens of landfills at various lodges and villages throughout Sagarmatha National Park, where Mount Everest resides.

The peak of Mount Everest rests at 29,029 feet (8,848 meters) above sea level, on the northern edge of Sagarmatha National Park, within the Khumbu region of Nepal. Everest is part of the Himalayas, a mountain range in Asia stretching about 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers) across the countries of Bhutan, India, Nepal, China, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The range resulted from the Indian subcontinent crashing into the Tibetan plateau 40 million to 50 million years ago, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

In 1922, several mountaineers and others who were part of the British Mount Everest expedition made the first attempt to reach the top of the world, but were unsuccessful. In 1953, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first people to successfully reach the summit. Since then, thousands of adventurers have followed in the expedition's footsteps. In the late 1990s, Everest became a major destination for adventure tourists. More recently, Sagarmatha National Park has seen upwards of 150,000 visitors every year, with several hundreds attempting an Everest climb, according to Byers. [Photos: The World's Tallest Mountains]

Climbers traveling to the bottom of the majestic mountain for the first time might be surprised to find half-buried fluorescent tents, fuel bottles and other miscellaneous pieces of old camp sites strewn about the base camps. For the most part, other climbers and porters will clean up the camp sites before the climbing season ends, Byers said. "It's remarkable how clean they've been able to keep it of litter," he said. The real problem is what happens with that litter.

What goes up should come down

For over three decades, Byers has studied alpine conservation and restoration in the Nepal Himalayan region. He said there are two types of garbage in the Everest region.

The first kind is litter from climbers that is strewn from base camps all the way up to the summit. "That's what you read about in these press releases," he said. That trash is primarily managed by the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee (SPCC), a nonprofit and nongovernment organization that does its best to keep the Khumbu region clean. With support from locals, the SPCC cleans and maintains several climbing routes. The organization also installed over 70 trash containers along trails and provides door-to-door garbage collection in some of the larger villages.

But the SPCC's efforts are limited, and waste-management rules aren't well-enforced. Troy Aupperle, an experienced mountaineer who's climbed Everest twice and summitted once, told Live Science that, compared with other "managed" mountains he's climbed, Everest is a free-for-all. "Compare it to Denali," the 20,310-foot (6,190 m) mountain in Alaska, he said. "They grill you — 'What have you done?' 'Are you worthy of climbing this mountain?' Then, they lay out all these ground rules." On Everest, however, he said, "There's no rules, no accountability, no nothing."

Aupperle said he doesn't think visiting climbers are concerned with getting their trash back down the mountain. "You barely have enough energy to get yourself off the mountain, so anything you don't have to carry or can get rid of, you just off-load so you can get down," Aupperle said. But he was impressed when he witnessed a crew of Nepalese climbers clean up a crashed Russian helicopter, carrying it down the mountain piece by piece, he said.

The world's highest landfills

Byers said the second type of garbage is generated by the hundred or so lodges in towns throughout the Khumbu region. Lodge owners bury what they consider burnable garbage in pits, he said. The pits are anywhere from 270 square feet to 2,150 square feet (25 to 100 square m), and Byers estimated that there are "dozens, maybe hundreds" of them.

Within those pits are thousands of tons of solid waste: plastic, aluminum beer cans, glass whiskey bottles, paper products and more. When burned, the garbage releases poisons in the air, and once buried, it leaches toxic chemicals into the water, Byers said. He said he suspects that the lodge owners aren't interested in recycling, because it's expensive. "If it means losing money, they're not going to do it," he said.

Yet another major problem throughout the region is human excrement. Local climbers are hired to bring the poop  down in barrels from base camps and dump it into pits; the waste then washes downstream during monsoon season in the summer. Byers estimated that over 12,000 lbs. (5,400 kilograms) of human waste from the Everest base camps results from the diarrhea and other intestinal problems that so many visitors experience each year because the waste isn't completely filtered from the water supply.

Some possible solutions

The trash problem around Everest might be enormous, but it's not hopeless. Out of the thousands of tourists that visit annually, a few have returned to do what they can to help clean up the park in an efficient and affordable way.

The Mount Everest Biogas Project, for example, focuses on cleaning up Gorak Shep, a village near Mount Everest in Sagarmatha National Park, located at 17,000 feet (5,180 m) elevation. The village can be reached only by a strenuous six-day hike from the nearest airport, states the biogas project's website. There are no electrical, sanitation or water-supply systems in the town, but all human waste from several base camps gets brought back to this village and placed in a landfill.

The project aims to redirect human waste to an anaerobic digester system, which is described on the project's website as "a large tank where microorganisms feed on a mixture of water and bacteria found in organic waste, breaking down the waste and producing two by products: methane and a pathogen-reduced effluent." The system would provide a more environmentally friendly way of dealing with human waste.

Another effort to fix the trash problem comes from Sagarmatha next, an organization that aims to create art out of trash collected from Sagarmatha National Park. The group has plans to build a center near the town of Namche Bazaar that will help with waste management, art and community development.

The efforts from these organizations are promising, but there's still plenty of room for more, Byers said. "Everest base camp cleanups should continue," he said. "But we've got to figure out ways to recycle."

Original article on Live Science.

In arguably one of history's biggest mysteries, the disappearance of Amelia Earhart has captured both public and scientific attention since that fateful day in 1937 when the Coast Guard lost radio transmission with Earhart's airplane on its way to Howland Island, just north of the equator in the Pacific Ocean.

Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, were attempting to circumnavigate the globe. They were never heard from again. This week, a paper published in the journal Forensic Anthropology suggests that bones found on the Pacific island of Nikumaroro (once called Gardner Island) in 1940 may belong to the lanky female aviator.

"This analysis reveals that Earhart is more similar to the Nikumaroro bones than 99% of individuals in a large reference sample. This strongly supports the conclusion that the Nikumaroro bones belonged to Amelia Earhart," study author and forensic anthropologist Richard Jantz wrote in the journal article. [10 Mysterious Deaths and Disappearances That Still Puzzle Historians]

Jantz is part of an effort launched by The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) in 1988 to find Earhart's remains.

Since 1988, Richard Gillespie, TIGHAR executive director, has led TIGHAR researchers on 11 expeditions in the hope of finding clues as to what happened to Earhart. One idea is that Earhart and Noonan made an emergency landing on Nikumaroro, in the Republic of Kiribati, and subsequently died there. Earhart's plane is also missing. In 2014, TIGHAR researchers found an "anomaly" on the seafloor off Nikumaroro, though there's no word on what created that anomaly.

Measuring bones

Though the actual bones have not been found, scientists have records from a Dr. D. W. Hoodless, who apparently examined the 13 bones in Suva, Fiji, in 1941, after they were shipped to him at the Central Medical School. In his notes, Hoodless concluded the bones belonged to a European male who was about 5 feet 6 inches — much shorter than the 5-foot-9 Earhart, according to an NPR report from 1998. (In his paper, Jantz indicates Earhart was perhaps 5 feet 7 inches or 5 feet 8 inches tall.)

Figuring out whether these bones could have belonged to Earhart, or even a female, has been a long back-and-forth scientific journey. In 1998, forensic anthropologists Karen Burns and Richard Jantz analyzed the medical record and images of Earhart to conclude that "the morphology of the recovered bones, insofar as we can tell by applying contemporary forensic methods to measurements taken at the time, appears consistent with a female of Earhart's height and ethnic origin," according to a TIGHAR statement. [In Photos: Searching for Amelia Earhart]

That interpretation was disputed in 2015, when British graduate student Pamela Cross and Australian anthropologist Richard Wright published a paper in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports arguing that the bones likely belonged to a stocky European male, as Hoodless had initially suggested in his 1941 description.

In response to that rebuttal, Jantz (Burns died in 2012) undertook a more thorough examination of the Nikumaroro bone measurements and how they compared to Earhart's physique. Preliminary results were released in 2016 that suggested the bones did match what images of Earhart suggested of her body size, Live Science reported at the time.

Closer to the truth?

In the newly published study, Jantz describes his analysis, which included newfound information about Earhart's body dimensions based on a study of her clothes that were held at Purdue University in the George Palmer Putnam Collection of Amelia Earhart Papers. Jantz measured an inseam length and waist circumference from a pair of Earhart's pants. He also used various images (particularly those with bare arms and legs), a Massachusetts driver's license and other records to estimate Earhart's build.

He concluded that, "in all respects," the bones are consistent with those of Earhart. "As a tall and narrow-bodied female, the 'set' of the femora could well have appeared male to Hoodless," Jantz wrote. "It is apparent from the many photos of Earhart, and from her waist circumference, that her hips were narrow for a female. This, in combination with her height, does not require a femur angle one might expect of a female."

In addition, Hoodless had used half of a pubic bone as part of his sex determination: The spot where the pubic bones meet in the middle is an arch — known as the pubic arch — and forensic anthropologists use the angle of that arch to determine the sex of a skeleton. Women, who on average have wider hips than men, have a bigger angle at the top of that arch. One problem with his measurement, however, is that he had only one side of that bone (and arch), which makes figuring out the actual angle, especially with the tools available in 1941, tricky, Jantz noted in his paper.

"An ambiguous half subpubic angle," Jantz wrote, "could easily have been called male by an inexperienced eye, or even an experienced one, particularly if taphonomic [fossilization] processes had modified the morphology."

Even with this finding, other narratives abound. For instance, as reported by The Washington Post, retired journalist Mike Campbell, who has studied Earhart's disappearance, continues to argue that the Japanese captured Earhart and Noonan, believing them to be spies, on the Marshall Islands. Campbell, who authored "Amelia Earhart: The Truth at Last " (Sunbury Press Inc.; Second Edition, 2016), maintains the duo were tortured, only to perish in Japanese custody.

Last year, the History channel ran a special on a photo they had unearthed that the channel suggested showed Earhart and Noonan. They claimed the image showed Earhart after she had been taken hostage by the Japanese in the Marshall Islands. Experts immediately refuted that claim, citing the biggest giveaway of all: The photo was taken at least two years BEFORE Earhart's final, fateful flight.

Original article on Live Science.

The story of his journey is told in "Il Milione" ("The Million"), commonly called "The Travels of Marco Polo." Polo's adventures influenced European mapmakers and inspired Christopher Columbus.

In Polo's day and even today, there has been some doubt about whether Polo really went to China. However, most experts agree that he did indeed make the journey.

Early life

Marco Polo was born around 1254 into a wealthy Venetian merchant family, though the actual date and location of his birth are unknown. His father, Niccolo, and his uncle Maffeo were successful jewel merchants who spent much of Marco's childhood in Asia. Marco's mother died when he was young; therefore, young Marco was primarily raised by extended family.

"The merchant families were the movers and shakers of commerce and government in medieval Venice," Susan Abernethy of The Freelance History Writer told LiveScience. They expanded long-distance trade and people began to expect accessibility to the foreign goods they brought. Merchants, like the Polo family, became increasingly wealthier.  

The Polo brothers went as far as China, then called Cathay, during their travels. They met the Mongol leader, Kublai Khan, at his court in Beijing. Kublai Khan, grandson of the great conqueror Genghis Khan, expressed interest in Christianity and requested that the Polo brothers return to Rome to speak to the pope on his behalf. Khan wanted the pope to send the Polo brothers back to Beijing with holy water and 100 learned priests.

"Khan was an exceptional ruler for many reasons," said Abernethy. "He opened up the Mongol and Chinese empires to travelers and traders. He patronized scholars, scientists, astronomers, doctors, artists and poets. Khan himself was an expert in Chinese poetry. In turn, Khan was able to take advantage of the knowledge of these foreigners in enormous projects such as efforts in water management and hydraulic engineering and warfare and siege engineering and other endeavors." The Polos were one family that Khan trusted and learned from. 

When Marco was 15, his father and uncle returned home. Though the pope did not grant their request, the Polo brothers decided to return to Asia. This time, they took 17-year-old Marco with them.

The slow road to China

The party sailed south from Venice across the Mediterranean to the Holy Land. They had brought two friars — the best they could do for Kublai Khan's request — but upon getting a taste of difficult travel life, the friars turned back. The Polos continued, traveling primarily overland and swinging north and south through Armenia, Persia, Afghanistan and the Pamir Mountains. Then, they cut across the vast Gobi Desert to Beijing.

The journey took three or four years and was rife with hardships and adventure. Marco Polo contracted an illness and was forced to take refuge in the mountains of northern Afghanistan for an extended period of time. Polo described there being "nothing at all to eat," in the Gobi Desert. Nevertheless, young Marco Polo enjoyed a keen sense of adventure and curiosity, taking in the sights, smells and cultural phenomena with wonder.

In Xanadu, with Kublai Khan

Finally, the Polos reached Beijing and met Kublai Khan at the summer palace, Xanadu, a glorious marble and gold structure that enchanted young Marco. Khan happily received the Polos. He invited them to stay and for Niccolo and Maffeo to become part of his court. Marco immersed himself in Chinese culture, quickly learning the language and taking note of customs. Khan was impressed and eventually appointed Marco the position of special envoy.

" I suspect Marco was educated and erudite and charming," said Abernethy. "He learned to speak four languages and exhibited a great curiosity and tolerance regarding his surroundings and the people he met with. Khan recognized his talents … Polo was devoted to serving the Emperor."

This position allowed Marco to travel to the far reaches of Asia — places like Tibet, Burma and India; places that Europeans had never before seen. Over the years, Marco was promoted to governor of a great Chinese city, to the tax inspector in Yaznhou, and to an official seat on the Khan's Privy Council.

"Khan provided Marco and his family with a 'paiza' — a gold tablet which authorized him to make use of a vast network of imperial horses and lodgings. This in effect was an official passport making the Polos honored guests of the emperor and allowing them to travel freely throughout Asia," said Abernethy.

Through it all, Marco Polo marveled at China's cultural customs, great wealth and complex social structure. He was impressed with the empire's paper money, efficient communication system, coal burning, gunpowder and porcelain, and called Xanadu "the greatest palace that ever was."

Return home

The Polos stayed in China for 17 years, amassing vast riches of jewels and gold. When they decided to return to Venice, unhappy Khan requested that they escort a Mongol princess to Persia, where she was to marry a prince.

During the two-year return journey by sea across the Indian Ocean, 600 passengers and members of the crew died. By the time they reached Hormuz in Persia and left the princess, just 18 people remained alive on board. The promised prince, too, was dead, so the Polos had to linger in Persia until a suitable match for the princess could be found.

Eventually, the Polos made it back to Venice. After being gone for 24 years, people did not recognize them and the Polos struggled to speak Italian.

Legacy

Three years after returning to Venice, Marco Polo assumed command of a Venetian ship in a war against Genoa. He was captured and, while being held in a Genovese prison, he met a fellow prisoner, a romance writer called Rustichello. When prompted, Polo dictated his adventures to Rustichello. These writings, written in French, were titled "Books of the Marvels of the World," but are better known in English as "The Travels of Marco Polo."

"Polo's book was what we would call a "blockbuster hit" and made Marco Polo a household name.," said Abernethy. "At first, many viewed the book as fiction, more like a chivalric fable with its seemingly tall tales and descriptions of fantastical animals. Many copies of the book were created and it was translated into several languages. It was only after Polo's death that people realized the book contained the truth about his travels and what he witnessed."

Additionally, some readers questioned Polo's reliability, possibly leading to the book's popular Italian title, "Il Milione," short for "The Million Lies." Some questioned whether Polo even went to China or if the entire thing was hearsay. 

There were several reasons people doubted the veracity of the book. One was its writing process. Polo dictated from his copious notes, and Rustichello (or Rusticiano), who was an author of some renown "may have embellished the story," said Abernethy.

The publishing process of the time could also lead to truths being exaggerated or changed. The book came about before the printing press, and hand-copied manuscripts are subject to human error and willful changes, according to Abernethy. 

"There are what seem to be some glaring omissions," she said. "Polo doesn't mention the Great Wall of China, foot binding, tea or the use of chopsticks. However, none of this is unusual. There are other chroniclers throughout history who omitted obvious information from their writings."

It is also possible that Polo knowingly embellished or recounted stories he heard from other travelers. "Some of the tales seem far-fetched and it's clear Polo didn't witness some of the related information," said Abernethy. "Polo may have been somewhat naïve about what he was witnessing and seen everything through Western eyes, creating discord in the narrative. He may also have recounted stories he heard from other travelers."

That's his story and he's sticking to it

Polo stood by the book, however, and went on to start a business, marry and father three daughters. When Polo was on his deathbed in 1324, visitors urged him to admit the book was fiction, to which he famously proclaimed, "I have not told half of what I saw."

Though no authoritative version of Polo's book exists, researchers and historians in the subsequent centuries have verified much of what he reported. It is generally accepted that he reported faithfully what he could, though some accounts probably came from others that he met along the way. 

"It seems the preponderance of the evidence reveals that Polo did indeed visit China," said Abernethy. "He brings to light detailed information on the currencies used, including paper currency. He mentions the use of burning coal. The data he provides on salt production and revenues show a meticulous familiarity on the subject. Many of the place names he gives in the narrative have now been identified. His description of the Grand Canal of China is highly accurate. Indeed, the premise that he didn't visit China creates more questions than it answers."

The information in his book proved vital to European geographic understanding and inspired countless explorers — including Christopher Columbus, who, it is said, took a copy of Polo's book with him in 1492. 

"About fifty years after Polo's death, his work began to be utilized in the making of maps," said Abernethy. "Cartographers employed the descriptions of his travel routes and the names and terms he used to designate locations in the drawing of their maps."

Who knew?

Marco Polo did not introduce pasta to Italy. The dish had already existed in Europe for centuries, according to History.com. 

The claim that he brought ice cream to Europe is also disputed. A French ice-cream master, Gerard Taurin, argues that Polo did introduce ice cream from China. According to the International Dairy Foods Association, Polo returned with a recipe that resembled modern-day sherbet, and this recipe may have evolved into ice cream in the 16th century.

Polo was one of the first Europeans to see a rhinoceros. However, he thought they were unicorns.

Some scholars think that Polo was born on the island of Korcula on the Adriatic coast, in what is today Croatia, according to a 2011 article in the Telegraph. According to this theory, his father was a merchant from Dalmatia named Maffeo Pilic, who changed his last name to Polo when he relocated to Venice.

In 2011, Italy objected when a museum dedicated to Polo in the Chinese city of Yangzhou was opened not by Italian diplomats but by a former president of Croatia, Stjepan Mesic. Mesic described Polo as a "world explorer, born in Croatia, who opened up China to Europe."

Additional resources

• Project Gutenberg: The Travels of Marco Polo — Complete Text
• History.com: 11 Things You May Not Know About Marco Polo
• Silk Road Foundation: Marco Polo and His Travels

Amelia Earhart was an American aviator, author and women’s rights activist. She was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. Her disappearance in 1937 during an attempt to fly around the world is a mystery that continues to intrigue people worldwide.

Early life

Amelia Mary Earhart was born in Atchison, Kansas, on July 24, 1897. During Christmas vacation in 1917, she went to visit her sister in Toronto. One day, at an aviation expo, a pilot flew his plane near her. Later, she said, “I believe that little red airplane said something to me as it swished by."

In December 1920, Earhart attended an air show in Long Beach, Calif. She took a short plane ride, and that 10-minute flight changed her life. “By the time I had got two or three hundred feet off the ground, I knew I had to fly,” she said.

Just six months after she began flying lessons, she purchased her first plane, a bright yellow, second-hand biplane that she named The Canary. She soon achieved the world altitude record for women pilots — 14,000 feet — in October 1922.

In 1924, however, her parents divorced, and her family’s financial troubles forced Earhart to sell The Canary. She ended up working in Boston.

Lady Lindy

In April 1928, Earhart received an unexpected phone call asking if she would like to be the first woman to fly across the Atlantic. Earhart immediately accepted the offer. She was listed as a co-pilot, but ultimately was not allowed to fly.

Nevertheless, Earhart became an aviation celebrity. The press dubbed her “Lady Lindy,” and George P. Putnam, who had published several stories about Charles Lindbergh, took on Earhart’s story as his next bestseller. Earhart worked closely with Putnam during appearances, lectures and other promotions, and they grew closer. After Putnam's divorce in 1931, he and Earhart were married.

Earhart put her stamp on many industries, including women’s fashion, magazines and airline management. Her true passion, however, always remained with flying. She set a world record for altitude, reaching 18,415 feet, and became president of The Ninety-Nines, an organization dedicated to women’s aviation.

Across the Atlantic, solo

For some time, Earhart and Putnam worked secretly on plans for Earhart to make a solo flight across the Atlantic. This would be the first woman and second solo person to make the flight.

On May 20, 1932, five years to the day after Lindbergh’s famous flight, she took off from Harbor Grace, Newfoundland, heading to Paris. Almost immediately, the flight was plagued by poor weather, thick clouds and ice on the wings. Earhart knew she wouldn’t make it to Paris and landed in Londonderry, Ireland. “After scaring the cows in the neighborhood, I pulled up in a farmer’s back yard,” said Earhart.

For her 15-hour flight, Earhart received many honors and became an international hero. Between 1930 and 1935, she set seven women’s speed and distance aviation records.

Earhart’s last flight

Nearing her 40th birthday, Earhart said, “I have a feeling that there is just about one more good flight left in my system…” She hoped that it would be a flight around the world. She wanted to be the first woman to do it.

On June 1, 1937, Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, departed from Miami with great fanfare. They began the 29,000-mile journey heading east. After 29 days of flight, they touched down in Lae, New Guinea. The remaining 7,000 miles would be done over the Pacific.

The plan required landing on Howland Island, located between Hawaii and Australia and 2,556 miles away from Lae. At only 1.5 miles long and half a mile wide, Howland Island was a difficult spot for landing. Special navigation precautions were taken, including establishing radio communication with U.S. Coast Guard ship Itasca off Howland Island.

At 10 a.m., Earhart and Noonan took off from Lae. They encountered problems with overcast skies and rain showers early on. Some witnesses reported that the radio antenna may have been damaged, and other experts suggest that their maps may have been inaccurate.

As they neared Howland Island, they were unable to make sufficient connection with the Itasca or to land on the island. Earhart’s last communication was at 8:43 a.m.: “We are running north and south.”

Though the Itasca began a rescue attempt immediately and the search continued for weeks, nothing was found. On Jan. 5, 1939, Earhart was declared legally dead.

Theories about disappearance

For a long time, the most likely explanation was that the plane ran out of fuel and the flyers ditched or crashed and then died at sea. More recently, another theory has gained some traction. It holds that the flyers landed on uninhabited Nikumaroro Island, formerly called Gardner Island.

According to the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR), Earhart and Noonan survived on the island for several weeks. They caught fish, seabirds and turtles and collected rainwater. Earhart died at a campsite on the island's southeast end. Noonan's fate is unknown.

This theory is based on on-site investigations that have revealed improvised tools, bits of clothing, plexiglass and an aluminum panel. In May 2012, investigators found a jar of freckle cream that some believe could have belonged to Earhart. Additionally, reports of lost distress calls have been reported.

Also, in 1940, a British Colonial Service officer found a partial skeleton on the island, as well as a campfire, animal bones, a sextant box and remnants of a man's shoe and a woman's shoe. The officer thought he may have discovered Earhart's remains, but a doctor believed the skeleton to be male, and American authorities were not notified. The bones were later lost. Recent computerized analysis of the skeleton's measurements suggests that the skeleton was probably that of a white, northern European female.

TIGHAR has led several expeditions to the island and found artifacts that suggest they were left by an American woman of the 1930s. The organization plans more expeditions in the next few years.

In July 2017, a photo discovered in the National Archives caused a buzz when some researchers suggested it showed that Earhart and Noonan had survived the crash and were taken hostage by the Japanese on Jaluit Atoll in the Marshall Islands. However, other experts contacted by Live Science said they would need to learn more about the photo before saying whether the evidence met scientific scrutiny.

Additional resources

• The Official Website of Amelia Earhart
• The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR)

The meticulous records of Capt. James Cook, the intrepid British explorer famous for exploring Australia and the Hawaiian islands, have found a new and modern-day value: Helping climate change scientists understand the extent of sea ice loss in the icy Canadian Arctic, according to a new study.

Notes, charts and maps created by Cook and his crew during an Arctic expedition in August 1778 carefully documented the position and thickness of the ice barring the explorers' way. They were searching for a corridor that they thought would link the Pacific and northern Atlantic oceans and offer a new maritime trade route between Great Britain and the Far East.

Cook never found that route, known today as the Northwest Passage. But his observations and those of his crew provide the earliest recorded evidence of then-extensive summer ice cover in the Chukchi Sea. That part of the Arctic Ocean lies between Alaska and Russia. These records, when compared to modern observations of sea ice, indicate how dramatically Arctic ice cover has changed — particularly in recent years, according to study author Harry Stern, a researcher with the Polar Science Center at the University of Washington. [On Ice: Stunning Images of Canadian Arctic]

While Cook wasn't the first explorer to search for the Northwest Passage — nor was he the last — he was the first to chart the ice border that bisected the ocean north of the Bering Strait, Stern said in the study. Cook was also the first to attempt the approach from the Pacific side by traveling up the North American coast, Stern said.

At the time, finding this route — which would have expedited and strengthened trade with the Orient — was an especially urgent goal for Great Britain. In fact, the House of Parliament issued an act in 1745 offering a reward of up to 20,000 pounds (about $24,978 U.S.) for finding and mapping the passage, according to archives of the Royal Greenwich Observatory maintained by the University of Cambridge Digital Library.

Stern, who studies climate and Arctic sea ice, researched Cook's journey for an essay the climate scientist contributed to the book "Arctic Ambitions: Captain Cook and the Northwest Passage" (University of Washington Press, January 2015). As Stern studied the archival documents from the 1778 voyage, he realized he was looking at the very first detailed maps of the ice edge in the Chukchi Sea, he said.

"Ten or twelve feet high"

Prior to Cook's expedition, maps of the area offered little detail or were spectacularly inaccurate; one Russian map that Cook used for reference indicated that Alaska was an island, Stern wrote.

Cook sailed through the Bering Strait on Aug. 11, 1778, but his progress was abruptly halted near Alaska on Aug. 18 by ice that was "as compact as a Wall and seemed to be ten or twelve feet high at least," he wrote in his journal.

In a journal entry the next day, Cook described tracking the edge of sea ice hidden in the fog by listening for the sounds of bellowing walruses, which he called "sea horses." Stern pointed out that this may be the first recorded use of remote sensing — obtaining information about a distant object by calculating energy it emits — to locate the position of sea ice.

An impenetrable wall

Cook scoured the edge of the ice wall for 11 days, but though he traveled as far west as the coast of Siberia, he couldn't find an opening. Forced to retreat south, Cook vowed to resume the search the following summer, but he never returned to the region, and died in Hawaii six months later.

Still, Cook's thwarted efforts collected important data about Arctic ice, the researchers said. His records of the impenetrable ice wall's location and scope were so accurate that the notes could be used in alignment with later maps. This helped scientists to clarify historical sizes and positions of the ice edge, and to determine how it varied over time, Stern said.

And over hundreds of years, the size of the icy wall Cook originally documented fluctuated somewhat from year to year but didn't shift dramatically — until the 1990s, Stern told UW Today. Since then, changes have been significant, he said.

"The summer ice edge in the Chukchi Sea is now hundreds of miles farther north than it used to be," Stern said.

It wasn't until the beginning of the 20th century that the Northwest Passage was navigated in its entirety — albeit in a relatively small ship — in an expedition led by Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen between 1903 and 1906. And in 2007, with Arctic sea ice at its lowest levels in 30 years, the passage opened enough to accommodate large cargo ships and research vessels.

Might Cook have found that elusive passageway in 1778, if sea ice cover were more like it is today? Probably, Stern told UW Today — but that doesn't mean it would have been easy.

"One thing hasn't changed: It's still dangerous to navigate through ice-covered waters," Stern said.

The findings were published online Nov. 3 in the journal Polar Geography.

Original article on Live Science.

Updated on Nov. 7 at 9:12 a.m. ET.

The partial skeleton of a castaway found in the 1940s on the Pacific island Nikumaroro shows some similarities to Amelia Earhart, scientists say.

Though extensive searches have failed to turn up the bones, scientists have found a record of the bones' measurements taken by a British doctor in 1941, they said. And those measurements match up with Earhart's build, according to Richard Gillespie, executive director of The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR), which launched a project to piece together Earhart's disappearance in 1988.

"The match does not, of course, prove that the castaway was Amelia Earhart, but it is a significant new data point that tips the scales further in that direction," TIGHAR representatives said in a statement.

However, forensic anthropologist Ann Ross, who is not involved with the TIGHAR study, said the methodology used by TIGHAR is not reliable. What's more, Ross, who is director of the Forensic Sciences Institute at N.C. State University, questions the doctor's notes due to some of the language in the writing. [In Photos: Searching for Aviator Amelia Earhart]

Earhart's disappearance

The mystery of Earhart began in 1937, when she and her navigator, Fred Noonan, set off from Oakland, California, on their westbound attempt to circumnavigate the world. After a leg of the trip, her plane crashed on takeoff on a runway at Luke Field in Honolulu, on March 20 of that year, according to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. On June 1, after her airplane, the Electra, was repaired, the pair took off from Oakland, California, in an eastbound attempt to fly around the world via Miami, according to the museum. On June 29, they arrived in Papua New Guinea, only to depart again on July 2, headed for the uninhabited Howland Island, located just north of the equator in the Pacific Ocean.

A U.S. Coast Guard cutter, the Itasca, received voice transmissions from Earhart during that leg of the trip, saying, "We are on the line of position 156-137. Will repeat message. We will repeat this message on 6210 kilocycles. Wait. Listening on 6210 kilocycles. We are running north and south," according to the museum.

Their flight should have lasted about 19 hours, but the plane never arrived at Howland, leaving Earhart's disappearance as one of history's biggest mysteries.

Since 1988, Gillespie has led TIGHAR researchers on 11 expeditions in an effort to piece together what Gillespie calls a "jigsaw puzzle" of clues to reveal the true story of what happened to Earhart. [10 Mysterious Deaths and Disappearances That Still Puzzle Historians]

They have been looking into the possibility that Earhart and Noonan might have made an emergency landing on Nikumaroro (now called Gardner Island), in the Republic of Kiribati, where they may have subsequently perished. (Earhart's plane has also remained missing, though in 2014, TIGHAR researchers found an "anomaly" on the seafloor off Nikumaroro that they said needed closer examination.)

Bone measurements

In the late 1990s, World War II historian Peter McQuarrie stumbled upon a file in the national archives in Kiribati titled "Discovery of Human Remains on Gardner Island," according to a TIGHAR report. The file contained correspondences between the British administrator of Nikumaroro and British officials from 1940 and 1941.

The documents note that a partial human skeleton, badly damaged by coconut crabs, had been discovered on the island in 1940, alongside the remains of birds, a turtle and a campfire. Artifacts found with the bones included the sole of a shoe thought to belong to a woman, a Benedictine liquor bottle and a box that held a nautical navigational device called a sextant. The box would have contained the same type of sextant that Noonan is said to have used as a backup navigational device, Gillespie told Live Science.

The documents also included the report by Dr. D. W. Hoodless, who examined the bones in Suva, Fiji, and declared that they belonged to a European male who was about 5 feet 6 inches, which would have been much shorter than Earhart, who stood 5 feet 9 inches, according to an NPR report from 1998.

In 1998, around the time the documents were found, forensic anthropologists Karen Burns and Richard Jantz suggested that "the morphology of the recovered bones, insofar as we can tell by applying contemporary forensic methods to measurements taken at the time, appears consistent with a female of Earhart's height and ethnic origin," according to the TIGHAR statement.

Now, a new analysis of the records and measurements using a photograph of Earhart suggest arm-bone similarities with the aviator.

Jeff Glickman, a forensic examiner who founded a forensic image-processing lab called Photek, looked specifically at the ratio of the radius (lower arm bone) to the humerus (upper arm bone). The document put the castaway's humerus at 32.4 centimeters (12.8 inches) long and the radius at 24.5 cm (9.6 inches). The resulting radius-to-humerus ratio would be 0.756 (or a so-called brachial index of 75.6).

That number was larger than would be statistically expected for an average woman born in the late 19th century, according to TIGHAR. Another possibility was that the castaway was a woman who had unusually long forearms for the time period. Jantz wondered if Earhart did have similarly longer-than-average forearms.

To find out, Glickman and Jantz found a bare-armed photograph of Earhart and then identified the correct points on the shoulder, elbow and wrist to give them the most accurate locations of the ends of her humerus and radius. The results suggest that Earhart's radius-to-humerus ratio would have been 0.76 — a match with that of the castaway.

About 20 percent of American women might have had arms fitting that ratio, Jantz said. "So it would be uncommon, but not rare, for an American woman to have a brachial index of 75.6, what we found for the bones," Jantz told Live Science in an email. "Calculating the probability that it might be AE [Amelia Earhart] is a more difficult question, and would depend on what other possibilities have to be considered. All I would say at the moment is that it strengthens the circumstantial case."

Bone methods

But Ross said she sees several problems with the methods used to come up with the arm-bone ratio, as well as with the doctor's notes.

The lengths of the arm bones were more in line with the typical measurements for a male, Ross said. However, TIGHAR researchers said another possibility is that the bones could belong to a long-armed female like Earhart. "Amelia Earhart's height, 68 [inches] according to her pilot's license, or 67 [inches] according to Jeff Glickman's reconstruction, is also more typical of a male than a female," Jantz said. "So bone lengths more typical of a male are exactly what we would expect to see if the bones are actually those of Amelia Earhart." 

The problem, Ross said, is that it's tricky, at best, to figure out arm-bone measurements solely by examining a photograph, even a photo of someone bare-armed. Indeed, Ross noted that if the researcher is off by even a tiny margin when determining certain points on the body, such as the shoulder socket, the entire result can be wrong. Glickman noted this was one of the study's limitations.

Part of the castaway's pubic bone was also found, according to the doctor's notes. 

"We only know what the doctor said he did," Jantz said. "He used three criteria for sex, two of which are unreliable. The third (subpubic angle) is fairly reliable but not foolproof. Since the doctor was not an experienced forensic anthropologist, and we do not know what weight he assigned to the three criteria, there seems no reason to trust his sex estimate."

In addition, a review of TIGHAR's 1998 analysis also points to the bones belonging to a male. "Without access to the missing original bones, it is impossible to be definitive, but on balance, the most robust scientific analysis and conclusions are those of the original British finding indicating that the Nikumaroro bones belonged to a robust, middle-aged man, not Amelia Earhart," Pamela Cross, an archaeologist at the University of Bradford in the U.K., and Richard Wright, an emeritus professor of anthropology at the University of Sydney, wrote in September 2015 in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.

Furthermore, the doctor's notes show some inconsistencies with the time period, Ross said.

In the handwritten notes, attributed to Hoodless, it says, "It could be that of a short, stocky, muscular European, or even a half‑caste, or a person of mixed European descent." Ross mentioned that anthropologists and others didn't refer to anyone in this language in 1941, and instead they would have said the bones belonged to a "Caucasoid, Negroid or Mongoloid," she told Live Science.

Jantz strongly disagrees with this interpretation. "As to the racial terms, Dr. Hoodless was not an anthropologist, so he may not even have been aware of them. He was a physician working in Fiji," Jantz told Live Science. "Dr. Hoodless, to his credit, did not try to force the bones into one of these three major categories, but used ordinary English to describe who he thought they could belong to." 

Island remains

If the bones and doctor's notes are verified, whomever the bones belonged to does seem to have survived for some time on the island, Gillespie said, based on other artifacts found on the island. "She doesn't know where she is, and she has to survive the best she can. Looks like she did manage to survive — to catch rainwater and boil it for drinking water," Gillespie told Live Science in an interview, adding that this castaway also probably caught little fish and birds.

Gillespie thinks the evidence points strongly to the bones belonging to Earhart. For one, "Castaways are really rare in the Pacific, and female castaways even more so," he said. "This castaway had things with her that date from the early to mid-1930s, and we have good records."

For now, however, the celebrity aviator's last journey will remain a mystery.

Editor's Note: This article was updated to include comments from Richard Jantz on some of the claims made by Ann Ross; an error was also corrected — the article suggested Dr. Hoodless measured the subpubic bone and said it was male, though in reality there were no such measurements, and Dr. Hoodless likely used a visual analysis of the bone along with other variables in his conclusions. 

Original article on Live Science.

Disturbing digs

In archeology, bone fragments and other haunting reminders of long-dead people are a given. But some discoveries paint particularly gruesome pictures of past lives and deaths. From decapitated gladiators and vampire burials to ancient toothy tumors and a mummified lung, Live Science has gathered 25 archeological discoveries that give us the creeps.

Decapitated gladiators

A set of skeletons discovered in York, England, belonged to tall men who died before the age of 45. What makes them gruesome is that all of them had also lost their heads. Their heads were buried with them, sometimes on their chests, and sometimes between their legs or feet.

Researchers aren't sure why most of the skeletons at the Driffield Terrace were decapitated. They date to between the second and fourth centuries A.D., when the area was part of the northern Roman Empire. Because most of the skeletons were particularly tall and showed signs of trauma, they may be the bones of gladiators. They might also have been military men. A genetic analysis of seven of the decapitated skeletons found that six hailed from Britain, while one may have come from Lebanon or Syria. [Photos: Headless Gladiator Skeletons] 

Evidence of war

About 10,000 years ago, something horrible happened in what is now Kenya. Twenty-seven people — men, women and children — died of trauma. Their bones, discovered in 2012 in the sediments of Lake Turkana, show the marks of blunt weapons like clubs and sharp projectiles like arrows. Archaeologists think that the size of the group indicates ancient warfare rather than a violent domestic dispute. One woman (shown here) was found with both knees broken, hands extended in front of her, prompting speculation that she may have been bound. 

Pit of death

A property development project in France uncovered something truly shocking in 2012: A pit, 6.5 feet (2 meters) deep and 5 feet (1.5 m) in diameter, filled to the brim with bones.

Even more sickening, the bones consisted of severed arms and fingers as well as the skeletons of infants, children and adults. Researchers found at least seven upper arms, including one from a young teenager. On top of the amputated limbs, seven bodies had been tossed into the pit, including that of a middle-age man who'd had an arm chopped off and suffered a blow to the head. These bones dated back about 5,335 years.

The bodies (and body parts) most likely were casualties of war, the researchers told Live Science. Some may also have been executed in a sort of brutal Neolithic justice.

Toothy tumor

When Spanish archaeologists unearthed the 1,600-year-old skeleton of a Roman woman, they were surprised at what they found in her pelvis. Peeking out from between her hips was a calcified ball of bone containing four malformed teeth.

This creepy discovery was an ovarian teratoma, a kind of tumor that arises from germ cells. Germ cells are the precursors of human egg cells, so they can form body parts like teeth and bones. The most common teratomas are benign, as was the one in the Roman woman's pelvis. Complications from the tumor could have eventually killed the woman, archaeologists said, but she may never have known the toothy thing was inside of her abdomen.   

Polish 'vampire' burials

The real story behind Eastern European vampires is quite possibly creepier than the fictionalized tales of Dracula. Between the 1600s and 1700s in Poland, some people were buried with sickles over their necks or rocks wedged under their chins. These precautions were taken to prevent the dead from rising again as vampires who, locals believed, would return to suck the blood of friends and family.

In 2014, researchers found that the "vampire burials" at Drawkso cemetery in Poland were the bodies of locals who had not died of trauma. They were likely victims of a cholera epidemic that would have felled them rapidly, the researchers told Live Science.

Remnants of a witch hunt

Sometimes an archaeology discovery doesn't need to involve bones to be disturbing. A 15th-century church in Aberdeen, Scotland, contains an artifact like that. The chapel contained a stone pillar set with an iron ring, which may have been used to restrain accused witches in 1597.

Aberdeen hosted a series of witch trials that year known as the "Great Witch Hunt." Around 400 people were tried, and approximately 200 executed in an eight-month period. The deaths were grisly. One of the most famous cases, Jane Wishart, was convicted along with her son Thomas Leyis. Both were strangled and then burned.  

Civil War massacre

An attempt to expand the library at Durham University in northeast England turned into a discovery of 17th-century pain and suffering.

Archaeologists excavating in advance of construction discovered two mass graves containing 1,700 skeletons dating back to the mid-1600s. The skeletons are probably the remains of Scottish prisoners of war taken captive during the Third English Civil War, a battle between Parliamentarians led by Oliver Cromwell and Royalists loyal to King Charles II.

The skeletons belonged to men between the ages of 13 and 25, suggesting that they were military men. They showed few signs of trauma and probably died of disease while imprisoned, only to be thrown into anonymous mass graves.

"These are ordinary soldiers from the Scots army, probably raised from the lowlands of Scotland, some highlanders, and up into the northeast of Scotland, whose names we don’t have," said Pam Graves, a senior lecturer at Durham University. "We know the names of contemporary officers, but so rarely do we ever know the names of ordinary soldiers."

Mummified lung

Whole-body mummies are a little creepy. But when you open a sarcophagus and find  nothing but a skeleton and a single, leathery lung … well, you've crossed into some pretty spooky territory.

Archaeologists experienced just that when they opened a stone sarcophagus in the Basilica of St. Denis in Paris in 1959. The remains belonged to a queen named Arnegunde who lived between about A.D. 515 and 580.

For a long time, it was a total mystery why Arnegunde's body had decomposed while her lung became mummified. In April 2016, though, researchers reported at a conference in Germany that they'd figured it out. Arnegunde's lung showed chemical traces of plant compounds, as well as high levels of copper. It's likely that after Arnegunde's death, embalming fluid made of plants and spices was injected down her throat, landing in her lung. The queen was interred wearing a copper alloy belt. Copper has antimicrobial properties, so the combination of embalming herbs and metal likely preserved the single organ. 

Shackled skeletons

Their necks flexed and jaws gaping, dozens of skeletons peer up from an ancient mass grave near Athens. Their blank expressions aren't what make this discovery grisly: It's that many of the skeletons still wear shackles.

The skeletons — there are 80 in the mass grave, 36 of which have iron shackles around their wrists — belonged to prisoners who died between around 650 B.C. and 625 B.C., archaeologists say.

Historical records tell of an ancient coup in 632 B.C. that could explain the bodies. The Olympic champion Cylon attempted to take over Athens and failed. The bodies could be those of his executed followers, archaeologists said, though that interpretation is by no means certain.

Strange romance

True love was forever for Louise de Quengo, the Lady of Brefeillac. The widow died in 1656 and was interred with a rather alarming trinket: the heart of her husband.

Toussaint Perrien, Knight of Brefeillac, died in 1649. As was sometimes done at the time, his heart was removed, embalmed and put into a lead urn.

"It was common during that time period to be buried with the heart of a husband or wife," Fatima-Zohra Mokrane, a radiologist at Rangueil Hospital at the University Hospital of Toulouse in France, said in a statement. "It's a very romantic aspect to the burials."

Mokrane and colleagues used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computed tomography (CT) to study Perrien's heart as well as four others from elite graves at the Convent of the Jacobins in northwestern France. The organs were so well preserved that researchers could still see buildup of plaque on many of the arteries.

A tragic sacrifice

Mountaineers climbing near Aconcagua in Argentina in 1985 stumbled across a dark memento of the past. Nestled in a stone structure was the huddled mummy of a 7-year-old who died about 500 years ago.

The little boy was the victim of child sacrifice. The ritual was called capacocha, and it was practiced by the Inca people. As in "The Hunger Games," children were called as tribute from rural regions to the city of Cuzco, where they would live for about a year before they were drugged and walled into their tomb to die of exposure. Many of the mummies sport skull fractures, so there is debate over how they were killed. They may have been knocked out in order to decrease their suffering, archaeologists say.

Collective punishment

You work for years, supporting the first female emperor to China and smoothing her rise to power. You break your own arm instead of fighting against her for a rebel army. You help her mollify civil disorder.

And then your little brother goes rogue and gets you all executed.

That's the sad story of Yan Shiwei, one of the favorite officials of Wu Zetian, the founder of China's Zhou dynasty. Archaeologists uncovered Yan Shiwei's 1,300-year-old tomb and discovered the tale on a stone-inscribed epitaph. Yan Shiwei's little brother, Yan Zhiwei, turned against Wu Zetian around 699. As a collective punishment, the entire family was executed and, according to the carvings, "carelessly buried."

Bones in a tree

A season 6 episode of the crime show "Bones" involves the case of a skeleton discovered with a dogwood tree growing through it. Something similar really happened in Ireland — though the tree was a beech.

In 2015, a 215-year-old tree blew over in a winter storm in Collooney, Ireland. Entangled in the roots was a mass of bones. They turned out to belong to a boy who died between the year 1030 and 1200. Making the discovery all the more creepy, the boy's ribs and hands showed knife marks, suggesting that his death was violent. 

Ancient cold case

Skull fractures on a 430,000-year-old skeleton found in a Spanish cave point to a likely cause of death: murder most foul.

The victim's remains were found in a cave in the Atapuerca mountains, along with bones from 28 individuals of various Homo species. The bodies seem to have been moved there on purpose, making this spot possibly one of the oldest burial grounds ever found.

The sex and even species of the murder victim remain unknown, but researchers think that the wounds found on the skull couldn't be explained either by a fall or by postmortem damage. The murder weapon may have been a spear or an ax, but it's safe to say that after 430,000 years, the suspect is not still at large. 

Cannibalism in the Canadian Arctic

When Sir John Franklin and his crew headed off for their Arctic expedition in 1845, they hoped to navigate the Northwest Passage. They almost certainly did not expect that they'd be resorting to cannibalism within a few short years.

The Franklin expedition's two ships, the HMS Terror and the HMS Erebus, became trapped in ice … which failed to melt summer after summer. By April 1848, 24 men had died, and the remaining crew set off in an attempt to trek to the nearest trading post. None were ever heard from again.

Over time, the bones of some of the crew members were found. In 2015, researchers reported in the Journal of Osteoarchaeology that the bones had been hacked and boiled, and many were even cracked to get at the marrow inside. The discovery speaks to the very desperate situation in which those men found themselves," bioarchaeologist Anne Keenleyside of Trent University, who was not involved in the study, told Live Science. "You have to imagine yourself in that situation, what would you do?"

Neanderthal cannibals

Archaeology is the study of human society — but for our purposes, Neanderthals are close enough (we did interbreed, after all). In 2010, researchers reported the discovery of the skeletons of a family of Neanderthals in a cave in Spain. What makes the find so chilling is that the bones showed signs of cannibalism.

The three adult females, three adult males, three teenagers, two kids and an infant may have become a meal for another group of Neanderthals (humans weren't around in Europe at this time, so they're off the hook). This family isn't the only evidence of Neanderthal cannibalism, archaeologists said. It seems that when times got tough, Neanderthals weren't shy about chowing down on each other.

Burned Alaskan child

About 11,500 years ago, a 3-year-old child was burned and buried in a hearth in central Alaska. After the cremation, the home that housed the hearth was filled in and abandoned.

The lonely body — found as charred bone fragments still arranged as they were when the fire died — struck a nerve with its discoverers, University of Alaska archaeologist Ben Potter and dental anthropologist Joel Irish. Both researchers have children who are about the same age as the ancient Alaskan was when he or she died, Potter said.

"That was quite remarkable for both of us to be thinking, beyond the scientific aspect, that yes, this was a living, breathing human being that died," Potter said.

Tomb mystery

Buried, exhumed, burned and re-buried: That's the post-mortem fate of Alexander the Great's half-brother and successor, Philip III Arrhidaios, according to historical texts. The question is, have archaeologists found what was left of the man after his people got done with him?

A royal tomb in Greece containing the burned bones of a man and a young woman could be the resting place of Philip III and his young warrior-queen wife Eurydice, who were respectively killed and forced to commit suicide by Philip III's stepmother, Olympias, the mother of Alexander the Great. But some researchers argue that the entombed man is actually Philip II, Alexander the Great's dad. That would make the woman in the tomb Cleopatra, Philip II's last wife. (A different Cleopatra than the famous Egyptian queen, this Cleopatra nonetheless met a tragic end. She was either killed or forced to commit suicide by Olympias, whose bad side you didn't want to be on.)

The debate still rages as to whether the tomb is the final resting place of Philip II or Philip III. The most recent volley of scientific debate hinged on whether the bones were burned dry or covered in flesh and viscera. 

Ill-fated expedition

The search for the legendary Northwest Passage claimed many lives, including those of 129 explorers who went searching for a sea route through the Arctic in 1845. Lead by British Rear-Admiral Sir John Franklin, the doomed crew headed into the icy unknown, where they would all perish of starvation, scurvy, hypothermia and exposure.

To make matters worse, many of the men's remains show evidence of lead poisoning, probably from the canned foods they were eating. High levels of lead in the body can cause vomiting, weakness and seizures.

 At first, the dead received proper — if shallow — burials. Later on in the expedition as more explorers died, researchers say, bodies were left unburied, and some may have been cannibalized. Few bodies have been identified, despite attempts at facial reconstruction, as seen above.

Ancient Chemical Warfare

Ancient warfare was a messy matter, but a group of 20 or so Roman soldiers may have met a particularly nasty death nearly 2,000 years ago. During a siege of the Roman-held Syrian city of Dura, Persian soldiers dug tunnels under the city walls in an attempt to undermine them. The Romans retaliated by digging their own tunnels in an attempt to intercept the Persians. But the Persians heard them coming, and some archaeologists think they prepared a grisly trap: A cloud of noxious petrochemical smoke that would have turned the Romans' lungs to acid.

The tunnels were excavated in the 1920s and '30s, and have been reburied now. But some modern archaeologists think the placement of the skeletons and the presence of sulfur and bitumen crystals suggests chemical warfare. The choking gas would have been like "the fumes of hell," archaeologist Simon James of the University of Leicester told LiveScience.

The first leper

Leprosy, now known as Hansen's disease, has long carried a stigma. The disease is not very contagious, but lepers have been banished and snubbed throughout history, owing in part to the disfiguring sores caused by the disease.

One archaeological find suggests that the stigma surrounding leprosy goes way back. A 4,000-year-old skeleton discovered in India is the oldest known archaeological evidence of leprosy. The fact that the skeleton survived suggests the person was an outcast: Hindu tradition calls for cremation, and only those deemed unfit were buried. The skeleton was buried in a stone enclosure filled with ash from burned cow dung, a substance then thought to be sacred and purifying.

Leper warrior

Lepers haven't always been universally reviled. In medieval Italy, they may have even joined the ranks of soldiers and fought battles. A skeleton recently unearthed in a medieval Italian cemetery bears the telltale signs of leprosy as well as what appears to be a sword wound. The man, who may have died in battle, was buried with his comrades.

Other graves in the cemetery are similarly macabre. At least two contained the bodies of men who'd survived massive head trauma, including what looks like a battle-ax wound. One man, likely wounded by a mace, seems to have gotten the medieval version of brain surgery after the injury.

Acrobat sacrifice

Evidence of human sacrifice is found the world over, but one discovery of a possible sacrifice site, reported in 2008 in the journal Antiquity, seems particularly bizarre. In an ancient building in what is now Syria, archaeologists uncovered a strange arrangement of human and animal bones. Three human skeletons lay side-by-side, headless. Judging by unusual skeletal injuries and overdeveloped attachment areas for ligaments and bones, the researchers identified one of the skeletons as a possible acrobat.

The building was filled with dirt and abandoned after the headless bodies were left there, leading the researchers to suspect that the animals and entertainers were sacrifices, perhaps left after a natural disaster of some sort. Celebrity in ancient Syria may have had its downsides. 

Human sacrifice

A teen boy buried at an ancient alter at Mount Lykaion in Greece may have been a sacrifice to the god Zeus.

The site has an association with human sacrifice in ancient texts, including a legend that a king named Lycaon once sacrificed a baby at the alter and promptly turned into a wolf. That story was passed on by the writer Pausanias, who lived from A.D. 110 to 180. Researchers aren't sure whether the teen boy was a true human sacrifice, but it was an unusual place for a burial, they said.

"It's not a cemetery," archaeologist David Gilman Romano of the University of Arizona told the Associated Press in August 2016.

Cave cannibalism

Did Neanderthals eat each other? A bunch of bones found in a Belgium cave suggest the answer is yes.

In July 2016, researchers reported that they'd discovered cut scars and hammering marks on bone fragments from four adult and one juvenile Neanderthals who lived between 40,500 and 45,500 years ago. The evidence was "unambiguous" for cannibalism, the scientists said. The Neanderthals had been butchered alongside horses and reindeer, whose bones were found alongside the human relatives. Evidence of Neanderthal cannibalism has been found at other European sites, including in Spain, where some bones appeared to have been broken to get at the nutritious marrow inside. 

For the first time in more than 80 years, the Maud is floating above the sea surface.

The sturdy oak ship, made to withstand Arctic winters stuck in pack ice, was originally built for the Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen, the first human to arrive at the South Pole. In 1930, the ship sank in shallow water off the coast of Cambridge Bay, in northern Canada's remote Victoria Island.

This past summer, a Norwegian salvage expedition says they successfully raised the wreck onto a barge. [See Images of the Maud Being Raised Out of the Water]

The Maud is "ready for the next step, which is to sail home," project manager Jan Wanggaard told Live Science.

Amundsen was the first person to reach the South Pole and the first to lead an expedition through the Northwest Passage from the northern. When the Maud was built, Amundsen's goal was to sail through the unexplored part of the Arctic Ocean, and perhaps drift over to the North Pole.

From 1918 to 1920, Amundsen and his crew sailed from Oslo, Norway, along the Russian Arctic coast to Nome, Alaska, traversing a Northeast Passage. Amundsen eventually abandoned the plan to go to the North Pole. Maud spent a total of seven years exploring the Arctic before the ship was seized by Amundsen's creditors and was sold to Canada's Hudson's Bay Co., according to Norway’s Fram Museum.

Although the Maud's exploits aren't widely known today, the expedition was quite eventful for Amundsen —he was nearly mauled to death by a polar bear and poisoned by carbon monoxide. It also resulted in heaps of scientific data on the Arctic environment.

Amundsen's scientific director aboard the Maud was Harald Sverdrup, an accomplished oceanographer who later became director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego. His team recorded magnetic, astronomical and meteorological observations. They took photos of the northern lights. Sverdrup even spent seven months among the Chukchi people in northeastern Russia and took ethnographic notes about the tribe's language and customs.

A leak caused by the propeller axle sunk the Maud in 1930. Over the following years, some of the ship's timber was salvaged for fuel. Norway took back ownership of the Maud in the 1990s. After a long stretch of legal and logistical hurdles, a Norwegian salvage team finally got the go-ahead to raise the Maud and bring it back to a custom-made museum in Vollen, Norway, according to Norway’s Fram Museum.

Wanggaard said he had explored the Maud many times during diving expeditions but that he was still struck by the size of the ship when it was raised. His team had to use about 50 air bags, each with 4 tons (3.6 metric tons) of lifting power, to raise the Maud off the seafloor and scoop the ship onto a barge.

"You cannot grasp the whole image of the ship underwater," Wanggaard said. "When it came up, it was bigger than we could imagine."

The Maud had to be cleared of the mud and sediment that had built up inside, and Wanggaard said the team has found a lot of technical parts, blocks for sails, firewood, coal and other artifacts. "It's in very good condition," Wanggaard told Live Science. "It just needs to dry. That's a long process, but it's good to be here. It's best to dry in low temperatures. It's like a freeze-drying process."

Right now, the barge the Maud sits on is frozen in place, and Wanggaard will spend the upcoming winter plotting the ship's journey back to Norway. The expected sailing time is one month, he said, but timing the expedition is a tricky matter.

The team might have to wait until July or August for the sea ice to dissipate so that they can safely leave Cambridge Bay. And the Arctic sea ice could start freezing up again before the Maud makes it home, meaning the team would have to spend another winter at a pit stop in Greenland or northern Russia. Wanggaard said he also has to decide whether to take an easterly route to reach Norway or head westward back over Amundsen's Northeast Passage.

Original article on Live Science.

Vasco da Gama was a highly successful Portuguese sailor and explorer during the Age of Exploration. He was the first person to sail directly from Europe to India, around the Cape of Good Hope. His discovery was monumental in the history of navigation as well as instrumental in establishing Portugal as a major colonial empire.

A route to India

Da Gama was born in 1460 to a family of nobles in Sines, Portugal. His father, Estevao, was also an explorer. Da Gama learned to navigate in the navy, which he joined as soon as he was old enough. In 1497, da Gama was appointed to command a ship with the goal of discovering a sailing route to India.

Several decades earlier, Henry the Navigator had patronized several successful voyages in North and West Africa. These voyages were Portugal’s first steps at becoming a major maritime and colonial power. In 1487, Bartolomeu Dias discovered that the Indian and Atlantic Oceans were connected. This interested Portuguese King Manuel. He wished to conquer Islam and establish himself as the King of Jerusalem, in addition to making money off the spice trade.

De Gama captained four vessels when he set out on July 8, 1497. Da Gama himself rode in the 200-ton St. Gabriel and his younger brother Paulo led the St. Rafael. Da Gama sailed south, taking advantage of the prevailing winds off the western coast of Africa, and swung out into the Atlantic before veering back in an arc to meet the South African coast. He then rounded the Cape of Good Hope and ventured into the Indian Ocean.

By the time they reached Indian Ocean waters, most of his crew was infected with scurvy. Da Gama made landfall in Mozambique to rest and resupply. There, they had skirmishes with the sultan who did not believe the Europeans’ gifts were sufficient. They then landed in Mombasa and Malindi, where an Arab guide agreed to assist da Gama; the guide may have been famous Arab navigator Ahmed Ibn Magid.

Da Gama’s fleet sailed for 23 days before landing at Calicut, India, (modern-day Kozhikode) on May 20, 1498.  The Europeans assumed the locals were Christians, though they were actually Hindus. Despite this misunderstanding, the ruler of Calicut agreed to trade with da Gama and he acquired a large supply of valuable spices. The Muslims who already traded at Calicut, however, were less inviting of da Gama’s competition and forced da Gama to barter many of his spices in order to acquire sufficient supplies for the trip home.

Return to Portugal

In August, after three months in India, da Gama’s fleet left Calicut — despite advice that monsoon season was approaching. The ships encountered terrible storms during their journey. The passage across the Indian Ocean — which had previously taken little more than three weeks — took more than three months. So many men died of scurvy during the crossing that da Gama ordered the St. Rafael burned for lack of crew.

The ships split up off the western coast of Africa, returning to Lisbon at different times. Da Gama’s brother Paulo fell ill and da Gama took him to the Azores with hopes of healing him. Paulo died on the Azores and, after mourning on the island for some time, da Gama eventually returned to Portugal more than one month after the other ships had come back.

Ultimately, it took da Gama’s fleet more than a year to return to their homeland after leaving India. Though only 54 of the original 170-member crew returned to Portugal in 1499, da Gama received a hero’s welcome. He was made an admiral and married Catarina de Ataíde, a woman of a noble family. The spice trade was hugely important for Portugal and soon after da Gama’s return, King Manuel dispatched another expedition to India, led by Pedro Alvares Cabral. Cabral established a trading post in Calicut, but conflicts with the local Muslims resulted in battles and the deaths of 70 Portuguese.

Second voyage to India

In 1502, King Manuel once again sent da Gama to India to further secure Portugal’s dominance in the region. Da Gama left Lisbon with 20 armed ships under his command. During his journey, da Gama slaughtered hundreds of Muslims, attacking ships and firing cannons at trading posts up and down the east African coast. In one instance, he ordered the massacre of 380 people — including women and children — aboard a Muslim ship returning from Mecca.

His brutal practices continued once he reached Calicut. There, da Gama destroyed the trading post and killed 38 hostages. Once he had the Calicut ruler's surrender, da Gama went south to Cochin (known as Kochi today). There, he made an alliance with the local ruler, further securing Portugal’s position as a dominant spice trader.

Da Gama left Cochin in February 1503. During his return journey, he established Portuguese trading posts in what is now Mozambique. Portugal would later become the major colonial power in Mozambique.

As part of this second India voyage, da Gama's uncles —Vicente and Brás Sodré — were put in charge of a five-ship squadron with instructions to protect friendly trading states on India's west coast. They were also tasked with disrupting Arabic shipping along the route, according to David Mearns, of Blue Water Recoveries in the United Kingdom. Disobeying such orders, the uncles, and their squadron, instead set off for the Gulf of Aden, carrying out a campaign of piracy.

At one point, after killing everyone on five Arab ships, the Sodré brothers took shelter in a bay off the southern coast of Oman to repair their own ships. Not heeding the advice of local fishermen about impending strong winds, their ships ripped from their moorings. Vicente's ship sank in deep water, killing him and his crew. It is this ship, the nau Esmeralda, that scientists think they have discovered off the coast of Oman, they announced in March 2016. [See Photos of the Lost nau Esmeralda Ship]

Life in Portugal and final voyage

For 20 years, da Gama lived in Portgual with his wife, six sons and one daughter. He continued to advise King Manuel on matters regarding India and was made count of Vidigueira in 1519.

After King Manuel died, King John III asked da Gama to return to India once again. He was requested to help deal with the increasing corruption of the Portuguese officials there. In 1524, da Gama yet again set sail — this time with the title of Viceroy.

Da Gama fell ill soon after arriving in Cochin. He died from an unnamed illness on Dec. 24, 1524. He was initially buried in a Catholic church in Kochi, but his remains were eventually brought back to Portugal in 1538.

Marine archaeologists think they've discovered a lost Portuguese ship from explorer Vasco da Gama's fleet off the coast of present-day Oman, more than 500 years after it sank in a deadly storm.

A team led by David Mearns, of the U.K.-based Blue Water Recoveries, first located the shipwreck in 1998 using archives and historical documents as a guide. After recent underwater excavations and careful analysis of more than 2,800 artifacts, including cannonballs and rare coins, the researchers are now fairly certain they have found the nau Esmeralda, the doomed ship commanded by da Gama's uncle.

Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama found a sea route to India in 1498, becoming the first European to reach Asia by sea and ushering in an era of Portuguese imperialism. Da Gama secured a monopoly on the valuable spice trade, terrorizing coastal cities and vessels along the way. (In one infamous story, da Gama torched a pilgrim ship carrying more than 300 Muslims—including women and children —returning from Mecca.) [See Photos of the 500-Year-Old Shipwreck]

During da Gama's second voyage to India (1502-1503), his uncles Vicente and Brás Sodré were in charge of a five-ship squadron. They had specific instructions to provide military cover for friendly trading states on the west coast of India and to disrupt Arabic shipping along the route, Mearns told Live Science, but they disobeyed their orders and instead went to the Gulf of Aden, where they carried out a campaign of piracy.

After sacking and killing everyone on five Arab ships (and keeping much of the loot for themselves), the Sodrébrothers needed to make repairs. They took shelter in a bay at Al-Hallaniyah, the largest of the Khuriya Muriya Islands, located about 28 miles (45 kilometers) off the southern coast of Oman.

"They were friendly with the Arabs [on the island] and trading with them —maybe too friendly with their wives, it seems from the archives," Mearns said.

The Portuguese ships were anchored in a bay that was protected on all sides—except the north. When the local fishermen knew there was a strong wind coming from the north, they told the Portuguese sailors to get on the other side of the island. But, believing their iron anchors to be strong enough to withstand the storm, the Sodré brothers didn't heed the warnings. The wind came, and the ships' moorings were torn away.

Brás Sodré's ship, nau São Pedro, ran hard aground, but Vicente's ship, nau Esmeralda, sank in deeper water, killing him and everyone else on board. [The Top 10 Intrepid Explorers]

Another captain from the squadron recounted the disaster in great detail in a letter to the Portuguese king, and the story has been retold in many histories.

"It was a very rich and well-told story, which is great for archaeology," Mearns said. "You usually don't have that luxury."

That story led Mearns to the northeastern coast of Al-Hallaniyah in 1998. During the initial investigation, he said he found more than 20 large stone cannonballs sitting right on the surface of the seabed. Mearns and his Omani partners then conducted more thorough archaeological surveys and excavations in 2013, 2014 and 2015. They found hundreds of artifacts, including copper-alloy barrels, a number of stone shots, gold coins, West African and Asian ceramic pots and stone beads, he said.

To examine some of the shipwrecks' corroded artifacts, the team turned to high-tech methods. They used CT scanning to identify two silver coins: the Manuel índio, minted in 1499; and the real grosso, minted sometime between 1475 and 1479. Portuguese King Dom Manuel I ordered the índio to be struck after the return of da Gama's first voyage to India, specifically to be used in trade with India. As there is only one other known índio in the world (housed at the National Historical Museum of Brazil), this coin has reached legendary status in the coin-collecting world, Mearns and his colleagues wrote. 

CT scans were also used to get a better look at a bell (which was wrested from under a boulder in shallow water) and found that it was inscribed with the numbers "498." The researchers suspect that perhaps the "1" eroded from the manufacture date of 1498; that would chronologically fit with Sodré's squadron, which left Lisbon in 1502.

"It's very possible that that could be the oldest ship's bell ever found in the world," Mearns said. "And it was found less than 100 meters [328 feet] off a shoreline, in a depth of water that you could have snorkeled to. As small as the world is, there are still places left to explore."

The findings were published online March 14 in the International Journal of Nautical Archaeology.

Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

500-Year-Old Shipwreck

Marine archaeologists say they’ve located the wreck of the nau Esmeralda, a Portuguese ship that was part of explorer Vasco da Gama's second voyage to India (the explorer is pictured here). More than 500 years ago, the ship was destroyed in a storm, killing the crew and the commander, da Gama's uncle, Vicente Sodré.

Doomed Ship

Vasco da Gama's uncle, Vicente Sodré, ignored advice from the locals about impending strong winds. His ship, which was part of five-vessel squadron, became unmoored and sank in a bay, on an island off the coast of present-day Oman.

The Search Begins

In 1998, shipwreck hunter David Mearns went looking for the wreck around Ghubbat ar Rahib bay, off the northeastern coast of Al Hallaniyah island in Oman (shown here), and found several cannonballs on the seabed.

Underwater Excavations

More than a decade after Mearns’ first exploration, more thorough archaeological investigations began at the underwater site in 2013.

Sunken Treasures Found

The team turned up hundreds of artifacts that hint that they’ve found the lost Portuguese ship. Shown here is a copper alloy disk, marked with the Portuguese royal coat of arms.

Cannonballs from the Seabed

Geological analyses of stone shot found at the shipwreck showed that many were made of limestone one would expect to find in the Lisbon region of Portugal.

A Legendary Rare Coin

This CT scan shows the índio, an extremely rare Portuguese coin that was commissioned by King Dom Manuel in 1499 for trade with India. Mearns called it a "remarkable discovery."

Bronze Bell

Until it was raised by marine archaeologists, this ship's bell had been hidden beneath an underwater boulder for centuries.

Going once! Going twice!

Four photos that allegedly document the Yeti's walk over a snowy glacier are being auctioned off by Christie's.

In 1951, renowned British mountaineer, Eric Earle Shipton, was leading an expedition on Mount Everest when he took the photos, which show a set of mysterious footprints in the snow. Shipton, as well as Himalayan locals, attributed the prints to the Yeti, or Abominable Snowman. Returning to Europe, Shipton brought the photos — and the tale of this legendary creature — with him.

Dear Mick, I swear this really happened

On the underside of one of the photos is a note from Shipton's fellow mountaineer, Tom Bourdillon, who was with him when the photos were taken.

In the note, he recounts how he and Shipton came across the strange footprints in a high pass on the Nepal-Tibet watershed, at an elevation of about 19,500 feet (5,943 meters). The tracks, Bourdillon said, belonged to "no animal known to live in the Himalaya."

Good thing I brought my axe

Another member of the expedition party, Michael Ward, recounted the experience of finding the alleged Yeti footprints in an article published in 1997 in the journal Wilderness and Environmental Medicine. He described using his ice axe to show the scale of the print, though he neglected to mention just how long the ice axe was.

"Pichers of the Abomidable Snow mans feet"

The underside of one photo is inscribed with a less informative, though arguably more adorable, account of what Shipton and his colleagues discovered that day in 1951. In what appears to be a child's handwriting is the description, "Pichers of the Abomidable Snow mans Feet."

Yeti tracks in the snow

Shipton and his fellow mountaineers followed the alleged Yeti tracks down the side of a glacier, according to the account by Ward.

"Whenever a narrow 6-inch-wide crevasse was crossed there seemed to be claw marks in the snow at the end of the toe imprints," Ward noted.

Dude, what is this thing?

Ward stands beside the strange tracks in one of the four photos being auctioned. The photos ignited speculation about the existence of the Yeti.

The Greek photographer and geologist N.A. Tombazi first introduced the mythical creature to Europe in 1925 when he allegedly sighted the Yeti high in the Himalaya, according to Christie's.

It was thiiis big

With no tools with which to measure the prints, Shipton asked Ward to pose next to one with his booted foot. Ward noted many years later that at the time he was wearing a "42 continental," which measured about 12 to 13 inches (30 to 33 centimeters) long.

Collectively, the photos of the alleged Yeti prints could fetch up to $8,300 at auction, according to Christie's.

Nikhil Gupta is an associate professor and Steven Zeltmann is an undergraduate student researcher in the Composite Materials and Mechanics Laboratory of the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department at New York University, Polytechnic School of Engineering. The authors contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

Radio signals that may have been emanating from the flight recorder of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 marked the beginning of a new phase of the search for the aircraft and its passengers. Once signals emerged, the investigation expanded to include exploration of the ocean floor to detect the aircraft and recover the block box.

The location of the black box is estimated to be about 15,000 feet (4.6 kilometers) below the ocean surface. The pressure at such depths in the ocean is about 455 times the atmospheric pressure at sea level. The remains of Titanic are located at a depth of 12,500 feet (3.8 kilometers) depth, which has pressure of about 380 atm. The additional 2,500 feet increases the pressure by 75 atm. In addition, the temperature is only 34 to 40 degrees Fahrenheit (1 to 4 degrees Celsius) at such depths.

Designing vehicles for exploration at such depths is a great challenge. The deep-sea exploration vehicle needs to be light enough to have buoyancy, but should be strong enough to withstand high pressure without imploding.

Both human operated vehicles (HOV) and remote operated vehicles have been constructed for oceanographic studies, treasure hunting and recovery and rescue operations. A famous example of an HOV is the craft that was built for the noted explorer and motion picture director James Cameroon's solo dive to the deepest part of the ocean, the Mariana Trench. The structure of his craft, like most similar vehicles, was mainly made of a novel material called "syntactic foam." [Into the Deep: James Cameron's Mariana Trench Dive (Infographic)]

Polymer foams are lightweight, porous materials composed of air filled pores in polymer materials. But their light weight comes with two major disadvantages: low strength and high water absorption, both of which are highly undesired for deep-sea exploration.

Not only would an ordinary foam be crushed by the pressure of the deep seas, water can easily enter such foams (like in a sponge) causing a craft to sink. Syntactic foams make use of tiny hollow particles to disperse air in a polymer and make it a lightweight foam. Use of hollow particles provides the advantage of the pores not connecting to each other. Even if such foams are damaged, they still do not absorb any significant amount of liquid since they pores are not interconnected. The hollow particles are usually made of glass and have diameters on the range of 4 ten-thousandths of an inch to 4 thousandths of an inch (0.01 to 0.1 millimeters) — 1 to 10 times the diameter of a human hair. Enclosing the air inside tiny glass shell does the trick of making the material lightweight while keeping it strong enough to withstand those high pressures.

The structure of a syntactic foam can be visualized in a 3-D computer model. Researchers analyze the computer models using modern techniques, such as finite element methods, to determine the compositions that will work the best under the high compressive forces encountered in deep-sea exploration. Some of the promising compositions are then manufactured and experimentally tested to ensure that the syntactic foams have the properties the analyses suggested.

When viewed under an electron microscope, the material looks like a tightly backed assemblage of little balls. Since all of the air pockets, the pores, are surrounded by glass, water cannot enter them. This means the material can be used underwater for extended times without breaking down and sinking. The addition of hollow particles also makes syntactic foams more thermally stable — they don't shrink as much as polymer foams would when the temperature drops.

Researchers are trying to continuously develop new syntactic foams that are lighter and stronger for improved payload capacity. In our lab, we have developed new methods to tailor the density, strength and thermal-expansion behavior of syntactic foams. Such methods can generate foams that provide high performance under the challenging environments of deep-sea exploration. Development of particles of high strength ceramics such as silicon carbide and alumina, rather than glass, and reinforcement of syntactic foams with fibers can help in improving their performance.

Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates — and become part of the discussion — on Facebook, Twitter and Google +. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Live Science.

This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

Few places have captured the human imagination like Antarctica. It is colder than anywhere on Earth, bounded by rough seas, buffeted by intense winds, home to fauna that are found nowhere else and, as far as we can tell, is a land where no human settlement has ever endured.

A frozen landmass of 14 million square km (almost twice the size of Australia), where only about 4,000 people inhabit scientific bases in the short summer, and a paltry 1,000 in the winter.

It is protected by a historic treaty that safeguards it from mining and development. But as countries, particularly China, expand their presence in Antarctica, this half-century-old agreement is coming under increasing pressure.

Heroic age of exploration

James Cook somewhat egotistically remarked in 1773 that “no man will venture farther than I have done, and … the lands which may lie to the south will never be explored”. He was, of course, wrong.

Less than 50 years later, in 1821, the first recorded landing took place and the exploration of the southern continent began. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the heroic age of Antarctic exploration gave us stories of men (for they were all men) pushing themselves to the very limits of human endurance. Scott and Amundsen’s famous race to the South Pole and the subsequent perishing of Scott and his party is but one example of the publicly and privately sponsored efforts to research and lay claim to the continent.

More than 100 years later, the southern land still remains a hidden and distant frontier. Its remote mystique is the attraction for the more than 25,000 tourists who sailed, flew, or set foot on the continent in the 2012-13 season. Although that is significantly more than the numbers living on scientific bases, it is still only half the number of people who visit Disneyland on a typical day.

And at a time when powerful new technologies are giving us a knowledge and understanding of remote places there is comparatively little interest in the Antarctic. Why be concerned with a place once described by Australian historian and novelist Thomas Kenneally as “the pure and dreadful continent”? After all, it is vast, intensely inclement and not a particularly enticing place for even the most warmly dressed human.

Antarctica on the brink

Yet we should be wary of this complacent, detached mindset. Antarctica may be on the limits of habitability, yet the interest in mining and exploitation is growing.

The Antarctic Treaty itself is an unprecedented agreement to manage human activity and influence over the commons through the principles of peace, cooperation and science. It has proved remarkably robust. In 1991 the treaty’s Madrid Protocol banned all commercial mining with provisions for review in 50 years.

Over recent months and years there has been a steady and growing trickle of news revealing intensifying interest in the place. Discovering diamonds, for instance, is the kind of development that tends to get people excited.

Since the early expeditions, Antarctic research has had the dual purpose of advancing understanding while also signifying national claims on the continent. Now, 50 years after the Antarctic Treaty came into force, under the cloak of scientific research, countries are exploring the potential of the world’s last unexploited continent. It has been estimated that under its current polar five-year plan, China is spending around 350m yuan (US$55m) per year on Antarctica.

This funding is going towards significant new infrastructure: a second icebreaking vessel, an ice-capable aircraft, helicopters and a new polar campus in Shanghai. When those trapped aboard the MV Akademik Shokalskiy earlier this year were finally rescued, it was notably a Chinese helicopter that transported people to safety.

China in pole position

There is nothing secret about the purpose of this investment. China’s leadership is unambiguous about its polar aims. At a Politburo committee conference in July last year, President Xi Jinping emphasized the necessity of polar exploration to “take advantage of ocean and polar resources”.

Last month, China opened its fourth research base, a development heralded by President Xi as a further step in scientific understanding and “human development”.

Despite the Antarctic Treaty supposedly having put the issue of territorial claims to bed, sovereignty in Antarctica can be seen as somewhat amorphous. States now tend to assert themselves by building research bases, although the Colonial-age practice of flag-planting continues.

In 2012, the British Government, without reference to any other party to the Antarctic Treaty, named 437,708 square km of British territory (twice the size of the United Kingdom) as “Queen Elizabeth Land” to mark the monarch’s diamond jubilee, despite it overlapping with previous claims by Chile and Argentina. Pull a trick like that anywhere else in the world and it would be tantamount to a declaration of war. But the move received little more than diplomatic rebuke.

Growing political pressure

As the rules of the Antarctic Treaty gradually become less relevant and fit for purpose, established and emerging economies are quietly yet consistently jockeying for position. If China builds its planned fifth research station it will have more than either Britain or Australia, and only one fewer than the United States.

Next month’s Antarctic Treaty meeting will go through the standard deliberations conforming to the established diplomatic protocols. Yet the decisions that really matter are increasingly being taken not by delegates to treaty talks, but by the central government agencies of the richest and most powerful countries.

As a country key to the development and strengthening of the Antarctic Treaty, with the largest territory on the continent and a proud history of scientific involvement and exploration, these are matters of huge importance to Australia.

So watch this space. My colleagues and I at the University of Sydney are working to understand and communicate these dynamics, and to address how the intensifying geo-political, economic and environmental pressures will be managed: perhaps through a radical re-casting of the Antarctic Treaty, or - more alarmingly - by seeing the treaty replaced with an unseemly dash for resources.

Nick Rowley does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Live Science.

NEW YORK — Goat testicles, earthworms, python and jellyfish were on the menu here at the Waldorf Astoria hotel Saturday night (March 15). But that wasn't out of the ordinary.

The Explorers Club Annual Dinner has become famous for a cocktail hour that dares its adventurous attendees to be daring with their palates — though not all were up for the challenge.

"Could I say that I gave up eating bugs for Lent?" former NASA astronaut Mike López-Alegría told Live Science last week ahead of the party. [See Photos of the Exotic Foods at the 2014 Explorers Club Gala]

The smell of durian (think rotting meat wrapped in dirty socks) filled one corner of the black-tie gala. A chef in another room cut thick slices of ostrich, poultry that surprisingly looked and tasted like steak. The crispy carcasses of muskrats, alligators and snakehead fish populated the other carving boards, and fried tarantulas were served on sticks. Eaters in gowns and tuxedos found even the most innocuous-looking appetizers, such as mozzarella and tomato skewers, seasoned with mealworms, crickets and other critters.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos joked that he had to pick cockroach out of his teeth as he got on stage during the more traditional, sit-down dinner portion of the evening. (This reporter was too squeamish to sample the roaches but overheard someone saying the exoskeletons took an unsettling amount of time to chew.)

Bezos was accepting a Citation of Merit for the seafaring expedition he funded last year to recover fragments of the F-1 engines that launched giant Saturn V rockets to the moon during the Apollo era. In addition to Bezos and López-Alegría, the star-studded list of guests and honorees included SpaceX founder Elon Musk; moonwalker Buzz Aldrin; ocean explorers Sylvia Earle and Walter Munk; retired NASA astronaut Franklin Chang Díaz; and planetary scientist Maria Zuber. Physicist Stephen Hawking even addressed the crowd via telecast.

While the hors d'oeuvres were in keeping with the intrepid spirit of the evening, Gene Rurka, the man behind the menu, had another motive in serving creepy crawlies to A-list explorers.

"The message I'm trying to bring across to people is that we're basically out of food," Rurka told Live Science in an earlier interview. "In a few more years, we could have 9.5 billion people on Earth, and we've got to feed all of these people. We have to look at alternative methods of agriculture — not just your beef, your pork, your chicken."

Follow Megan Gannon on Twitter and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

Incredible journeys

It's easy to forget in the day of the airplane and the automobile, but most of the human exploration of planet Earth has been done on horseback and on foot. Some forays into the backcountry end in glory; others are a tragedy for everyone involved. Here are some of the wildest overland journeys in human history.

Zhang Qian opens the Silk Road

The year was 138 B.C., and the emperor of China was having border troubles. A hostile tribe of Central Asian nomads (known in China as the Xiongnu) kept attacking Han Chinese towns, ransacking and stealing goods. Frustrated, the emperor sent a military officer by the name of Zhang Qian west from the city of Xi'an in China to what is now Tajikistan with instructions to forge an alliance with another tribe, the Yuezhi.

Unfortunately for Zhang Qian, the path to Yuezhi lands let him right through the Xiongnu's domain. He was captured almost immediately and held for 10 years. Luckily, captivity was fairly cushy for Zhang Qian: The Xiongnu leader gave him a wife and gradually grew to trust him.

Zhang Qian eventually managed to escape, along with his wife and soldiers. Despite a decade of delay, he didn't give up on his mission: He and his men skirted the northern edge of the Tarim Basin and traveled through what is now the Xinjiang province to modern-day Tajikistan. The Yuezhi turned out to be uninterested in fighting the Chinese emperor's wars, but Zhang Qian was impressed by their advanced agriculture and strong horses. He made his way back to Xi'an ⎯ getting waylaid for another 2 years by the Xiongnu in the process ⎯ to tell the emperor of the opportunities for trade across the border. These reports would eventually contribute to the opening of the great Silk Road, a series of overland trade routes between East and West.

Coronado seeks out a city of gold

In 1540, Francisco Vásquez de Coronado y Luján, a wealthy estate owner and governor, set out from northwest Mexico looking for a fabled city of gold. This city, said to exist somewhere to the north, was known as Cibola, and given the riches of the Aztecs and Inca to the south, it seemed likely that natives to the north might also have treasure ripe for the taking.

Coronado took with him an army of hundreds of Spaniards and natives. They met and fought Pueblo Indians in what is now New Mexico and captured two native men, one of whom claimed that the fabled Cibola was farther north.

The expedition soon found itself tramping through the seemingly infinite grass of the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles. They faced a Great Plains hailstorm that ripped holes in their tents and dented their helmets. Eventually, they made it to a Wichita Indian village near what is now Lindsborg, Kan. To Coronado's chagrin, the only gold to be seen was the Indians' cornfields. He had his native informant executed and limped back to New Mexico, where he received a head injury after falling off his horse. He returned to Mexico, bankrupted by the two-year expedition, and died 10 years later in Mexico City.

Lewis and Clark map the American West

Meriwether Lewis and William Clark set out on their famous cross-continental expedition in 1804 in an attempt to find a water route to the Pacific. As it turned out, no such thing existed, but the 33-man expedition still managed to map the Northwest and catalogue hundreds of new plant and animal species.

Lewis and Clark had a lot of help from native informers in finding their way, but the journey was still difficult. During their first year, they wintered in North Dakota, where they recorded temperatures of minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 40 degrees Celsius). The next spring, a fork in the Missouri River forced the expedition to split up and travel dozens of miles in both directions to determine the right route. In Montana, they had to portage their canoes and equipment 18 miles (29 kilometers), a process that took a month and subjected them to hailstorms, clouds of mosquitoes and the ever-present threat of grizzly bears. Soon after, they traversed Montana's Bitterroot Mountains, where game was scarce and the men had to shoot and eat three of their own horses.

In the end, Lewis and Clark would make it to the Pacific and back with all but one of their men, who died of appendicitis. Upon their return, they were acclaimed as heroes and eventually made governors of some of the new territories they had explored.

Napoleon invades Russia

In 1812, Napoleon Bonaparte was at the height of his power. With all of Europe under his thumb, the French emperor turned his attention toward Russia. In June, he sent a force of between 400,000 and 600,000 men to take Moscow.

By the time the army entered the city, there was little left to conquer. The Czar and many of the city's residents had fled, burning any items of value they had to leave behind. In mid-October, unable to wait any longer for a surrender that never came, Napoleon and his forces made their retreat.

They had waited too long. The snows came early that year, burying the grass that would have fed the army's horses. When the army passed villages, the desperate animals tried to feed on the thatched roofs of houses, but most starved quickly. Soon enough, the soldiers began to starve, too. In the subzero temperatures, many simply froze to death. Far more died from hunger or cold than were killed in battle. In the end, Napoleon's 400,000 to 600,000-man army was reduced to a ragged, pitiful force of 20,000.

The Donner Party gets stranded

In the 1840s, thousands of American pioneers struck out to find their fortune in the West. Most took the well-worn Oregon Trail to Wyoming, after which they could choose one of several routes to California or Oregon. If all went well, the trip would take between four and six months. But in the spring of 1846, a man named Lansford Hastings thought he had a shortcut.

Hastings, an early pioneer, had published a guide for other travelers in which he recommended the Hastings Cutoff, a trail through Utah's Wasatch Mountains and Great Salt Lake Desert. By 1846, Hastings had only traveled this route once, without the heavy wagons used by pioneer families. Nonetheless, he sent emissaries east with letters urging émigrés to follow his directions for a quicker trip to California.

Among the recipients of this letter was the well-to-do Donner family. Along with eight other families and 16 single men, the Donners decided to take Hastings' route. This turned out to be a very bad decision.

The trail was nearly impassible, forcing the men in the party to hack through undergrowth and move boulders to create space for the wagons. Once they made it through the mountains, the pioneers had to face the arid salt flats of Utah, where they lost 36 oxen, several wagons and multiple supplies. By the time they reached the Sierra Nevada Mountains, winter had closed in.

What happened next is well known: Stranded, the party ate their livestock down to the hide and bones. When the animal flesh ran out, they turned to their own dead. By the time rescue parties arrived in February and March, bodies littered the pioneers' camps. Of the 87 members of the Donner Party who entered the Wasatch Mountains together, only 41 finished the journey.

Stanley seeks out Livingstone

In 1840s England, David Livingstone was a celebrity. This missionary and explorer took the country by storm with his tales of Africa before disappearing in the so-called "Dark Continent" in the 1860s. The media was desperate to find him, so desperate that a New York Herald editor financed an expedition by reporter Henry Stanley to seek out the lost national hero.

Stanley launched his 200-man expedition from the Zanzibar coast (part of what is now Tanzania) in 1871. His goal was Lake Tanganyika, a great lake on the borders of what is now Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zambia and Tanzania. Despite his lavish funding, Stanley soon found that overland travel in Africa was tough. His horse died from a tsetse fly bite within days, his porters began to desert (perhaps as a result of brutal treatment by Stanley) and disease plagued the expedition.

After eight months, Stanley found his quarry in a village in what is now Tanzania. The two may or may not have had the famous "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" conversation ⎯ journalists in the Victorian era being prone to exaggeration ⎯ but they did explore Lake Tanganyika together before Stanley left Africa. Livingstone remained behind, and would die of malaria and dysentery two years later.

Fridtjof Nansen attempts to reach the North Pole

In 1893, Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen did something odd: He froze his ship, the Fram, into Arctic pack ice and waited for the current to carry him to the North Pole.

After 18 months of drifting, Nansen went to Plan B. On March 14, 1895, he and his shipmate Hjalmar Johansen struck out for the pole on skis, taking three teams of sled dogs and three sleds to carry their supplies. They were 400 miles (640 km) from the pole with only 30 days' rations, and the terrain soon became rough. The pair got closer to the pole than anyone ever had, but after about three weeks, they realized they would never make it without starving to death.

The men turned back, aiming for the Arctic archipelago of Franz Josef Land. They traveled for weeks before finding signs of life ⎯ seals, gulls and whales. But they didn't know where they were, and winter was closing in. They found a sheltered cove and passed a frigid, dull winter holed up in a shelter made of stones and walrus bones. That spring, they set out again, finally reaching Cape Flora at the southern tip of the archipelago. There, they met another group of explorers, who returned them to a civilization that had largely given them up for dead.

Ferdinand Magellan was a Portuguese explorer who led the first expedition to circumnavigate the globe. Like many of his contemporaries, Magellan set out to discover a Western sea route to the Spice Islands in Indonesia. Magellan ended up proving, instead, that the world was indeed round and bigger than anyone had previously imagined.

Early life

Ferdinand Magellan was born about 1480 to a noble family in Portugal. As a boy, he served the queen of Portugal as a page, and studied cartography and navigation tenaciously.

In his mid-20s, Magellan joined the Portuguese fleet — a job that took him to East Africa, where he fought Egyptian ships in the Battle of Diu; Malacca (Malaysia), where he participated in the conquest of their port; and Morocco, where a wound resulted in a limp he would suffer for the rest of his life. While in Morocco, Magellan was accused of trading illegally with the Moors. Despite his repeated denial of the allegations, Magellan lost his post and future offers of Portuguese employment.

In 1517, Magellan moved to Seville, Spain, where he met a well-connected Portuguese transplant, Diogo Barbosa, married his daughter, Beatriz, and had a son. The Barbosas secured Magellan a meeting with the Spanish court to discuss Magellan’s idea for a voyage. Inspired by the voyages of Christopher Columbus, Vasco Núñez de Balboa and other explorers, Magellan had devised a plan to find a westward-sailing, all-water route to the Spice Islands (also called the Moluccas). Young King Charles I readily approved and financed the expedition.

Journey in the Atlantic

On Aug. 10, 1519, Magellan set sail with 270 men and five ships: the Trinidad (commanded by Magellan), the San Antonio, the Victoria, the Conception, and the Santiago. From Spain, the fleet sailed to Brazil and then headed south, hugging the coast. They were searching for a fabled water passage that would allow them to cross South America without going around Cape Horn.

Going was hard. Magellan searched Rio de la Plata, a Brazilian estuary, fruitlessly for a long time. Many crewmembers were freezing in the bad weather or starving. At Port San Julian, off the coast of Patagonia (which Magellan named), the crew mutinied against Magellan on Easter midnight. He quelled the uprising, killing one captain and leaving another behind. He also sent the Santiago ahead to scout, but it was shipwrecked. Most of the crewmembers were saved, and the fleet spent a winter of harrowing storms in Port San Julian.

Strait of Magellan

When the weather improved, Magellan set sail again. On Oct. 21, 1520, he finally found the passageway that would come to bear his name. The Strait of Magellan is a curvy, narrow channel that separates Tierra del Fuego at the tip of South America from the continental mainland. Sailing through it was treacherous: dangerous to navigate, freezing cold and foggy.

It took the fleet over a month to pass through the 350-mile strait. During that time, the captain of the San Antonio turned his ship around and sailed back to Spain — taking a good deal of the supplies with him.

Pacific Ocean

After 38 days on the strait, the fleet finally emerged at the Pacific Ocean in November 1520. They were the first Europeans to see this ocean. Magellan named it Mar Pacifico because its waters appeared calm in comparison to the difficult strait waters.

Magellan underestimated the size of the ocean, and the ships were unprepared for the journey. Many crewmembers starved while searching for land. Finally in March, the ships landed at Guam. There, they were able to replenish their foot supplies before sailing to the Philippines.

Philippines and Magellan’s death

Upon landing at Cebu, Magellan was overcome with religious zeal and decided to convert the natives to Christianity. Some of the natives agreed to convert, while others did not — and the split caused problems in the population. The Cebuan king became Christian, and sought to fight against a neighboring group, the Mactan, who did not convert. The Cebuans asked Magellan to join them in their fight, and he agreed.

Against the advice of his men, Magellan led the attack, assuming his European weapons would ensure a quick victory. The Mactan people, however, fought fiercely and struck Magellan with a poison arrow. Magellan died from the wound on April 27, 1521.

Return to Spain

After Magellan’s death, Sebastian del Cano took command of the two remaining ships, the Trinidad and the Victoria (the Conception was burned because there were not enough men left to operate it). A former mutineer, del Cano led the ships to the Spice Islands. After securing the spices they had so long ago set out for, the ships set sail for Spain. The Trinidad was attacked by a Portuguese ship and left shipwrecked.

In September 1522 — three years and a month since the journey began — the Victoria docked back in Seville. Only one ship of the original five — and only 18 men of the original 270 — survived the voyage. Among them was Antonio Pigafetta, a scholar who had kept a detailed diary of the expedition.

Magellan’s accomplishments

Though Magellan did not make it around the world, he did lead the first expedition to do so. And though the Strait of Magellan was too dangerous to be used as a regular route, its mapping proved invaluable to the European understanding of the world — as did the European discovery of the Pacific Ocean and the empirical proof that the world was round. [Countdown: 9 Craziest Ocean Voyages]

This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

Antarctica is a desolate place. That much we know, but nothing prepares you for it until you actually get there. It’s cold, windy and lonely. Everything about it is the exact opposite of my normal summer destination. But scientists value the continent like an uncut gem.

Every bit of data retrieved from Antarctica pushes science forward. Which is why just over a month ago, we set out on the Australasian Antarctic Expedition 2013. Our goal was a survey of the Southern Ocean near a place called Commonwealth Bay, which is unique because its conditions changed dramatically a few years ago.

Ever since Sir Douglas Mawson first arrived in Commonwealth Bay in 1912, the place has been ice-free and directly connected to the Southern Ocean in summer. But in 2010 a giant iceberg (B09B, almost 100km wide) ran aground in the middle of the bay and since then sea ice has been building up around the berg. There is now 70km of ice between the ocean and the site where Mawson sailed in.

Scientifically, the iceberg offers a wonderful opportunity. Climate change in Antarctica means melting of the ice sheet, but also an increase in sea ice. While the extra sea ice in Commonwealth Bay is not directly due to climate change, the site offers a unique glimpse of how it affects the ecosystems.

Commonwealth Bay is as close to a controlled lab experiment as one can get in Antarctic science. So despite my aversion to cold, I joined a team of ecologists, glaciologists, ornithologists and oceanographers heading south. Along with us, we had journalists, teachers and nearly two dozen paying science volunteers. We set out to study what difference an iceberg makes.

With the birds

I’ve been at sea before, having spent a total of 15 weeks aboard four different research vessels, measuring the temperature and salinity of the ocean. But all of these expeditions were in the subtropics. There isn’t much ice around there.

Taking observations on ice is much more difficult than in open water. Going off the ship is an endeavour – the Antarctic equivalent of a spacewalk. It requires careful planning and preparation. Even a short trip requires a full survival kit, including tent, sleeping bag, freeze-dried food and a plastic bag to use as toilet. This is because blizzards can trap people in the open without warning. Fortunately, we never needed to use the survival kit. Nor the plastic bag.

We returned to the ship with some amazing data. My ecologist colleagues found that kelp forests are dying in Commonwealth Bay because the sea ice blocks sunlight. My ornithologist colleague found that penguin colonies are in decline as the penguins need to walk so much further to get to open water. And I found that the water below the sea ice has become less saline.

The cyclic freezing and melting of the bottom parts of the sea ice annually has created a 40m thick freshwater lens. As freshwater freezes more easily than saltier water, the drop in salinity below the sea ice means that it is easier to form new sea ice. This is called a positive feedback cycle, and it means that the bay is likely to remain covered with sea ice for quite some time.

Testing times

And then we became world news. As we packed up our gear and got ready to sail back to New Zealand, we got caught by a massive outbreak of unusually thick, old sea ice. Within hours, our ship was surrounded by heavy ice, too thick for us to break through. We were stuck in our own experiment. Stranded in the ice we came to study.

Thanks to crews of the Chinese icebreaker Xue Long, the French icebreaker l’Astrolabe and the Australian icebreaker Aurora Australis, we were rescued. Not only did the evacuation they carry out bring everyone to safety, we were able to salvage our valuable samples and data as well. This data is crucial for helping us to understand Antarctica better.

Our adventure shows the difficulty of fieldwork in Antarctica. One hundred years since the first exploration it is still a major endeavour to get to the frozen continent. But there is so much research to be done – and we need all the help we can get.

Erik van Sebille receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC).

This article was originally published at The Conversation. Read the original article. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was orignally published on LiveScience.

A Japanese explorer will attempt to hike solo to the North Pole next year, armed with only as many supplies as he can carry. In March, Yasunaga Ogita, who was forced to cut short his first attempt at the harrowing 500-mile (800 kilometers) journey in 2012, is aiming to trek from the northernmost part of Nunavut, in Canada, to the North Pole, reported Japan Today.

Ogita will have only 220 pounds (100 kilograms) of supplies with him on the journey, and there will be no opportunities to gather more provisions along the way. The intrepid explorer will attempt to complete the grueling trek in 50 days, according to Japan Today.

Ogita will begin training in February, and is scheduled to depart Nunavut in March. If successful, Ogita will become the first Japanese person to complete the daring expedition, and only the third person to successfully trek solo to the North Pole.

Follow Denise Chow on Twitter @denisechow. Follow LiveScience @livescience, Facebook & Google+.

Profiles of courage

National Geographic recognized 13 individuals for their achievements in exploration, adventure sports, conservation or humanitarianism in their list of 2014 Adventurers of the Year.

Here are some of the individuals who made NatGeo's list of Adventurers of the Year.

Adam Ondra

Adam Ondra, one of National Geographic's 2014 Adventurers of the Year, is a Czech rock climber who takes climbing to new frontiers of difficulty.

Greg Long

American big-wave surfer Greg Long was selected as one of National Geographic's 2014 Adventurers of the Year.

Amy and Dave Freeman

National Geographic selected Amy and Dave Freeman as two of their 2014 Adventurers of the Year. These American adventurers and educators completed a three-year, 11,647-mile (18,750 kilometers) journey across North America by kayak, canoe, doglsed and foot. In this photo, Amy and Dave Freeman ski across Great Bear Lake in Canada.

Kilian Jornet Burgada

Kilian Jornet Burgada was named one of National Geographic's 2014 Adventurers of the Year. Burgada is a Spanish ultrarunner whose brand of "skyrunning" involves blazing up glaciers, rock ridges and steep snowfields. In this photo, Burgada is climbing the Matternhorn in the Alps.

JP Auclair

Canadian skier JP Auclair is best known for his special style of urban skiing. Auclair was chosen as one of National Geographic's 2014 Adventurers of the Year.

Diana Nyad

Diana Nyad, who was named one of National Geographic's 2014 Adventurers of the Year, became the first person to swim from Havana, Cuba to Key West, Fla., in September 2013.

What could be more adventurous than running up glaciers, swimming from Cuba to the United States, or summiting one of the most treacherous peaks in the world? National Geographic recently named 13 intrepid individuals as their 2014 Adventurers of the Year, and now, fans are invited to choose their favorite honoree.

The Adventurers of the Year were chosen to celebrate special achievements in exploration, adventure sports, conservation or humanitarianism over the past year, according to National Geographic.

"This is the ninth year that National Geographic has combed the globe to find people who embody the spirit of adventure in diverse ways," Mary Anne Potts, editor of National Geographic Adventure online, said in a statement. "The 2014 Adventurers of the Year are truly inspiring and remind us of the importance to pursue our own passions every day." [7 Extreme Female Explorers]

The public is now invited to vote online for the People's Choice Adventurer of the Year. The voting period will run through Jan. 31, 2014, and the winner will be announced in February. Fans can vote once a day on National Geographic Adventure's website.

The 2014 Adventurers of the Year are:

Stacy Bare and Nick Watson— American adventurers and military veterans who launched an organization that links vets to the outdoors and the outdoors community.

Greg Long— American big-wave surfer who won the 2012/13 Big-Wave World Tour, despite nearly losing his life in a massive wipeout a few months earlier.

Amy and Dave Freeman — American adventurers and educators who completed a three-year, 11,647-mile (18,750 kilometers) journey across North America by kayak, canoe, dogsled and foot, connecting with students and teachers along the way.

Diana Nyad — Sixty-four-year-old American long-distance swimmer who recently completed a swim between Cuba and the United States on her fifth attempt.

Kevin Pearce — American snowboarder who, after surviving a traumatic brain injury, launched the "Love Your Brain" campaign to encourage the use of helmets for kids.

Kilian Jornet Burgada — Spanish "skyrunning" ultrarunner whose new brand of running involves blazing up technical terrain, such as glaciers, rock ridges and steep snowfields.

Raphael Slawinski and Ian Welsted — Canadian alpinists who were the first to summit Pakistan's K6 West, one of the last great unclimbed peaks in the world, despite danger and political turmoil in the region.

Adam Ondra — Czech rock climber and two-time world climbing champion.

JP Auclair — Canadian skier who is best known for his special style of urban skiing.

Sarah Marquis — Swiss hiker who has just completed a three-year trek from Siberia to Australia. 

Follow Denise Chow on Twitter @denisechow. Follow OurAmazingPlanet @OAPlanet, Facebook and Google+. Original article at LiveScience's OurAmazingPlanet.

John Smith was an English explorer, soldier and writer best known for his role in establishing the first permanent English colony in the New World at Jamestown, Virginia. Smith's legend has grown over the centuries, in particular due to the popular story of his involvement with Pocahontas, a native American princess.

However, Smith was a notorious self-promoter, and the truth of that tale may never be known. Much of what is known about Smith comes from his own writings, which include multiple versions of events and enhance Smith’s role. George Percy, a fellow Jamestown leader and eventual governor of Virginia, described Smith as “an Ambityous unworthy and vayneglorious fellowe.” Smith’s self-aggrandizing personality has cast doubt on his claims since the 1600s, and his legacy remains controversial today.

Early years

Smith was born in 1580 to a farming family in Lincolnshire. He left home at age 16 to become a soldier, traveling to France to fight the Spanish. After his return to England, he taught himself wilderness survival techniques, and later worked on a merchant ship. In 1600, he went to Hungary to fight with the Habsburg forces against the Turks, where he was promoted to captain.

In 1602, he was captured and enslaved by a Turk, who sent him to what is now Istanbul to serve his sweetheart. According to Smith, the girl fell in love with him but sent him to serve her brother with hopes that her brother would train him for the Turkish imperial service. The brother, however, was cruel. Smith killed the brother and escaped. After traveling widely in Europe and North Africa, he returned to England in 1605.

Jamestown

Back in England, a restless Smith became involved with the Virginia Company, which sought to colonize Virginia. On Dec. 20, 1606, three small ships carrying 104 settlers, including Smith, left England, bound for Virginia. During the trip, Smith was arrested for mutiny.

According to Smith, the gentlemen on board were jealous of his military and naval experience and looked down on him because of his rural upbringing. He said they accused him of plotting to seize power for himself. He spent most of the voyage in irons and was nearly hanged.

Prior to departure, the leaders of the Virginia Company had selected seven voyagers to govern the colony. They put the names of the chosen in a sealed box, which was not to be opened until arrival in Virginia. Upon landfall four months later, the colonists opened the box and discovered that Smith’s name was among the chosen leaders. Smith was allowed to take up a position on the council — but he remained disliked.

Early on, Jamestown was plagued by several problems: drought, harsh winters, swamps, famine, thirst, disease and skirmishes with the natives. Smith’s approach to these problems differed from many of the council members. Smith regarded the other leaders as gentlemen with no knowledge or experience in how to fight for survival. After five months in Jamestown, Smith and two other councilmen came together to remove colony president Edward Wingfield from office. John Ratcliffe was assigned to be the new president.

Under Ratcliffe’s leadership, Smith was appointed cape merchant and tasked with trading with the natives for food. Smith conducted expeditions throughout the region.

Chief Powhatan and Pocahontas

On one such expedition in December 1607, Smith and his party were ambushed on the Chickahominy River by a large Powhatan hunting party. Smith was the sole survivor and was brought to Werowocomoco, the village of the paramount chief’s residence.

What happened next is unclear, as Smith gave varying accounts, and the story has been mythologized in popular culture. The popular story is that the natives were ready to bash his brains out, when Pocahontas, Chief Powhatan’s 11-year-old daughter, threw herself on top of Smith, trying to shield him from death. However, Smith did not write this version until 1624 in his book, "Generall Historie."

In a letter written soon after the event and long before "Generall Historie" was published, Smith described feasting and conversing with Chief Powhatan. Most historians believe that the Powhatan people conducted an adoption ceremony, welcoming Smith into their community, but that Smith did not understand this. Also, anthropologist Helen C. Rountree points out in "Pocahontas, Powhatan, Opechancanough: Three Lives Changed by Jamestown" (2005) that Pocahontas may well have been too young to even attend the ceremony. Girls her age were responsible for preparing food and cleaning up afterward.

Chief Powhatan announced that they were friends and that if Smith gave him two cannons and a grindstone, he would give Smith the village of Capahosic and would consider him a son. It is now understood that Chief Powhatan was trying to expand his empire and neutralize the English threat, but Smith may not have seen this motivation.

After four weeks at Werowocomoco, Smith returned to Jamestown on friendly terms with the Powhatan people. They continued contact for some time, and Pocahontas often visited Jamestown with food. Though she and Smith were acquainted, they were never romantically involved.

Mapping the Chesapeake

When Smith returned to Jamestown in January, he discovered that he had been replaced on the council. Settlers thought Smith was responsible for his companions’ deaths on the Chickahominy River, and he was sentenced to hang. Luckily for Smith, the night of his sentencing, about 100 new settlers from England arrived with food and other reinforcements. Smith’s charges and execution were forgotten during the celebration.

With the arrival of new settlers and the help from the Powhatans, the situation at Jamestown began to slowly improve. At this point, the Virginia Company sent Smith to explore the Chesapeake in search of gold and a passage to the Pacific Ocean. Smith embarked on two lengthy voyages, investigating 2,500 miles of territory. He did not find gold or a route west, but he did acquire food for the colonists, learned about the natives and created highly accurate maps of the area. These maps became one of Smith’s greatest accomplishments and were used by future explorers.

Presidency and war

When he returned to Jamestown, Smith’s popularity once again plummeted. A private letter he had written detailing his dissatisfaction with colony leadership and Virginia Company policies had been published in England. Company and colony leadership was understandably displeased.

Nevertheless, in September 1608, Smith was elected president of the colony. He immediately set about strengthening defenses and securing more food. Smith declared, “He that will not work shall not eat,” and forced the colonists to plant crops, repair the fort, develop products like pitch and soap ash for export, and more. According to Smith, his policies yielded productive results — but they nevertheless remained unpopular. The death toll fell but colonists were still unable to produce enough food and remained dependent upon Indian trade.

This was problematic because Virginia was experiencing a severe drought. The Powhatan community was also short on food, and therefore refused to share with the English for a time. Smith responded to this situation with violence, burning villages, stealing food, imprisoning, beating, and forcing the natives into labor. This violent approach caused further problems for Smith, since Virginia Company officials and other colony leaders wanted to convert the Indians to Christianity.

In 1609, the colonists decided to “coronate” Chief Powhatan in an attempt to improve relations with the natives while putting them under King James’ rule. Smith warned that this wouldn’t work, and he was right. Powhatan refused to kneel and the ceremony was a failure. Powhatan cut off aid to the settlers and tried to have Smith killed. Some versions of the story attest that Pocahontas warned Smith of the murder plot.

Relations between the English and the Powhatans were ruined, and the First Anglo-Powhatan War began. It ended only when Pocahontas married John Rolfe in 1614. Smith continued to have political troubles, enacting controversial policies and refusing to step down as president. The Virginia Company decided instead to do away with the title and send a governor.

In September 1609, Smith was caught in a gunpowder explosion and suffered severe burns. Though Smith claimed that the explosion was an accident, historians think it may well have been attempted murder. The severely injured Smith was sent back to England. After he left, Jamestown experienced a terrible famine known as the Starving Time, which only 60 out of 240 settlers survived.

Later years

Despite his wishes, the Virginia Company did not send Smith back to Jamestown, and he never again returned to the colony. He did, however, explore and map an area north of Virginia, which he named New England. His efforts to establish a colony in New England were thwarted when he was captured by French pirates in 1615. After his escape, Smith returned to England and began writing about his life.

In 1620, the Pilgrims almost selected Smith as their military adviser but they chose Miles Standish instead. They did, however, use Smith's map of New England when voyaging to Plymouth.

Smith reunited with Pocahontas in England, when she traveled there with John Rolfe and their son. Smith continued to write his memoirs and offer advice until his death on June 21, 1631.

Further reading

• Historic Jamestowne, Preservation Virginia
• Life of John Smith, National Park Service
• Pocahontas: Her Life and Legend, National Park Service

Upper East Side

The Explorers Club is located on East 70th St. in Manhattan's Upper East Side. The exclusive membership is open only to explorers who've sailed to new shores, climbed to new heights or trekked on new paths.

Explorers' Lounge

The members lounge of the Explorers Club is a place for members to meet, discuss expeditions, or just read the newspaper. The wood paneling emulates the style popular in Tudor England in the 15th and 16th centuries.

A Table With a History

The coffee table at the Explorers Club used to be a hatch cover for the survey ship Explorer, an unarmed research vessel that narrowly escaped the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, because it was out of port at the time.

Many Firsts

This plaque in the lobby of the Explorers Club notes just a few of the famous expeditions its members participated in: the first trips to both the North and South Poles, the first summit of Mount Everest, the first expedition to the Mariana Trench at the bottom of the ocean, and the first trip to the moon.

A few famous expeditions

The globe at the rear of the Explorers Club lobby was where, according to legend, Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl gathered his associates to first propose plans for the famous Kon-Tiki expedition, which sailed a balsa-wood raft 4,300 miles from Peru to Polynesia, to prove that prehistoric South Americans could have originally settled the islands of the South Pacific.

Pickaxes

Pickaxes, a hat and a flag from one of the Explorers Club's numerous historical expeditions.

Wooden Ship Beams

The transverse wooden beams on the ceiling of the Explorers Club rear lobby were taken from the HMS Daedalus, a British Royal Navy ship built in 1828. Carved into the capitols of the pillars are angels.

Explorers Club Flag

The Explorers Club flag, bearing the letters "E," 'C," and a compass rose, is a proudly held symbol for the membership. Club members have carried this flag with them on their most significant expeditions around the world, and even into space.

Apollo Mementos

Mementos given to the Explorers Club by Apollo astronauts include a flag carried on the Apollo 8 mission, the first to orbit the moon, and a flag carried on Apollo 15, which landed on the moon in 1971.

Polar Bear

This taxidermied polar bear was given to the Explorers Club by explorer Rudy Valentino, who hunted it on the Chuckchi Sea in 1969.

Arctic Rescue

The painting above the fireplace, by Explorers Club member Albert Operti depicts the 1884 rescue of U.S. army explorer named Adolphus Greely's expedition to the edge of the Arctic Sea. The team was stranded for more than two years, but finally rescued by the crew of a ship called the Bear. Twenty-one years after his rescue, Greely went on to become the first president of the Explorers Club.

Explorer Peter Freuchen

Above the fireplace is a portrait of member Peter Freuchen, a Danish explorer who became stranded in a blizzard on Baffin Island in 1923 and suffered severe frostbite and gangrene on his left foot. To make it back to civilization alive, Freuchen was forced to knock off the toes of his foot with a hammer. Doctors later amputated Freuchen's left leg, but the intrepid explorer continued to explore Greenland and the Arctic.

Explorers Club Records

The Explorers Club keeps detailed records of its members' journeys and discoveries, and the headquarters building houses more than 10,000 books on topics related to exploration.

Trophy Room

These taxidermied specimens are just a few of the many heads, tusks and bodies dotting the Explorers Club "Trophy Room," which houses many of the club's prized artifacts.

A few famous members

Photos of Explorers Club members include Robert Peary, co-discoverer of the North Pole and the Club’s third president; Roald Amundsen, co-discover of the South Pole; Sir Ernest Shackleton, who famously rescued his stranded crew in Antarctica; President Theodore Roosevelt, who led two expeditions (to East Africa in 1908 and to the interior of Brazil in 1913, respectively); Matthew Henson, co-discoverer of the North Pole and the Club's first African-American member; Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, the first to summit the world’s highest mountain, Mt. Everest; Astronauts John Glenn, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins and Sally Ride; legendary pilot Chuck Yeager; oceanographer Dr. Sylvia Earle; and primatologist Dr. Jane Goodall.

Whale Penis

One of the Explorers Club's rarest artifacts is a preserved sperm whale penis, proudly displayed in the Trophy Room at its headquarters.

NEW YORK — Taxidermied animal heads, majestic elephant tusks and even a preserved whale penis adorn the walls and rooms of the Explorers Club. This exclusive society, based here on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, is open only to members who've sailed to new shores, climbed to new heights or trekked on new paths. In other words, real explorers.

A recent tour of the club's headquarters revealed a hidden enclave packed floor to ceiling with mementos of brave expeditions over the years.

In the entrance hall is a photo, a flag and a letter from the crew of Apollo 15, who carried the flag with them on their journey to the moon in 1971. Nearby is a signed photo from the crew of the Bathyscaphe Trieste, a submarine that dived to the deepest spot in the ocean, the Mariana Trench. Down the hall is a taxidermied polar bear presented to the Explorers Club by Rudy Valentino, who hunted the animal on the Chukchi Sea in 1969, according to a plaque. [Photos: Inside the Exclusive Explorers Club]

Founded in 1904, the Explorers Club currently has around 3,000 members. These members have climbed Mount Everest, explored the depths of the ocean and walked on the moon. The first explorers to reach the North Pole in 1909, and the first to visit the South Pole in 1911, also belonged to the club.

"It was founded by some of the foremost explorers of the time," said Jeff Blumenfeld, communications director for the Explorers Club. He described how like-minded trailblazers have been gathering here since the society's inception to share tales of their expeditions.

A trademark of the Explorers Club is its flag: red, white and blue, with a diagonal stripe in the middle bearing the letters E and C, and a compass rose. Club members have carried this flag with them on most of their major expeditions around the world and even into space.

"The flag is the seal of approval," Blumenfeld said, explaining that the same flag would often be carried on multiple journeys, until it had become too fragile, or too precious, because of where it had been, to be risked on further travels. Then, a new flag would replace it. "Eventually, we had to move from cotton to more durable polyester," Blumenfeld added.

Membership to the Explorers Club is exclusive. To join, applicants must have a sponsor among the ranks of current members, and must prove that they've been involved in actual exploration. Journeying for fun, photography, hunting or other nonscientific pursuits doesn't count.

"You go somewhere to explore something, to do science — it's not travel," Blumenfeld told LiveScience.

In addition to tangible mementos of its members' expeditions, the club keeps detailed records of their journeys and discoveries, and the building houses more than 10,000 books on topics related to exploration.

A hallway covered with photos of members — past and present — is a veritable who's who of famous explorers, from Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin to Thor Heyerdahl, who sailed across the Pacific Ocean in a homemade raft in 1947, to Tenzing Norgay, who was on the first expedition to the summit of Mount Everest in 1953 with Edmund Hillary.

On the club's top floor, a taxidermied penguin stands sentry in a corner, while a taxidermic cheetah prowls at the far end of the room. And yes, standing tall by the window is a preserved whale penis.

"I don't know what happened to the rest of the whale," Blumenfeld said.

Follow Clara Moskowitz on Twitter and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on LiveScience .

On Nov. 22, 1952, a C-124 Globemaster plane carrying 41 U.S. Air Force and Army men and 11 crew members crashed in Alaska’s remote wilderness. There were no survivors. Search parties fanned out, guided by a faint signal in the general radio silence, and the plane was found six days later on the south side of Mount Gannet, 50 miles from Anchorage.

The glacier-filled peaks of Mount Gannet are remote, and the plane had crashed onto the rugged terrain of the Knik and Colony glaciers. The weather was bad, and before the rescuers could recover any remains, the moving ice swallowed the plane and everything else. Since then, for 60 years, families of some victims have hoped that their loved ones’ remains will be returned to them.

How Global Warming Will Change Your Life

In June 2012, the glaciers spit out debris of an aircraft. An Alaskan Air National Guard contingent flying nearby on a training mission spotted the debris of what appeared to be a crashed military plane. They informed the Department of Defense’s Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, or JPAC,  which is tasked with searching for Americans lost in service.

Eight investigators from JPAC and the Northern Warfare Training Center hiked to the glaciers and found pieces of possible bone fragments and life support equipment, as well as other aircraft debris. They worked fast to recover the material, worried that the rapidly moving glacier would flow into a crevasse, hiding the wreckage again.

The team sent its finds to JPAC’s Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii. Some of the things they found included a pack of Camel cigarettes, a soldier’s guide for fishing, a mail bag containing 6,000 pounds of letters, as the Alaska Dispatch reported last year. It seemed likely they had found the C-124 Globemaster wreck, but they had to be sure.

Would a Robotic Pilot Have Crashed at SFO?

At the JPAC lab, investigators found that the serial number on the fragments of the aircraft matched the C-124 Globemaster. Their next task was to see if they could identify the human remains and match it to the men who went down with the plane. That would give the families some closure.

JPAC anthropologists are collecting DNA, if available, to match to the families of the victims. They are also using wallets and other personal effects to make the match, said Lee Tucker, a spokesman.

That work is ongoing. Meanwhile, the glacier continues its rapid movement, traveling 240 meters between last summer and this year. In June, the JPAC team returned to the glacier and found more materials and possible human remains, which they recovered. The process of identification could take anywhere from 4 months to multiple years, Tucker said.

This story was originally posted on Discovery News.

The existence of a 9,000-strong colony of emperor penguins in East Antarctica has been confirmed by three people who visited it for the first time.

Signs of the penguins were spotted by satellite, which took images of large stains on the snow in 2009 that scientists suspected were penguin feces. But it wasn't until early December 2012 that three people from Belgium's Princess Elisabeth Antarctica polar research station visited the colony to glimpse the penguins for themselves, according to a statement from the International Polar Foundation, which runs the station.

The first three visitors were the station's expedition leader Alain Hubert, mechanic Kristof Soete and Swiss mountain guide Raphael Richard.

The explorers decided not to chance a trip to the suspected colony earlier due to bad weather. But in early December the weather let up, and they arrived at the colony in the dead of night.

"It was almost midnight when we succeeded in finding a way down to the ice through crevasses and approached the first of five groups of more than a thousand individuals, three quarters of which were chicks," said Hubert in the statement. "This was [an] unforgettable moment!"

The trio was part of a team supporting scientific research on the Derwael Ice Rise, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) from the colony. Here, researchers are looking to see how quickly ice from the East Antarctic Ice Sheet is being lost to the sea due to warming-fueled melt.

Scientists estimate the population of emperor penguins of Antarctica is larger than once thought; satellite imagery has helped to find previously unknown colonies like this one, by pinpointing stains from penguin feces as well as spotting the penguins themselves.

Nevertheless, the fate of these and other penguins remains uncertain, and penguin numbers are likely to decline if the continent continues to warm. The Antarctic Peninsula, where emperor penguins are plentiful, is one of the fastest-warming places on Earth, with air temperatures rising between 4 and 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit (2.2 and 2.5 degrees Celsius) in the last 50 years.

Emperor penguins are the largest penguin species and stand on average about 45 inches (114 centimeters) tall  and weigh 90 pounds (41 kilograms).

Reach Douglas Main at dmain@techmedianetwork.com. Follow him on Twitter @Douglas_Main. Follow OurAmazingPlanet on Twitter @OAPlanet. We're also on Facebook and Google+.

For explorer Eric Larsen the holidays just wouldn't be the same if he weren't sleeping in a tent in sub-zero temperatures. This year marks his fourth Christmas in Antarctica in five years.

This time, he's attempting to become the first person to ride a fat tire bike 750 miles from Hercules Inlet to the South Pole. He calls his adventure Cycle South, and it's his first expedition since becoming a dad -- and his first big trip going solo. Depending on conditions, he'll make the return trip via bike as well.

Larsen, 41, who is updating his website daily, said his main concern on Dec. 24 was "making sure that Santa Claus knows that I'm nearly at the exact opposite ends of the Earth." Christmas Day marked Day 7 of the expedition, with 582 miles to go. In his Dec. 25 blog entry he said, "If you didn't have a white Christmas, you can borrow mine."

On past trips, he's marked the holidays with small gifts: Wenger knives for his expedition partners, for example, or a beer smuggled into a resupply. This year, he opened his present from his partner, Maria, early to save weight.

PHOTOS: Rudolph Replacements: Naught or Nice?

His days on the ice are predictable: he bikes for an hour, then stops to eat an energy bar. After 4.5 hours, he takes an hour-long lunch break for soup. He's been covering about 22 nautical miles from 9 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. every day.

The last flight he can catch out of Antarctica is Jan. 27, but that's not the only thing driving him to get back to Boulder, Colo.

"One of the reasons that I'm on a pretty tight timeline is that I've got a baby boy that needs my love and attention," he told Outside Magazine.

Still, while moving forward requires such extreme focus he has a hard time keeping up with text messages, he says he still smiles every time he hops on his Surly Moonlander. Much of the time, all he can see is snow and ice.

ANALYSIS: Historic Camp Site Discovered on Antarctica

"The ultimate goal of the Cycle South expedition is to demonstrate how each of us can use a bicycle to change the world," Larsen told Outside. When he's not exploring, Larsen gives motivational and educational lectures.

Larsen holds other Pole firsts: In 2006, he and Lonnie Dupre made the first summer expedition to the North Pole via canoe over ice and open water, for example, and in 2009 and 2010, he skied to the South and North Poles on back-to-back trips on a Save the Poles expedition.

This story was provided by Discovery News.

A man of convictions, Christopher Columbus used his strong personality to persuade rulers and scholars to overlook the accepted theories about the size of the Earth to search out a new route to Asia. Although he wasn't the first European to find the American continent (that distinction goes to Viking Leif Ericson), his journeys opened up the trade of goods and ideas between the two lands.

Born by the sea

Born in 1451 to Domenico and Susanna (Fontanarossa), young Christopher grew up in Genoa, Italy. While living in Spain in later years, he went by Cristóbal Colón rather than his given name of Cristoforo Colombo. He was the oldest of five, and worked closely with his brothers in adulthood.

Located on the northwest coast of Italy, Genoa was a seaport city. Columbus completed his formal education at an early age and began sailing on trading trips. In 1476, he traveled to Portugal, where he set up a mapmaking business with his brother, Bartholomew. In 1479, he married Felipa Perestrello Moniz, the daughter of the governor of a Portguese island. Their only child, Diego, was born in 1480. Felipa died a few years later. His second son, Fernando, was born in 1488 to Beatriz Enriquez de Arana.

Round Earth and a route to Asia

In the 1450s, the Turkish Empire controlled northern Africa, blocking Europe's easiest access to the valuable goods of the Orient, such as spices. In a search for an alternative to the dangerous and time-consuming land route, many countries turned their eyes to the sea. Portugal in particular made great strides in finding a route around the southern tip of Africa, eventually rounding the Cape of Good Hope in 1488.

Rather than circling the southern-stretching continent, Columbus began a campaign to reach Asia by traveling west. Educated people knew that the world was round; the looming question was, just how large was the planet?

The Greek mathematician and astronomer Eratosthenes first calculated its size around 240 BCE, and subsequent scholars had refined the number, but it had never been proven. Columbus argued that the numbers most scholars agreed on were too large, and that the vast land mass of Asia would further shrink the amount of sea travel necessary. His calculations set the world at 66 percent smaller than previous estimates—estimates that were actually impressively close to the Earth's true size.

Columbus first presented his plan to Portugal in 1483, where it was rejected. He went on to Spain, ruled jointly by the monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella. The royal pair were engaged in driving the Muslims from Granada but granted him a salary and a position in the Spanish court. Spain gained control of the southern province in January 1492; in April of the same year, Columbus' plan received approval. He began to plan for his voyage.

Niña, Pinta and Santa Maria

Columbus set sail from the Canary Islands in September 1492. He captained the caravel (a type of Portuguese ship) known as the Santa Maria. Two other ships, the Niña and the Pinta, traveled with him, carrying 90 crew members. On Oct. 12, 1492, they landed on a small island in the Caribbean Sea that Columbus called San Salvador. (This day of his discovery is celebrated as Columbus Day in the United States on the second Monday of October; other countries in the Americas also celebrate it under various names.)

Certain that he had arrived in the East Indies, Columbus dubbed the natives he met Indians. Described by the Italian captain as gentle and primitive, the people were quickly mistreated by the Europeans.

Leaving San Salvador, the crew traveled along the coast of Cuba and Hispaniola (where the present-day countries of Haiti and the Dominican Republic) are located. On Christmas Eve, the Santa Maria crashed into a reef off of Haiti. Forty men remained at a hastily built fort to hunt for gold when Columbus took the Niña and Pinta back to Spain to announce his success. Several captive natives were taken to prove he had achieved his goal, though a number of them did not survive the rough sea voyage.

Columbus wasn't the first European to land in the New World. Vikings had reached the land several hundred years previously. But their journeys were scattered, and word of them never spread enough for most of Europe to learn about it.

After Columbus' voyage, goods, people, and ideas were traded between the two continents.

Three more trips

Columbus made three more journeys to the New World over the remainder of his life, searching for the mainland of Asia. On his return, he led 17 ships with about 1,500 men back to the islands where he had been appointed governor. They found no sign of the men they had left behind only a few short months before. Columbus settled his company along several smaller forts along the coast of Hispaniola.

Problems quickly erupted as the colonists and investors realized that the easy gold Columbus had promised did not exist. Within a short span of time, a dozen of the ships, filled with discontent voyagers, returned to Spain. Relationships with the native Taino people became more challenging, as they resisted efforts by the Spanish to force them into searching for gold. With criticism of his management of the colony reaching the ears of the monarchs, Columbus returned to Spain and managed to successfully defend himself from the complaints.

In 1498, Columbus took six ships to search for the Asian mainland south of the area he had already explored. Instead, he found the coast of Venezuela. When he returned to Hispaniola, he gave land to the settlers and permitted the enslavement of the Taino people to work it. Complaints still trickled back to Spain, and eventually the monarchs sent a commissioner to investigate. Shocked by conditions at the colony, the commissioner arrested Columbus and his brothers and sent them back to Spain for trial. The brothers were released by the king and queen, but Columbus was removed from his position as governor of Hispaniola.

In 1502, Columbus made a last-ditch effort to find the bulk of Asia. He set sail with his son Ferdinand. The company traveled along the coasts of Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. Two ships were beached on the northern coast of Jamaica due to leaks, and the crew was stranded for nearly a year before being rescued and returning home.

Columbus returned to Spain in 1504. He died two years later, on May 20, 1506, still believing he had found a water route to Asia.

Related Articles:

Top 5 Misconceptions About Columbus

9 Craziest Ocean Voyages

Top 10 Intrepid Explorers

As the expedition to Nikumaroro nears an end, hopes to identify pieces of Amelia Earhart's plane are waning.

A difficult environment and a number of technical issues have plagued the underwater search in the waters off the tiny uninhabited island between Hawaii and Australia where the legendary aviator may have landed and died as a castaway 75 years ago.

Carried out by The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR), the hunt is due to end in the next few hours.

"After discussion and analysis of the results so far, they have decided that there is very little point in extending the trip," Patricia Thrasher, TIGHAR's president, said.

PHOTOS: Amelia Earhart's Fate Reconstructed

She added that the problem is the nature of the reef slope.

It's a vertical cliff from 110 feet down to 250 feet, with a shelf that runs along that contour from the spot where an unidentified object was photographed three months after Earhart's disappearance to the wreck of the British steamer SS Norwich City, which went aground on the island's reef in 1929.

"The airplane could have come to rest there briefly and lost pieces, but they have not found anything at all on that ledge. From there the cliff goes almost vertically down to 1,000 to 1,200 feet, with another ledge," Thrasher said.

TIGHAR researchers will spend the rest of the time searching that area.

"That is where the Norwich City wreckage came to rest, so maybe that's where the airplane stopped," Thrasher said.

PHOTOS: Inside the Search for Amelia Earhart

Disappointingly, two promising targets identified a couple of days ago, turned out to be a large coral boulder and a much degraded piece of the Norwich City's keel.

Thrasher admitted that the question of searching for an airplane in such a difficult environment -- filled with nooks and crannies and caves and projections-- is even more basic than "what ledge" or "how far down."

"Given what we now know about this place, is it reasonable to think that an airplane which sank here 75 years ago is findable? It would be easy to go over and over and over the same territory for weeks and still not really cover it all. The aircraft could have floated away, as well," Thrasher said.

Get Full Coverage of the Amelia Earhart story here.

Nevertheless, TIGHAR has collected an enormous amount of data, which is certainly of great value to anyone doing ocean and reef research in that area.

"We won't know exactly how much, or what it all means, until it's integrated and analyzed...We have no idea what might be discovered as we pull together all the pieces without the fog of war to distract us," Ric Gillespie, TIGHAR's executive director, said.

Click here for more background and updates on TIGHAR's expedition to Nikumaroro.

This story was provided by Discovery News.

FARNBOROUGH, England — A possible rover mission to Mars within the next eight years may rely on a larger parachutes, atomic clocks and inflatable decelerators, NASA's Mars exploration chief says.

With a large NASA rover only weeks away from arriving at the Red Planet, NASA's Doug McCuistion outlined ideas for another, far less expensive Martian mission in 2018 or 2020.

The inflatable decelerators, also known as ballutes, and big parachutes would help the spacecraft reduce its speed through the Martian atmosphere, while the atomic clocks would improve its landing accuracy, McCuistion announced Tuesday (July 10) at the Farnborough International Airshow here.

NASA expects to have up to $800 million to spend on the mission. That's a far cry from the $2.5 billion the agency is spending on its 1-ton Curiosity rover, which is due to land on the Red Planet Aug. 5.

"That price point [$800 million] is frankly around the point of a Discovery mission," McCuistion told SPACE.com. "Those missions tend to be characterized by simple systems, not too challenging." [The Best (And Worst) Mars Landings in History]

McCuisition added that he likely won’t have the budget to fund the ballutes, parachutes and atomic clocks. Instead, NASA’s Office of the Chief Technologist probably would pay for them.

For its Mars missions NASA is still using parachutes based on the design of the 1970s Viking landers. Those old-school chutes are 69 feet (21 meters) wide; the 2018 or 2020 mission would employ a 98-foot-wide (30 m) chute with a design that produces far more drag.

Working within the budget

The lower price tag for a 2018 or 2020 mission reflects NASA's efforts to find a way forward in tough fiscal times. President Barack Obama's proposed 2013 federal budget, which was released in February, slashes NASA planetary science funding by 20 percent, with much of that coming out of the Mars program.

The cuts led NASA to withdraw from the European Space Agency-led ExoMars mission, which aims to send an orbiter and rover to the Red Planet in 2016 and 2018, respectively.

In response to its new budget situation, NASA asked scientists for ideas on how to explore Mars on the cheap. The most promising of these proposals were presented at a workshop at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston in late June.

The workshop’s final report, with recommendations, is to be delivered to NASA by the end of August. However, the report summarizing the workshop’s findings is now available on the LPI website.

The report describes several possible scenarios for a 2018 or 2020 mission, including a lander or a rover similar to the twins Spirit and Opportunity, which landed on Mars in January 2004 and exceeded all mission expectations.

The summary also states that workshop participants saw value in early international involvement in whatever mission is chosen. They also expected that technology advances will deliver instruments that can meet scientists' goals while on the sort of rover or fixed station that NASA has already sent to the Red Planet.

McCuistion will use the workshop's final report in his 2014 budget submission, which he will deliver to the administration later this year.

Planning for 2018 (or 2020)

NASA has yet to decide if it will send a rover, lander or orbiter to Mars later this decade, and its decision will be guided by its long-term goals of a Martian sample-return mission and a human flight to the Red Planet, officials have said.

NASA’s next Mars mission, MAVEN (for Mars Atmosphere Volatile Evolution), involves an atmosphere-analyzing orbiter slated to arrive in 2015. If the 2018 or 2020 mission is another orbiter, it could use new laser communications systems.

Curiosity is to be lowered to the Martian surface on cables by a rocket-powered sky crane. Such a system could be used to enable human missions to the Red Planet, McCuistion said.

A sky crane in combination with a surface beacon could deliver 2,200 pounds (1,100 kilograms) of cargo to within a few hundred yards of a target location, he said.

This story was provided by SPACE.com, a sister site to LiveScience.  Follow SPACE.com on Twitter @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook and Google+.

Components of Amelia Earhart's plane might have floated for weeks in the waters of an uninhabited island in the southwestern Pacific republic of Kiribati, according to new analysis of a photograph taken three months after the disappearance of the glamorous aviator on July 2, 1937, during a record attempt to fly around the world at the equator.

Shot by British Colonial Service officer Eric R. Bevington in October 1937, during an expedition to assess the suitability for future settlement and colonization of Nikumaroro, a deserted island between Hawaii and Australia, the grainy photo has prompted a new expedition to find pieces of Earhart's long-lost Lockheed Electra aircraft.

PHOTOS: Image at the Center of Earhart Probe

"We will depart Honolulu on July 3rd aboard the University of Hawaii oceanographic research ship R/V Ka Imikai-O-Kanaloa. In about eight days we should get to Nikumaroro, where we will carry out a deep-water search for the wreckage," Ric Gillespie, executive director of The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR), told Discovery News.

The 26-day expedition and its findings will be captured by a film crew from Discovery Channel and aired as a documentary in August.

Archival research and a number of artifacts unearthed on Nikumaroro during nine previous archaeological expeditions have provided strong, circumstantial evidence for a castaway presence on the coral atoll.

Gillespie believes that Earhart's twin-engined plane did not crash in the Pacific Ocean, running out of fuel somewhere near her target destination Howland Island. Instead, he thinks Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan made an emergency landing on Nikumaroro's flat coral reef. There, they would have survived as castaways "for a matter of weeks, possibly more," said Gillespie.

NEWS: Credible Amelia Earhart Signals Were Ignored

The hunt for the plane wreckage will rely on robots and multi-beam sonar capable of mapping the seafloor at depths of almost 7 miles. The action will be on the reef slope off the west end of Nikumaroro, where waters can reach 5,000 feet. This is the area shown in Bevington's picture.

"The photo shows the western end of the island and the wreck of the British steamer SS Norwich City, which went aground on the island's reef in 1929," Gillespie said.

"But on the left side of the frame there is something else: an apparent man-made protruding object which is hard to explain in that spot," Gillespie said.

NEWS: Signs of Amelia Earhart's Final Days?

"The photo is wallet-size and, in the original print, the object of interest is smaller than a grain of rice and easily missed," he added.

Indeed, the mysterious object went unnoticed until 2010, when TIGHAR forensic imaging specialist Jeff Glickman spotted it while reviewing the original copy-negative.

"When we plotted the location, we realized it was in the same place where, in 1999, a former resident of Nikumaroro (a colony was established on the island in December of 1938 and lasted until 1963), told us of seeing debris in 1940. Her father, the island carpenter, told her it was the wreckage of an airplane," Gillespie said.

A high-resolution scan of the original print, now kept at the Rhodes House Library at Oxford, U.K., allowed Glickman to carry out a more detailed analysis of the photo.

"There is an object on the reef, but from the picture we can’t definitely prove what it is. However, one interpretation is consistent with four components that existed on Earhart’s Lockheed Electra Model 10E Special," Glickman said presenting his findings last month at an Amelia Earhart conference.

According to Glickman, the object in the image could be a composition made from the upside-down landing gear of Earhart's plane: a floating wheel, the fender, the strut and a worm gear.

"Imagery analysts at the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, who examined the photo, agreed with Glickman’s analysis. All the four elements appeared to match the shape and dimensions of the components in the landing gear of a Lockheed Electra," Gillespie said.

Previous expeditions have confirmed that there is nothing remaining in the location on the reef edge where the object appears in the 1937 Bevington photos.

"However, there are grooves in the reef surface where debris could easily have once been caught," Gillespie said.

He admits that there are several possible scenarios that could defeat TIGHAR's efforts to find the wreckage. For example, the plane could have floated away for miles before sinking, or it could have broken up, sunk close to the island and been buried by underwater landslides.

The underwater search will begin with a mapping of the general area with multi-beam sonar. Targets will be identified using high-resolution, side-scan sonar mounted on an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV). Finally, a Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV) with powerful lights and high-definition video cameras will be used to investigate the targets.

"If we are fortunate enough to find whatever remains of the airplane, we will get imagery and photographs and then prepare a recovery expedition," Gillespie said.

"Our hope is that finding identifiable pieces of the plane will help make it possible to do further archaeology on shore to learn more about Amelia's last days," he said.

This story was provided by Discovery News.

China has announced that it is ready to send a manned submersible 23,000 feet (7,000 meters) down in the ocean, a trip that would make the country the proud owner of the deepest diving state-owned craft on Earth.

A Chinese ship ferrying the Jiaolong, a deep-sea submersible that can carry three people, arrived at a spot in the Pacific Ocean above the Mariana Trench this morning (June 11). The planned dive toward the Earth's deepest spot is largely symbolic, since the trench plunges far deeper than the Jiaolong's maximum 23,000-foot reach.

Xinhua, China's state-run news agency, has reported this will be the first manned dive to reach 7,000 meters, though in fact, two dives have gone much farther, first in 1960 and then again in March of this year. However, the dive would be the deepest manned dive in China's history and would give the country an unprecedented reach into the ocean depths.

Limited access

Much of the deepest ocean is unreachable via state-owned submersibles; at this point, none has dived deeper than 21,300 feet (6,500 m). Only Japan's Shinkai 6500 has reached such depths. The United States is refurbishing Alvin, its deepest-diving craft, to be able to reach 21,300 feet within the next five years.

China's Jiaolong descended deeper than 16,400 feet (5,000 meters) last July. The upcoming attempt to break that record will take place over the course of six dives between eight and 12 hours long, each reaching farther than the last, according to Chinese news reports.

The attempt to reach 23,000 feet follows on the heels of James Cameron's record-setting dive to the Challenger Deep, the deepest part of the Mariana Trench. The filmmaker and explorer made his descent in a submersible of his own design in late March, reaching a depth of 35,756 feet (10,890 meters), or nearly 7 miles beneath the surface of the sea, in two hours and 36 minutes. [Infographic: James Cameron's Mariana Trench Dive]

It was the first solo dive to the Earth's deepest spot, and came more than five decades after the only other time humans visited the Challenger Deep in 1960, when a U.S. Navy captain and a Swiss engineer spent 20 minutes in the murk at the very bottom of the sea aboard the Trieste submersible.

People vs. robots

Deep-diving robots are routinely used by scientists and the oil and gas industries to explore the ocean's depths, but sending humans to the deep poses far greater challenges.

Despite the difficulties, many scientists say that maintaining the capacity for human deep-sea exploration is important.

"Two human eyes connected to the best portable computer in the world are an extraordinary exploration device," Bruce Robison, a senior scientist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California, told OurAmazingPlanet in March.

"Some things are better done by a human; other things can be done more efficiently and more effectively robotically," added Robison, a veteran of deep-sea research.

Due to safety concerns, China's manned deep-sea attempt will occur only during daylight and when the seas are relatively calm, according to expedition members. The dive is slated for the coming days if the weather cooperates. 

This story was provided by OurAmazingPlanet, a sister site to LiveScience. Reach Andrea Mustain at amustain@techmedianetwork.com. Follow her on Twitter @AndreaMustain. Follow OurAmazingPlanet for the latest in Earth science and exploration news on Twitter @OAPlanet and on Facebook.

In the quest to explain why four climbers died on one of Mt. Everest's deadliest days ever, much attention has gone to overcrowding on the 29,035-foot peak.

When the season's first good weather window opened on Friday and Saturday, about 150 climbers lined up to go for the summit. Many had to wait an hour or more for their turn. And some ended up making the final push, with dwindling oxygen supplies, in the late afternoon -- far too late to be safe. The four climbers who died over the weekend fell to exhaustion and altitude sickness.

To prevent these kinds of tragedies from happening in the future, some mountaineers have proposed imposing limits or schedules that would control how many climbers are allowed on Everest's slopes and ridges at a time to avoid a traffic jam. For now, regulations in the Himalayas are minimal.

Yet, some guides think it's unlikely that stricter rules will ever govern Mt. Everest. Even if there were firmer rules, climbers would likely still make bad decisions about weather, gear, food and other critical details.

"From a logistical standpoint, everything becomes distilled down into a summit bid, and that has a lot of moving pieces," said Eric Simonson, Himalayan program director at International Mountain Guides in Ashford, Wash. "What happened most recently wasn't a regulation issue. It was that a bunch of teams saw the same thing, that there was a likelihood of good weather, and they tried to put themselves into position to take advantage of it."

"This happens every year when teams go up and try to take advantage of good weather," he added. "Had these deaths not occurred, I don't think there would have been anything remarkable about this past weekend. It would've been a perfectly normal big day."

Everest isn't a total free-for-all. To climb the world's tallest mountain, teams must apply months in advance for a climbing permit from Nepal's Ministry of Tourism.

Permit prices start at about $10,000 per person. And applications must include descriptions of each climber's experience. The Nepalese government can theoretically reject an application, but that doesn't seem to happen much.

Once a permit is issued, each team is assigned a liaison officer who joins the group at Base Camp and makes sure that no unapproved climbers attempt to join the summit bid at the last minute. There is, however, no limit to the number of permits that can be issued for a season. Nor is there a limit to how many teams can attempt to summit on a given day.

Trying to create limits and schedules like these would be logistically difficult in a mountainous region of a developing country. Trying to enforce them would probably be harder, and not just because of the resources involved. The nature of climbing in general and the culture of Everest in particular are, in many ways, antithetical to rules and regulations.

"There is the larger philosophy of what the sport is," said Gordon Jannow, director of programs at Alpine Ascents International, a guiding service based in Seattle, Wash., whose mountain offerings include Everest. "It has inherent danger. It's about independence and going up mountains and so on, so there's a limit to how regulation fits the style of the sport."

Perhaps the best place for rules to interfere, Jannow said, would be in the area of guide-to-climber ratios. Denali National Park in Alaska, for example, authorizes just a handful of guide services for Mt. McKinley, and those companies must offer one guide for every two climbers. On Washington State's Mount Rainer, the required ratio for guided climbs is three-to-one. Experienced climbers don't need to hire guides.

On Everest, guide companies set their own rules, with the number of guides ranging from one for every climber to one for every seven or more climbers. Some send only Sherpas to guide clients up the mountain. And depending on their level of training, communication and rescue skills can be limited.

Other groups go independently and make decisions on their own. All four deaths last weekend happened in groups without trained guides, Simonson said.

Whether trekking with guides or independently, he added, climbers need to pay attention to the time, the weather, how much oxygen they have left and how their bodies feel. Those guidelines are true, regardless of whether official regulations exist or not.

If done safely, a trip to Everest can be transformative.

"Whether they summit or not, people come away from the mountain changed," said Simonson, who has participated in 10 expeditions to Everest, made it to the summit once, and turned around close to the top three times. "If you've ever dreamed about being an astronaut, it's about as close as you're going to get, being at 30,000 feet looking up into space."

"It's a remarkable experience, and I hate to see it portrayed in negative terms," he added, even though the risks are real and deserving of respect.

"Really, at the end of the day, this is one of the few remaining places in life that people have to step up and take personal responsibility."

This story was provided by Discovery News.

The search for Amelia Earhart will resume this summer in the waters off Nikumaroro, an uninhabited island in the southwestern Pacific republic of Kiribati where the legendary pilot might have died as a castaway.

With support from the Discovery Channel, the expedition will be carried out by the The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR), which has long been investigating the last, fateful flight taken by Earhart 75 years ago.

The new expedition will use high tech underwater equipment to search for pieces of Earhart's plane.

The tall, slender, blond pilot mysteriously vanished while flying over the Pacific Ocean on July 2, 1937 during a record attempt to fly around the world at the equator.

The general consensus has been that her twin-engined Lockheed "Electra" had run out of fuel and crashed in the Pacific Ocean, somewhere near Howland Island.

But according to Ric Gillespie, TIGHAR's executive director, there is an alternative scenario.

PHOTOS: Amelia Earhart

"The navigation line Amelia described in her final in-flight radio transmission passed through not only Howland Island, her intended destination, but also Gardner Island, now called Nikumaroro," Gillespie said.

The possibility that Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan might have made an emergency landing on Nikumaroro's flat coral reef, some 300 miles southeast of their target destination, is not a new theory.

"This was the oldest Earhart theory," Gillespie said. "This was the theory the Navy came up with in the first days following the flight's disappearance. And they did search the atoll, but only from the air," Gillespie said.

In nine archaeological expeditions to Nikumaroro, Gillespie and his team uncovered a number of artifacts which, combined with archival research, provide strong circumstantial evidence for a castaway presence.

"We found archival records describing the discovering in Nikumaroro in 1940 of the partial skeleton and campsite of what appears to have been a female castaway," he said.

"We identified the place on a remote corner of the atoll that fits the description of where the bones and campsite were found. Archaeological digs there have produced artifacts that speak of an American woman of the 1930s," Gillespie said.

He added that evidence on the island would also suggest that Earhart survived as a castaway "for a matter of weeks, possibly more."

In the forthcoming expedition, Gillespie and his team will be concentrating on Earhart's plane. The underwater search will be carried by Phoenix International, the U.S. Navy's primary deep ocean search and recovery contractor.

On July 2, the 75th anniversary of Earhart's disappearance, the TIGHAR team will sail from Honolulu aboard the University of Hawaii oceanographic research ship R/V Ka Imikai-O-Kanaloa.

"When we get there, in about eight days, we'll survey the general area with multi-beam sonar to create an accurate map of the undersea topography and prioritize the search area," Gillespie told Discovery News.

"Targets will be identified using high resolution, side scan sonar mounted on an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV). Finally, we will investigate suspicious looking targets using a Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV) with dual manipulators and color video camera system and lights," Gillespie said.

NEWS: Signs of Amelia Earhart's Final Days?

The search relies on what Gillespie called "the most exciting breakthrough" -- a photograph of the island's western shoreline taken three months after Amelia's disappearance.

"It shows an unexplained object protruding from the water on the fringing reef," Gillespie said.

Forensic imaging analyses of the photo suggest that the shape and dimension of the object are consistent with the landing gear of a Lockheed Electra.

"We have reason to believe that the airplane went over the reef edge near the spot where the object appears in the photo," Gillespie said.

"We'll do our best to find Amelia. During the painful recovery from the Great Depression, Amelia Earhart inspired America with her courage and determination. America needs Amelia again," Gillespie said.

This article was provided by Discovery News.

Adventurers short on time and travel money can still make a trip this weekend to one of the most inaccessible and exotic spots in Morocco. 

With the click of a remote, viewers can visit Taffraout Isserce, a tiny mountain village of only 200 people, thanks to a new episode of "Born to Explore," a television series that sends host Richard Wiese to far-flung spots around the globe in search of adventure.

A lifelong explorer, Wiese has spent the first season of the show searching out encounters with wildlife and untouched cultures. In this week's episode, he certainly succeeded in the latter.

According to the Moroccan officials who helped arrange the visit, when Wiese and his crew arrived in Taffarout Isserce in November 2011, they were the first non-Moroccans to set foot there.

"I was as skeptical as can be," Wiese told OurAmazingPlanet. "Morocco is a really well- traveled place, so I thought, how could you visit a place that non-Moroccans had never been?"

Yet according to Wiese's interpreter and residents of the tiny hamlet, the Americans would be the first foreigners to visit.

Extraordinary ordinary experiences

Even with the help of a local guide and a newly built road, getting to the village was quite a journey, one that took the crew along winding dirt roads high into Morocco's Atlas Mountains.  

When they finally arrived, "I would say the entire village was out there to greet us," Wiese said. (Along with goats and cows.)

The next moments, Wiese said, might have been torn from the dusty pages of an old National Geographic. The crew was led to a large, communal kitchen, lit by shafts of sunlight and abuzz with butter-making and bread-baking, where traditional tea was served. [See images from his Morocco trip here.]

It's on just such experiences with ordinary people that Wiese said he wants to focus his show. The son of an airline pilot, Wiese has been traveling the world since he was a young child. He climbed Mount Kilimanjaro when he was 12, and, by his mid-40s, in 2002, he became the youngest president to ever lead the storied Explorer's Club.

Yet his youthful bravado has given way to more nuanced desires.

"When I was younger, I did much more testosterone-fueled things," Wiese said. "But now I'm taking time to meet the porters who used to carry my bags. I'm meeting families."

Making connections

Now, Wiese said, it's as much about the human connection as it is about the adventure.

"I still like to race and climb and run, but I'm secure enough now that I don't feel like I have to wrestle an animal," Wiese said.  "I can if it's appropriate!" he added. "But I'm not interested in almost dying every week."

And, he said, meeting people from other cultures should just be part of an explorer's job.

"One of the roles of an explorer is to go to a land different from their own and say, 'Hey, these are what these people are really like,'" Wiese said. "And once you look somebody from another land straight in the eyes, and you see a smile, you never think about that place the same way. I think it gives you a reason to feel optimistic about the world."

Catch Wiese's latest visit to out-of-the-way places on Saturday, Feb. 25. The "Morocco: The Lost Village" episode of "Born to Explore" will be broadcast on most ABC stations. 

This story was provided by OurAmazingPlanet, a sister site to LiveScience. Reach Andrea Mustain at amustain@techmedianetwork.com. Follow her on Twitter @AndreaMustain. Follow OurAmazingPlanet for the latest in Earth science and exploration news on Twitter @OAPlanet and on Facebook.

Moroccan Beauty

Richard Wiese and villagers walk the terrain in the High Atlas Mountain near the village of Tafraout Issirce at sunset.

Family Ceremony

Traditional Berber wedding ceremony.

Traditional Crafts

Berber women and children gather around their traditional handicraft.

Traditional Farming

Berber man employs traditional farming technique.

Traditional Cooking Methods

Wiese learns traditional cooking methods from villagers.

Tea Time

Wiese shares Moroccan tea with village elders.

Getting Acquainted

Wiese gets acquainted with local goats.

Moroccan Villages

Richard Wiese and villagers walk the terrain in the High Atlas Mountain near the village of Tafraout.

A couple of weeks ago, we reported about a team who set off to summit Kilimanjaro without wearing shoes, socks, or any other type of footwear at all. Last weekend, said team of intrepid, barefoot mountain trekkers attained their goal when they reached Gilman’s Point (18,638 ft. ASL) with the smiles — and lack of shoes — to prove it.

This slightly insane stunt was accomplished by Barefoot Impi, a “global tribe of adventurer philanthropists” who push their bodies to do things in the name of charity — in this case, the Red Cross Children’s Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa. All proceeds raised by the group will go directly to the hospital.

So what was it like to trek up the tallest free standing mountain in the world? “We reached the peak as one very emotional tribe knowing that we had achieved what we had set out to do,” says Andrew King on the expedition blog. “The entire barefoot team had summited — sore — but with no serious injury.”

This is good news, knowing that summiting Kilimanjaro barefoot involves the risk of hypothermia, and cuts from sharp volcanic rocks along the trail — not to mention the threat of altitude sickness for parts of the body above the feet.

“We may be on the top of Africa,” Andrew King writes, “But we feel like we are on top of the world.”

This story was provided by Discovery News.

Terra Australis

For at least 2,000 years philosophers believed that the spherical Earth must have a large unknown continent at the bottom of the globe to provide symmetry with the large continents to the north. On maps this huge continent was called "Terra Australis" or Southern Land. Europeans finally sighted the ice of Antarctica in the 18th century. Dec. 14, 2011, is the 100th anniversary of the first expedition to reach the South Pole, led by Roald Amundsen.

In the next section, we will see how Antarctica fits into the context of the southernmost part of Earth.

Continental Extremes

Antarctica has the highest elevation and coldest average temperature of all the continents. With an area of 5.4-million-square miles (14-million-square kilometers), Antarctica covers slightly less than 1.5 times the area of the United States.

Sea ice is frozen salt water. The area of sea ice varies considerably throughout the year. The ice maximum is in September during southern winter. The minimum is in February.

Fresh Frozen Reservoir

All but 0.32 percent of the continent is covered by the Antarctic Ice Sheet, which is the world's largest reservoir of fresh water (albeit in frozen form). The ice averages 1 mile thick (1.6 km).

The Transantarctic Mountains divide the continent into East and West sections. At 2,175 miles long (3,500 km), the Transantarctic range is one of the longest mountain ranges on Earth.

Population: Zero

Squares on the map indicate main Antarctic facilities operated by the national Antarctic programs in the Antarctic treaty area, 2009.

Antarctica is the coldest, windiest and driest of all the continents. The coldest temperature recorded in Antarctica was minus-128.6 degrees Fahrenheit (minus-89.2 degrees Celsius) at the Russian Vostok station in 1983.

Antarctica has no indigenous population. A number of research stations are scattered across the continent. At its peak, in the summer, the continent's population swells to nearly 4,000 people. In winter, that number drops to around 1,000.

Very few vertebrate-animal species live in Antarctica. Several types of penguins, petrels, seals and whales call the region home. Eight species of mite and three species of springtail (hexapods similar to insects) have been found. Mosses, lichens, algae and microorganisms exist there, resorting to a dormant state when conditions become too extreme.

Shifting Plates

The fossil record of continents that are widely separated today show that once they were adjacent. Beginning about 500-million-years ago, the supercontinent Gondwana consisted of what is now Antarctica, South America, Africa, India and Australia. For a time, the land that now comprises East Antarctica was located on Earth's equator. The shifting plates of Earth's crust carried the continents apart and moved them to their current locations.

By the Mesozoic era, Gondwana had split up and the lands of Antarctica and Australia, still joined, had moved to the south polar region. The Earth as a whole had a warmer climate than it does today, so several species of dinosaur flourished in Antarctica from about 140-to-100-million-years ago.

Suspicions Confirmed

Early cartographers indicated a huge continent in the south polar region despite the fact that no traveler had ever described such lands. For 2,000 years philosophers had assumed the existence of this "Terra Australis" (Southern Land) in order to preserve the symmetry of the Earth's land masses.

By the 18th century the concept of Terra Australis was abandoned because no such southern land mass had been found. The name "Australis" was applied to what is now called Australia. In 1820 the first confirmed sighting of Antarctica was made, and by 20 years later it was established that Antarctica comprised an entire continent and not just a group of islands.

The first explorers to reach the South Pole were led by the Norwegian Roald Amundsen, beating a competing British party led by Robert Scott. Both parties crossed the Ross Ice Shelf to approach the pole. Amundsen's party traveled nearly 800 miles (1285 km), reaching the pole on Dec. 14, 1911. The party returned along the same route with no casualties. The competing party led by Robert Scott traveled a route 60 miles (96 km) longer, reaching the pole 34 days after Amundsen. Scott and his entire party perished on the return trip.

Territorial Claims

Seven sovereign states make territorial claims to Antarctic land. The Fact Book of the United States Central Intelligence Agency states, "Twenty-one of 28 Antarctic consultative countries have made no claims to Antarctic territory (although Russia and the United States have reserved the right to do so) and they do not recognize the claims of the other countries."

Sometimes what starts off as a hobby can become an all-consuming passion one that changes a person's life forever. Such is the case for Liz Price, an English-born former pharmacy researcher.

As a university student in her native England, Price fell in love with caving . She says it was the vast, tropical caves of Southeast Asia that truly won the top spot in her heart. Now, Price calls Malaysia home, where she explores the many caves of the region, volunteering as a guide and writing about her adventures and research for books and articles.

The caves in Southeast Asia are cathedral-sized showcases of spectacular geological architecture , but Price isn't just interested in rocks. The caverns are home to a host of creatures that might send the more faint-hearted screaming in the other direction.

For Price, the giant cockroaches, huge snakes and massive centipedes that lurk in the pitch-black are part of the allure of the caves. They are creatures deserving of respect instead of revulsion, she says. [See the cave creatures Price has met .]

We asked Price to explain what it takes to be a modern-day cavewoman, and what it is that draws her, again and again, into the darkness of the caves.

OAP: So how did you get into caving in the first place?

Liz Price: When I went to university, I was persuaded by some people from the caving club to join them for a caving weekend. I didn't enjoy the first two caves. I found them small and muddy and I came out covered in bruises. However I was persuaded to do another weekend trip, and that was when I became hooked.

It was quite a difficult trip in a river cave, but I really enjoyed the challenge, and to this day, that cave is one of my favorite English caves. River caves are always more special than dry caves, probably because they seem more alive. The sound of the water is exhilarating -- you can never be sure what is around the next corner. Even a mere cascade of water can sound like a large waterfall from a distance.

From then on, I got the caving bug. I can't define anything in particular that caused this, it is something that probably only cavers will understand! Every cave is different, and even if you go into the same cave many times, it never gets boring.

OAP: I understand you've explored caves all over the world. Over the years, have you had any experiences that were particularly frightening?

Price: My worst experience was in England. I was doing an extreme trip which involved a very long, wet small section of a cave, where we had to crawl flat out for a long distance, with body touching both floor and ceiling. I was sent into this confined section first, as I was the smallest in the group and the others wanted to know if it was the correct way.

It was, and I got through, but whilst waiting for the larger members of the party to negotiate the tiny passage, I got extremely cold. By the time the last member had forced his way through, I was starting to get hypothermia. I got colder and colder, and by the time we had established the correct route, I just wanted to sit there forever, which is a symptom of hypothermia.

OAP: What is the strangest creature you've encountered in a cave?

Price: Because of my love of caves and also cave fauna , I don't really consider any beasties as strange! I must have considered some of the cave invertebrates to be strange when I first encountered them. But now I like them all. Even the cockroaches!

One of my most memorable encounters was meeting a porcupine head on in a passage. I was going one way and he was coming towards me, but there was a large boulder separating us and it was only as we rounded the boulder from opposite sides that we met face to face, and both retreated backwards due to the surprise!

OAP: What is it about these creatures that intrigues you? Why do you think you're drawn to them?

Price: I've no idea why I am drawn to them. Maybe it's the fact that they live in caves, and I like caves so much! However, I admire cave fauna for its ability to survive in a pitch black environment. Bats are absolutely fascinating creatures, especially the fact that they navigate through dark caves. They are extremely useful to humans -- the fruit-eating bats help pollinate our crops, and the insect eaters feed on many insect pests. All the 'creepy crawlies' in a cave play a role in the food chain and help support the cave environment.

OAP: Has anything ever crawled on you?!

Price: Many times I've had cockroaches falling on me, running down my hair and neck, or climbing up my legs. But I just brush them off and carry on. I don't mind cave cockroaches as I consider them to be quite clean, unlike the urban ones in houses and restaurants, which crawl through dirty places. I've frequently had bat pee and poo landing on me, which isn't too pleasant.

OAP: What keeps you going back to caves?

Price: It's like asking a golfer why he keeps going back for more, or why rock climbers keep climbing cliffs. I guess it's just in my blood.

There are also many cave areas of the world which have not yet been explored. So it's quite easy to find a new cave -- a place where you are the very first person ever to tread. It is always nice know that you are the first people to enter. It's one of the few places left on the planet where you can enter virgin, unexplored territory.

• The 7 Longest Caves in the World
• Image Gallery: Amazing Caves Around the World
• Explore the Underworld: Coolest Spelunking Trips

Reach Andrea Mustain at amustain@techmedianetwork.com. Follow her on Twitter @AndreaMustain.

In a previously unexplored area of the Amazon rain forest, scientists have discovered a new species of catfish swimming in a tributary to the great Amazon River.

The fish was found during a series of expeditions to explore the biodiversity of the rain forests of the northern margin of the Amazon River in the Brazilian state of Pará, in the world's largest block of protected rain forest, which covers 10 million acres (4 million hectares).

"Discoveries like this one remind us that we still have a lot to learn about the biodiversity of the Amazon," said Patricia Baião, Amazon program director at Conservation International Brazil, which helped organize the expeditions.

The fish is a cream color with a pattern of dark patches on its body, reminiscent of jaguar fur. For this reason, the fish was named Stenolicnus ix, "Ix" being a Mayan word used to describe jaguars.

The newfound species differs from other species of the same genus by the length of the nasal barbells — the whiskerlike tactile organs extending from the mouth.

The Stenolicnus ix individual found by the expedition was collected with a sieve by scraping sand and leaf litter from the Curuá River bed.

"This fish was collected when we were about to finish our research in the creek. It is very small and, therefore, very hard to find. This is why we collected only a single individual," said Wolmar Wosiack, researcher and curator of the ichthyology collection of the Emilio Goeldi Museum, in the state of Pará.

Some 15 species of fish were also observed in the same narrow, shallow waters, in an area about 16 feet (5 meters) wide and less than 3 feet (1 m) deep.

Wosiack and his colleagues, Luciano Montag, of the Federal University of Pará, and Daniel Coutinho, a graduate student at the university, described the newly discovered fish in a study detailed in a recent issue of the journal Zootaxa.

The expeditions, organized by Emílio Goeldi Museum and Conservation International Brazil, took place in 2008 with about 30 researchers who set out to explore an area of more than 30 million acres (12 million hectares) and map out the biodiversity of this protected area  previously unknown to science. The expeditions were led by Alexandre Aleixo, researcher and curator of the ornithological collection of the Museu Goeldi.

This story was provided by OurAmazingPlanet, a sister site to LiveScience.

In a previously unexplored area of the Amazon rain forest, scientists have discovered a new species of catfish swimming in a tributary to the great Amazon River.

The fish was found during a series of expeditions to explore the biodiversity of the rain forests of the northern margin of the Amazon River in the Brazilian state of Pará, in the world's largest block of protected rain forest , which covers 10 million acres (4 million hectares).

"Discoveries like this one remind us that we still have a lot to learn about the biodiversity of the Amazon ," said Patricia Baião, Amazon program director at Conservation International Brazil, which helped organize the expeditions. [Related: Images of an Amazon journey .]

The fish is a cream color with a pattern of dark patches on its body, reminiscent of jaguar fur. For this reason, the fish was named Stenolicnus ix, "Ix" being a Mayan word used to describe jaguars .

The newfound species differs from other species of the same genus by the length of the nasal barbells the whiskerlike tactile organs extending from the mouth.

The Stenolicnus ix individual found by the expedition was collected with a sieve by scraping sand and leaf litter from the Curuá River bed.

"This fish was collected when we were about to finish our research in the creek. It is very small and, therefore, very hard to find. This is why we collected only a single individual," said Wolmar Wosiack, researcher and curator of the ichthyology collection of the Emilio Goeldi Museum, in the state of Pará.

Some 15 species of fish were also observed in the same narrow, shallow waters, in an area about 16 feet (5 meters) wide and less than 3 feet (1 m) deep.

Wosiack and his colleagues, Luciano Montag, of the Federal University of Pará, and Daniel Coutinho, a graduate student at the university, described the newly discovered fish in a study detailed in a recent issue of the journal Zootaxa.

The expeditions, organized by Emílio Goeldi Museum and Conservation International Brazil, took place in 2008 with about 30 researchers who set out to explore an area of more than 30 million acres (12 million hectares) and map out the biodiversity of this protected area previously unknown to science. The expeditions were led by Alexandre Aleixo, researcher and curator of the ornithological collection of the Museu Goeldi.

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