At ExplorersWeb, we focus on expeditions to the wild corners of our planet, but we also cover what you might call adventure science -- the archaeology, space, and natural history discoveries that pique the curiosity of most of us who spend time outdoors. We now know that moss can survive months strapped to the outside of the International Space Station and that Easter Island’s stone statues really did “walk.”

Researchers have invented bite-resistant wetsuits and a hiking robot that may soon transform search-and-rescue missions. One man deliberately let snakes bite him hundreds of times to help create a near-universal antivenom. We've discovered the oldest known black hole in the universe, and even caught killer whales kissing on camera.

Here are ExplorersWeb's five most popular science stories of 2025.

'Sea' lions

Namibian Lions Take Up Seal Hunting: Lions along Namibia’s Skeleton Coast are showcasing their adaptability by returning to maritime hunting. They are the only lions in the world that regularly hunt seals and seabirds. In the mid-20th century, the Namibian lions used to roam these beaches until humans forced them inland. 

Over the last 20 years, a small group of these desert-adapted lions has returned to the water's edge. Initially, they continued to hunt on land, but three young lionesses soon rediscovered their ancestors' maritime hunting techniques. Now, 80% of the population's diet comes from the sea. 

Farewell to a titan

Jane Goodall Dies at 91: In October, world-renowned primatologist and conservationist Jane Goodall passed away at the age of 91, peacefully in her sleep while on a speaking tour in California. Goodall revolutionized the study of animal behavior with her field research on chimpanzees at Tanzania’s Gombe Stream National Park.

She threw out the rule book and saw the chimpanzees as individuals. Goodall gave them names and followed them for decades. She observed them using tools, witnessed their social relationships, and realized that they showed emotions previously associated only with humans.

Her legacy extends beyond scientific discovery. Goodall founded the Jane Goodall Institute, launched the global youth-focused Roots & Shoots program, authored over 30 books, served as a United Nations Messenger of Peace, and spent her life advocating for wildlife conservation and environmental stewardship. Her passionate efforts inspired generations of researchers and activists to protect animals and their habitats. 

Not so mysterious

What’s The Deal With the Human Remains in Antarctica? Online rumors recently resurfaced about old human remains found in Antarctica. The reality is less sensational than some posts suggest. The story began in 1985, when Chilean biologist Daniel Torres Navarro found a human skull on Livingston Island, off the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. He later found two leg bones that belonged to the same unfortunate soul. 

Navarro and anthropologist Claudio Paredes tried to decipher the sex and race of the bones' owner. Not an easy feat, with only three bits of bone and the scientific methods of the 1990s.

Unsurprisingly, the results were inconclusive. How the bones got to Antarctica is another question. It is likely they belonged to a woman who ended up there through early sealing or shipwreck activity. They do not rewrite human history or suggest prehistoric Antarctic inhabitants, as some breathless stories suggested.

A deadly tourism destination

Kitum Cave: A Natural Wonder Hosting a Deadly Disease: Kitum Cave sits on Mount Elgon in Kenya. Years of weathering and erosion on the extinct volcano created a series of caves, and the mineral deposits on the walls of one in particular draw herds of elephants and other wildlife. Kitum Cave is essentially a giant salt lick. 

As animals ventured into the cave, tourists eventually came to view them, but this showed the cave's darker side. In the 1980s, two visitors fell ill with uncontrollable internal bleeding and organ breakdown. They had contracted the Marburg virus, a close relative of Ebola, while inside the cave.

The 'Terra Nova' reveals its secrets

New Scans Show Fate of Sunken SS Terra Nova: A team of maritime archaeologists has completed a detailed underwater survey of the sunken SS Terra Nova. The historic wooden ship carried Robert Falcon Scott on his doomed 1910 Antarctic expedition and later sank off Greenland during World War II. 

Finding the ship became the test project for new sonar equipment in 2012. Recently, researchers returned to the site with modern submersibles and expert divers to fully expose the details of the wreck. They confirmed the wreck’s identity, revealed that the bow had violently split in half, and found the remnants of gear from a rapid evacuation as the ship sank. 

This year, Miriam Payne and Jess Rowe became the first all-female team to row nonstop across the Pacific Ocean. Starting in Lima, Peru, the British pair rowed 15,210km across the open ocean and landed in Cairns, Australia, 165 days later.

From the beginning, equipment failure and technical issues bedeviled the crossing. Only days after launching in April, their rudder failed completely, forcing them to abandon the attempt and catch a tow back to Lima. The setback cost them almost four weeks.

“That was particularly worrying,” they told ExplorersWeb, “because we needed to depart by a specific date to avoid the Australian hurricane season.”

It also triggered a financial scramble, as their spare rudder showed the same issue: “Peel ply left inside the rudder during construction allowed the foam core to expand and split the structure,” the pair explained.

New rudders had to be manufactured in the UK and flown to Peru at high cost.

Problems, problems

When they relaunched in early May, the problems continued almost immediately.

“We had problems with virtually every piece of equipment on board,” they admitted.

Their pipes of their electric watermaker burst, then the emergency watermaker failed, and they ended up replacing the filter with a pair of knickers. Soon after that, their electrical system began hemorrhaging power.

The power issues impacted the entire expedition. For almost the whole crossing, Payne and Rowe were forced into what they described as “ghost-ship mode.” Their batteries drained so fast that they had to shut down all non-essential systems.

“One by one, we had to shut everything down,” they said. “No AIS, no VHF radio, no chart plotter, no navigation lights, and even our radar reflector was turned off.”

They generated just enough electricity to briefly run the watermaker and charge their Garmin inReach to stay in contact with their safety officer and weather router. At times, even the autopilot failed.

“There were frequent occasions when we had to go completely dead ship and navigate using the stars or [the direction of] the wind on a small flag.”

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Long days

Despite this, the pair managed to row 16 hours a day and average roughly 95km. The physical toll was relentless. Their hands were blistered, salt sores were endless due to the constant salt spray, and the cabin was so hot it was nearly impossible to sleep. Still, their mindset remained remarkably positive.

“We genuinely enjoyed the rowing,” they said. “The conditions were constantly changing, and there was always something to talk about. No two days were ever the same, and we felt incredibly lucky to be out there.”

Their Pacific expedition followed earlier success in The World’s Toughest Row across the Atlantic, but the two experiences could not have been more different.

“The Atlantic was a race,” they explained. “It was much more intense but over far quicker.”

They had rowed in separate boats and encountered no major technical issues. The Pacific, by contrast, was an entirely independent expedition.

“When we took part in the Atlantic rowing race, everything was organized for us," they recalled. "We were told what equipment to bring, how much food to pack and exactly where to start and finish. For this expedition, none of that was clear. We had to figure out the start and end points ourselves and carry out extensive research to build a workable plan.”

Two years of prep

They started planning their Pacific row almost immediately after completing their Atlantic crossing. Both felt a real sense of sadness after the initial elation at making it across the Atlantic to Antigua, and conversation turned to what they could do next. Everything they looked at was smaller than what they had already done, and they wanted to go bigger.

The obvious choice was to enter the sister race run by The World’s Toughest Row that crosses the Pacific from San Francisco to Hawaii.

“But we felt that rowing only a third of the ocean wasn’t enough. That’s when the idea emerged: to see whether it was possible to row the entire Pacific Ocean nonstop and unsupported,” they explained.

For Rowe and Payne, the toughest part of this row was the two years of preparation. They worked with a weather router to find viable start and end points. They had to figure out how to get a boat and all their supplies to Peru, and trained with specialist coaches to ensure they were ready for the physical demands of the row.

“It takes a huge amount of self-discipline and determination," they told us. "Every spare hour outside full-time work was spent training, fundraising for sponsorship, or working on the boat. It’s an enormous commitment that demands real sacrifice. For both of us, that meant no social life and very little time with family throughout the two years.”

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Unknown endpoint

As they set off, their only goal was to reach the Australian coast. Brisbane appeared on their tracker simply because a location had to be selected, but their actual endpoint was unknown for most of the row.

“We never had a fixed endpoint,” they explained. “It wasn’t something that we could decide until we were about 1,600km out.”

In the end, winds and currents pushed them north to Cairns. “With the weather conditions we had, heading further south just wasn’t possible.”

The final few weeks were particularly tough. In the Coral Sea, headwinds pushed them southeast, forcing them to work constantly to avoid being blown toward Papua New Guinea. Substantial waves crashed over the side of the boat, which worsened their salt sores. Soaring temperatures left them with prickly heat. As they hit Australia's east coast, they had to contend with busy shipping lanes.

Brutal final hours

However, there was one small breakthrough. As the ozone layer over Australia is a little thinner, their batteries could charge more efficiently. For the first time in months, they intermittently powered up their chart plotter. It was a huge boost, especially while trying to navigate across the Great Barrier Reef in the dark.

The final approach to Cairns was the hardest of all. “Those final four hours were brutal,” Rowe said. “We were battling 20-knot headwinds and being pushed further and further out of the channel.”

At one point, they genuinely believed they might fail within sight of land. “We honestly thought we weren’t going to make it. We thought we might have to swim to shore -- an unsettling prospect given the crocodiles and sharks in the water!”

Focused on solutions

The two women came up against near-constant issues, but for the most part did not need to try hard to motivate themselves. They stayed solution-focused when problems arose, because “nothing good ever comes from panicking or being negative.”

They treated themselves to chocolate, listened to audiobooks, had Abba sing-alongs, and reveled in the world around them.

“Seeing the whales was incredible,” they said. “The night sky was unforgettable -- the Milky Way stretched above us, and when we rowed, the paddles lit up the phosphorescence in the water. It felt completely otherworldly.”

A few months later, they are still adjusting to being back on land.

“We’ve lost a significant amount of muscle, and we’re still extremely tired,” they said.

For both, sleep remains an issue. “After being so accustomed to functioning while sleep-deprived, it’s been hard to reset. We’re still averaging only about five hours a night, even after two months back on land.”

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Since our last roundup, the hurricane season has subsided, and action has resumed on the oceans. The annual World's Toughest Row has started, and one independent soloist is attempting to cross the Atlantic. Meanwhile, Dave Bell is taking on what could be the longest ever single-stage row in the Pacific.

Atlantic Ocean

World's Toughest Row: The 2025 World’s Toughest Row, previously known as the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge, started on December 14. Forty-three teams and 114 rowers pushed off from La Gomera in the Canary Islands. Over the coming weeks, they will battle 4,828km across the Atlantic to Antigua. 

Initially, the race was scheduled to start on December 11, but after a Yellow Wind Warning was issued, the organizers had to delay.

“In these conditions, we cannot deliver a safe, controlled departure," they commented. "While some crews may be able to manage stronger weather, start decisions must be right for the entire fleet." 

So far, the crews have faced the same challenges that every ocean rower confronts on their first few days. Seasickness has been common, and fatigue is setting in as they all adjust to the two-hour on, two-hour off schedule. Pulling away from the coastline in windy conditions has been a struggle. However, nearly all the updates from the crews have been positive. 

Four down to three

The four-person "Scotland the Wave" crew has had the hardest start. Yesterday, they were instructed to seek emergency help for one crew member who had been struggling with illness since the start of the row. Andrena McShane-Kerr has now been removed from the boat, and the three remaining women on the team have decided to continue as a trio. They are now doing their best to catch up with other boats. 

Race statistics so far:

Leading: 44West

Leading four: 44West

Leading trio: Southsea Scullers

Leading pair: Stelantic

Leading soloist: The Jasper

Rebecca Ferry (UK): Rebecca Ferry is solo rowing across the Atlantic from Gran Canaria to Barbados. After three days, she has covered just over 300km of the 4,911km route. She is taking a more southerly route to take advantage of favorable currents and to avoid the low-pressure systems that may occur in the North Atlantic. 

Ferry has shared very little about her journey, but her tracker provides daily updates on her position. Her biggest challenge so far has been the autopilot, which stopped working yesterday due to problems with the fuse. Luckily, she brought many spares with her, and after replacing the fuse, the autopilot is functioning again. 

Pacific Ocean

Dave Bell (UK): After solo rowing 5,000km from New York to Britain in 2021, Dave Bell has decided to attempt a mammoth 25,000km row across both the Pacific and Indian Oceans. 

He began on November 9 from Peru and will first row to Australia. He then hopes to continue through the Torres Strait, a notoriously difficult stretch of water, around the top of Australia, and into the Indian Ocean.

From here, he will head to Mauritius. With 330 days of food on his boat, he does not plan to stop or receive support at any point. If successful, it will be the longest ever single-stage unsupported row. 

He has given no updates since starting, but his tracker indicates that he has covered about 3,600km.

When we’re not outdoors, we get our adventure fix by exploring social media and the web. Here are some of the best adventure links we’ve discovered this week.

In Alaska’s Warming Arctic, an Indigenous Elder Passes Down Hunting Traditions: Climate change and the approval of a new mining road through Kotzebue, Alaska are having a huge impact on traditional indigenous life. Inupiaq hunter and fisher Roswell Schaeffer teaches his great-grandson how to hunt in a landscape that is changing beyond repair. 

The Story of California’s Mythic Giant Rock: Giant Rock is a colossal freestanding boulder near Landers, California. It is one of the Mojave Desert’s most surreal attractions and among the largest rocks on Earth. For decades, the roughly seven-story-tall, 30,000-ton rock has spawned questions: Was it deposited in the desert during the last Ice Age, as a jumbo erratic? Or was it created by erosion, or, ahem, left by aliens? 

The future of search and rescue?

The Rescue Robot Dog: Engineering students at Texas A&M University have built an AI-powered robotic dog that could be the future of search-and-rescue missions. The robotic canine “sees, remembers, and thinks.” Using a memory-driven navigation system and voice-command recognition to plan paths and avoid obstacles, the practical -- but admittedly creepy-looking creature -- could transform search-and-rescue operations in remote terrain. 

The Wall of Walls: Veteran climber Will Gadd chronicles his multi-year quest in Canada's Kootenay mountains to find hidden ice routes to climb. Over the last three years, with partner Kirk Mauthner, Gadd has established multiple lines, including Enduro, Relentless, Infinite Gratitude, and 118. All these routes are on an immense face they call the "Wall of Walls." 

Astronauts rank spaceships

The Best Fictional Spaceships According to Astronauts: Space travel is a cornerstone of the sci-fi genre, and real astronauts love it. Four European Space Agency astronauts discuss the sci-fi spacecrafts they would most like to command. They single out iconic vessels like the USS Enterprise-D from Star Trek: The Next Generation, Han Solo’s Millennium Falcon from Star Wars, and the Rocinante from The Expanse. 

I’ve Been Guiding Mount Everest For a Decade: A veteran mountain guide pulls back the curtain on what it is like to work on the world’s highest mountain. Guiding on Everest blends adventure with the constant pressure to keep demanding clients alive and content. The days are long, it strains personal relationships, and you are thrown into life-and-death situations. However, for many guides, the upside outweighs the challenges. For example, the average guide earns $20,000 per Everest climb, and if you own your own business, it can be double that.

Canadian whitewater

A New Generation is Shaping the Future of the Nahanni River: Paddling Magazine’s founder Scott MacGregor recounts a two-week journey down the legendary 337km South Nahanni River in Canada’s Northwest Territories. The lead guide is his 19-year-old son. The route includes a floatplane flight, Class I and II whitewater -- the guided section of the river is pretty easy -- and stunning views of Virginia Falls. He highlights how a new generation of outfitters and indigenous partnerships is shaping the future of paddling on the river.

Over 30 Years After Climbers Were Banned, A Historic Bouldering Area Reopens: With hundreds of bouldering problems, the Howard Knob site above Boone, North Carolina, was once popular with climbing icons. However, in 1993, a developer bought the land and banned climbing. Now, 32 years later, the Blue Ridge Conservancy, with long-time support from the Access Fund and the Carolina Climbers’ Coalition, officially purchased 73 acres of the historic Black Gneiss bouldering field.

Our view of space is under threat from the rapidly growing cloud of satellites circling the planet. Streaks of reflected light from satellites are ruining space telescope images all over the world.

The problem stems from the explosion of satellite megaconstellations being launched into orbit.

“Until now, most light pollution came from cities and vehicles,” says Alejandro Borlaff of NASA. "[Now] telecommunication satellite constellations is rapidly affecting astronomical observatories worldwide."

It's bound to get worse. Companies such as SpaceX, OneWeb, Amazon, and others have plans to launch hundreds of thousands of small satellites into low orbit over the next decade. Currently, more than 15,000 satellites orbit the Earth, up from 2,000 just a few years ago. But that number could balloon to more than half a million by the late 2030s.

These satellites are already a problem. Long-exposure images at twilight or dawn is the ideal way to capture faint cosmic objects. But bright satellite trails now routinely mar the field of view, affecting astronomers' ability to collect data. 

Space telescopes also affected

The problem isn’t limited to telescopes on Earth. Even telescopes in space, including the Hubble Space Telescope, are not immune to this form of light pollution. Up to 33 percent of Hubble’s images could be contaminated with streaks by the mid-2030s if these satellite megaconstellations expand as planned. Others could see more than 95 percent of their exposures affected.

As a satellite crosses a telescope’s field of view, the reflected sunlight creates a bright line or “photobomb” across the image.

“As telescopes stare at the Universe attempting to unveil distant galaxies, planets, and asteroids, satellites sometimes cross in front of the cameras, leaving bright traces of light that erase the dim signal that we receive from the cosmos,” said Borlaff. 

Last year, the International Astronomical Union Centre for the Protection of the Dark and Quiet Sky issued a series of recommendations for satellite companies to help protect our view of space. Their proposals include making the satellites less reflective and adjusting orbits to minimize the times when they cross busy observation zones. 

Alice Morrison has walked the entire length of Saudi Arabia over 112 days. Covering about 20km each day, she walked 2,200km in all.

Starting in January 2025, Morrison split her walk into two sections. The 930km first part took the 62-year-old Scottish woman from the Jordanian border and along the Pilgrimage Route to Medina. She then took a break before completing the final 1,270km to the Yemen border.

She split the journey into two parts so that she could complete it over two winters, avoiding both the extreme summer heat and Ramadan. Even with this planning, temperatures regularly hit 39˚C.

In her weekly blog, Morrison said, “I am not absolutely sure how hot hell is, but I think we are approaching it. That and water are our two big challenges at the moment.”

The heat forced her and her accompanying team to start walking as early as possible each day to minimize exposure to the midday heat.

Early start

“Alarm at 4:45; leave at 6:00, then walk until our much-anticipated tea break at 9:30. After that, we forge on to camp, have lunch, and then hide under a bush for shade until the sun sets,” she said of their daily routine.

Throughout, she was accompanied by a team that included Shaya Al Shaya, who walked with her, a cook and camelteer for each stage, two camels, and a support vehicle, ensuring a constant supply of water.

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As with her previous walks across Morocco and the Jordan Trail, walking across deep sand was a huge challenge. At one point, blisters were an issue, including for one of her camels.

Morrison has lived in Marrakech for years, is fluent in Arabic, having studied it at university and worked for BBC Arabic TV. She is a journalist by trade, so much of this journey was filmed and will be turned into a documentary. She has been planning the walk for three years.

Along the route, she walked and worked with several women, helping to document rarely seen archaeological sites, including Bronze and Stone Age tombs and 4,000-year-old rock carvings.

“I’ve walked with women leading conservation projects, managing camels, doing archaeological work,” she told Gulf News. “They’re changing things from within, and they’re proud of it.”

More than two years after Belgian backpacker Celine Cremer disappeared in Tasmania, a renewed search has uncovered her mobile phone. The discovery offers new hope of answers for her family and friends.

Cremer, 31, was last seen on June 17, 2023, and reported missing nine days later. She was believed to have gone on a solo bushwalk near Philosopher Falls in northwestern Tasmania. Her car was later found at a nearby trailhead, but an extensive search at the time failed to locate her.

These early searches continued until July 10, 2023, before being suspended due to worsening weather conditions and experts' claims that she was unlikely to have survived in such conditions for so long.

Cadaver dogs were later deployed, but again, no trace of Cremer was found.

Phone discovered

Cremer’s family and friends remained determined to piece together what happened and to find her remains. This weekend, several of her friends traveled to Tasmania to take part in a fresh search led by private investigator Ken Gamble, whom they hired after official searches were scaled back.

Gamble has conducted nearly a dozen searches in the area. With permission from Cremer’s mother, he accessed her phone data to identify last-known locations and areas of bush that may have been overlooked.

Only hours into this latest search, volunteer Tony Hage, who was at the rear of the search line, spotted Cremer’s phone. Her friends quickly identified the purple Samsung device. It was found approximately 60 meters from her last known coordinates.

“They were delighted that something was positively found,” Hage said. “Everyone has high spirits now.”

The Tasmania Police have now reopened the case and have taken the phone for forensic examination.

“A police search controller is working closely with the private search party to ensure safety and that any discoveries are managed appropriately,” the police said in a statement. “We will remain in close contact with Celine’s family and will continue to assess any new information in a bid to provide them with answers and closure.”

The discovery has prompted criticism of the earlier police search, particularly given how close the phone was to previously searched areas.

“The average temperature was minus two degrees, with significant rainfall and snow to ground level,” Police Inspector Andrew Hanson told ABC News in response. “I’m certainly not going to stand here and say we couldn’t do things differently.”

Lost her way?

Police believe Cremer may have become lost while attempting to return to her car. Data from a tracking app on her phone suggests she may have left the main track in an effort to take a shortcut and get back to the parking lot more quickly in the dark.

“She reached a high point on a hill where the phone connected with satellites, allowing us to retrieve data,” Hanson explained. “That data stops at that point. Our theory is that she continued downhill into an area with poor coverage, either lost or dropped her phone, couldn’t locate it in the dark, and made the decision to continue in a straight line toward her car — unfortunately becoming lost.”

The search will continue over the coming days.

When we’re not outdoors, we get our adventure fix by exploring social media and the web. Here are some of the best adventure links we’ve discovered this week.

All-Female Expedition Opens New Routes in Greenland: This past July, a women-only Swiss Alpine Club expedition ventured into Greenland’s remote Graah and Skjoldungen Fiords. After days of traveling, eight women arrived at the fiords. Over the next few weeks, they sought potential first ascents and successfully established several new climbing routes. 

False Summits Apply to More than Mountains: Jim Clash argues that a “false summit” represents more than a point that looks like the top but isn’t. It has become a metaphor for how adventure, achievements, and records are often exaggerated to make the individual feel good about themselves or to sell something.

Staff on luxurious cruises to Antarctica call the journeys “expeditions” to make the rich clientele feel special. Tourists taking brief suborbital rides are dubbed astronauts. People need to be honest about what they have done and realize that adventure tourism is not the same as being an adventurer.

Honnold Explains

Alex Honnold Answers Rock Climbing Questions: Famed free soloist Alex Honnold sits down to answer a range of questions about climbing. The queries range from whether he climbs with a phone to who his role models are to climbing Yosemite’s El Capitan.

How Did the C.I.A. Lose a Nuclear Device?: When China detonated an atomic bomb, the CIA launched a secret Cold War mission. In 1965, the U.S. and India enlisted a team of elite climbers to carry a nuclear-powered surveillance device up Nanda Devi in the Himalaya.

They wanted to monitor China and spy on their missile and nuclear tests. A blizzard forced the team to abandon the plutonium-fueled generator high on the mountain. When they returned the next season, the device had vanished.

A strange disappearance

Inside the Disappearance of Wilderness Guide Joe Pachak: When 75-year-old Utah guide and artist Joe Pachak vanished at the end of November, his disappearance shocked his close-knit desert community. He had left behind his keys, wallet, phone, and a full cup of coffee.

There was an extensive search involving drones, scent dogs, and drained ponds. A search team eventually recovered his remains from a pond on Pachak's property.

Musandam: Fiords, Headlands, and Seas of Change: Musandam, Oman, is one of the most striking sea-kayaking destinations in the Middle East. With fiord-like inlets, cliffs, islands, and an abundance of marine life, there is plenty for paddlers to explore. Kristoffer Vandbakk describes his five-day paddling trip around Khor as Sham and the Strait of Hormuz.

Gender differences in climbing

Do Men Climb More 'Bravely' Than Women?: Bravery in climbing is often linked with danger and risk. The more visible the difficulty of the climb, the braver the climber is thought to be. We often overlook quieter and more subjective experiences of fear and courage, such as confronting personal fears, admitting vulnerability, or seeking help.

Generally speaking, men are often more comfortable taking on a challenging climb than they are admitting their vulnerabilities, an area in which women seem to be more comfortable. Because of this, the idea of bravery in climbing is often linked to gender. This author argues that these broader, less celebrated forms of bravery are just as real and that expanding our definition of courage in climbing is essential. 

These Travel Influencers Don’t Want Freebies. They’re AI: Businesses are increasingly turning to AI-created influencers. For a range of price points, synthetic digital personalities are designed to promote destinations and experiences online.

Some see them as a cost-effective alternative to actual content creators, others as an additional way to promote their brand. Now, it is raising questions about authenticity and the future of influencers in the tourism industry.

Divers have uncovered an ancient pleasure barge near the now-submerged island of Antirhodos, in Egypt. 

The Greek philosopher Strabo wrote about these pleasure boats when he visited Antirhodos from 29 to 25 BCE:

"These vessels are luxuriously fitted out and are used by the royal court for excursions, and by crowds of revelers who set off from Alexandria across the canal to the public festivals," he wrote. "Day and night, the boats are full of people playing the flute and dancing uninhibitedly and with great abandon."

Several earthquakes and the rise in sea level over the centuries have since submerged Antirhodos. It is now roughly seven meters underwater, beneath a layer of sediment. There, divers from the European Institute of Underwater Archaeology spotted the remains of a well-preserved ship. 

At first, they believed the timbers came from two separate ships. They soon realized it was just one vessel, and completely different from anything anyone had found before. These types of boats have been depicted in ancient writings and mosaics, but have never actually been seen before. 

Built for sheltered waters

“It’s extremely exciting because it’s the first time ever that such a boat has been discovered in Egypt,” study lead Franck Goddio told The Guardian. 

At 28 meters long and 7 meters wide, with a rounded stern and flat bottom, researchers think it was built for sheltered waters, not the open ocean. Propelled by up to 20 rowers, its shape suggests the boat made leisurely voyages along canals and rivers. Its width would have allowed it to have a central pavilion or cabin for elite passengers. Greek inscriptions carved into the wood, likely by those who worked on or traveled aboard the barge, point to its Alexandrian origins. The craft is 2,000 years old.

Researchers have suggested one other use of the vessel, based on its location. The wreck is relatively close to the remains of the Temple of Isis. Goddio and his team think it might not have solely been a pleasure barge, but took part in religious festivals linked to the goddess. 

The wreck will remain on the seabed under UNESCO preservation guidelines. From it, researchers hope to discover more about life, luxury, and religious practices during early Roman Egypt. 

The elusive seven-armed blob octopus -- yes, that's a real creature -- has been caught on camera for just the fourth time in 40 years.

Researchers were not looking for the octopus, but it wandered into their camera's line of sight during routine survey work in Monterey Bay, California. 

Using the remotely operated vehicle Ventana, they spotted the rare species 705m below the surface. Amazed by what they had discovered, they used the ROV to gather as much information as they could about the sea creature.

The deep sea is one of the most understudied areas of the ocean. Many of its inhabitants are so mysterious and rarely seen that any information on them is a huge step forward in marine research.

At the time, the seven-armed octopus was clutching a crimson red helmet jelly (Periphylla periphylla). Research on museum specimens indicated that the blob octopus feeds on gelatinous animals. Now, researchers have first-hand evidence. In 2017, a female was recorded carrying an egg yolk jelly, but it was unclear exactly why she was doing this.

Misleading name

The octopus varies massively in size. Females can grow up to a hefty 75 kilos, while some of the males are only eight inches long. The males are the reason this species used to be known simply as the seven-armed octopus.

The name is misleading; it actually has eight arms, like every other octopus. But the males keep one arm, the reproductive hectocotylus, tucked away under their right eye. This makes it look as if it has only seven arms. While mating, the males rip off this specialized arm and use it as a tool to transfer sperm to the female.

Although we rarely see them, Haliphron atlanticus plays a crucial role in deep-sea ecosystems. They act as a food source for swordfish, blue sharks, and sperm whales.

A trail camera in Grand Marais, Minnesota, has captured two elusive Canada lynx in a noisy woodland showdown.

The footage was recorded in the fall of 2024, but the local Chik-Wauk Museum and Nature Center has only just released the footage. At first, a single lynx wanders along the trail, moving in and out of the frame. Moments later, a second lynx appears. The tension quickly ramps up as the newcomer creeps closer and then launches itself toward the original lynx.

At this point, you might expect a brawl to break out between the two animals. Instead of pouncing and clawing, the cats opt for a vocal sparring match. Noses pointed at one another, with one just off camera, the forest fills with their eerie calls. They growl, hiss, and make otherworldly yowls at each other. 

After a few tense minutes, one of the lynx disappears, still growling at a distance. The other briefly assesses the area, then calmly walks away back into the forest.

Bonnie Shudy, the Chik-Wauk campus director, has said both lynx are “regulars” around the museum, often caught on their trail camera. The exact number of lynx in Minnesota is uncertain, but as of 2022, the estimate was between 100 and 300.

The reason this number is so hard to figure out is that the big cats avoid humans. This is why the trail cameras have been so useful. They provide a real window into the movements, behavior, and communication between these usually solitary animals. 

For as long as humans have known them, anacondas have been giants. The colossal snakes average four to five meters long, and some individuals exceed six meters. They rank among the largest predators in South America’s wetlands, and new research shows they have been this big for a long time. But as other species shrunk, they stayed huge.

Anacondas first appeared in the fossil record 12.4 million years ago during the Miocene era. It was a time of giant creatures. Warm temperatures, vast wetlands, and abundant prey allowed reptiles and other animals to grow to extraordinary proportions. The freshwater turtle reached the size of a small car, and the caiman measured up to 12 meters, dwarfing today’s largest crocodiles. As the climate cooled and habitats shifted, almost all of these super-sized animals went extinct. Not the anaconda.

Paleontologists have assumed that, like many animals, ancient anacondas were larger than their modern-day descendants. A new study focused on 183 fossilized vertebrae from 32 snakes from northern Venezuela, dating back to the Middle and Upper Miocene eras. By looking at the size and shape of the individual vertebrae, researchers were able to estimate the length of each snake.

Found their perfect size

The average Miocene anaconda measured 5.2 meters long, virtually the same size as today's species.

"We expected to find the ancient anacondas were seven or eight meters long," said study co-author Andres Alfonso-Rojas. “But we don’t have any evidence of a larger snake from the Miocene when global temperatures were warmer."

The discovery surprised scientists because they had long assumed that, like most other species, anacondas would shrink as ecosystems changed and resources became more scarce.

Instead, the snakes seem to have found their perfect size early in their evolutionary history and held onto it.

"Species like giant crocodiles and giant turtles have gone extinct since the Miocene...but the giant anacondas have survived," said Alfonso-Rojas. "They are super-resilient."

Why they have not shrunk over time is a mystery. Some think it could be down to their lack of competition for food. Others believe the new findings challenge the long-held assumption that climate is a driving force in shaping the size of cold-blooded animals.

Historians have long wondered why the Black Death took hold when it did and how it spread so rapidly. The bubonic plague tore across Europe from 1347 to 1351, killing an estimated 25 million people. New research suggests that a volcanic eruption was indirectly to blame. 

A 1345 eruption threw ash and gas into the air. This created a haze, which caused temperatures to drop for several years. Although fluctuations in annual temperatures are common, low temperatures for three consecutive years are not.

It devastated harvests and triggered widespread crop failures and famine in the Mediterranean. To avoid mass starvation, Italian cities expanded their trade across the Black Sea. Within weeks of the grain’s arrival in 1347 in Venice and other ports, plague outbreaks began. 

Researchers think the bacterium that caused the plague, Yersinia pestis, came from fleas on wild rodents (possibly gerbils) in Central Asia. As trade routes expanded, so did the number of Black Sea ships with bacteria-ridden fleas arriving in Europe.

“These powerful Italian city-states had established long-distance trade routes across the Mediterranean and the Black Sea...to prevent starvation,” said Martin Bauch, co-author of the study. “But ultimately, these led to a far bigger catastrophe.”

The fleas from the grain ships became the vector that spread the disease across Europe. It quickly passed from rodents and other animals to humans.

Previous research had suggested these expanded trade routes as a possible cause of the pandemic, but this most recent team wanted to shed light on the timing. The bacteria did not suddenly appear in the 14th century; they have been around for nearly 5,000 years. So what suddenly caused its rapid spread?

“This is something I’ve wanted to understand for a long time…Why did it happen at this exact time and place in European history?” said co-author Ulf Buntgen. "It’s such an interesting question, but it’s one no one can answer alone."

A major clue lay in tree rings from the Spanish Pyrenees. During the summers of 1345, 1346, and 1347, bands of unusually narrow “blue rings” signified cooler, wetter summers. At the same time, ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica reveal elevated levels of sulfur, suggesting a global eruption. 

As the sulfur-laden haze blocked the sunlight, it plunged parts of the Mediterranean into colder weather, killing crops and prompting expanded trade. This created the perfect storm for one of the worst pandemics in human history. 

Over 60,000 African penguins have starved to death along the coast of South Africa, after their food supply collapsed. 

Between 2004 and 2011, around 62,000 breeding penguins vanished from Dassen Island and Robben Island, two of the most important breeding grounds for African penguins, according to a new study. A staggering 95% of the birds that bred in 2004 were gone just eight years later. 

At the root of the problem was the collapse of sardine numbers. The little fish make up a huge portion of the penguins' diet. A deadly combination of environmental stress and human activity has wrecked the sardine populations, which have been at one-quarter of capacity for most years since 2004. Rising ocean temperatures and the changing salinity disrupted their spawning zones.

Commercial fishing practices remained intense even as sardine numbers dropped. The double whammy of reduced breeding success for sardines and consistent fishing efforts devastated the population. 

As if that wasn’t dire enough, the timing of the penguins’ annual molt worsened the situation. Every year, the penguins shed and regrow their feathers. The process takes around three weeks, and for the duration, they have to stay on land. This means they can’t hunt and need to live off their fat reserves. 

Food scarcity before or after the molt makes it almost impossible for them to survive. The penguins are often underfed when the molt begins, and those that make it back into the water find too few sardines to survive. 

The consequences extend beyond the two colonies on Dassen Island and Robben Island. Over the last 30 years, the global population of this once robust seabird has fallen by nearly 80%. They are now critically endangered. If current trends continue, the species could be extinct within a decade. 

When we’re not outdoors, we get our adventure fix by exploring social media and the web. Here are some of the best adventure links we’ve discovered this week,

Bouldering in the Jordanian Desert: Jordan's Wadi Rum has been a climbing destination for decades. There are over 600 multi-pitch climbs at the UNESCO World Heritage Site, but it is also a rising bouldering hotspot. The wind has sculpted the sandstone into an otherworldly playground of prisms, cubes, and diamonds.

Local climber Faisal Al Rifai has been systematically documenting and mapping as many boulders as he can. So far, he has recorded almost 150 boulder problems, ranging from V0 to V12. 

The Indigenous Tribes Reclaiming Travel: Native and First Nations communities across North America are reviving their ancestral paths by turning them into biking, hiking, paddling, and rafting routes. The Ponca Tribe has transformed trails like the Chief Standing Bear Trail in Nebraska into routes where visitors can learn indigenous history through signage and storytelling.

Elsewhere, groups like the Coeur d'Alene Tribe and the Hualapai Nation are offering culturally led hikes, canoe trips, and guided tours, reclaiming their land, heritage, and narrative.

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Ghost nets

Retrieving ‘Ghost Gear’ From Forgotten Shipwrecks: Ghost Diving USA's divers are all volunteers. These divers spend their spare time removing fishing nets that are entangled with sunken wrecks.

Nikolai Barkats joined them as they headed to the Jenny Lynne, a ship off the coast of California. As the divers descend 45m under the surface, Barkats helps collect the bright orange sacks they’re filling with abandoned fishing gear.

Trapped in Ice: In 2008, a team launched a renewed search for the HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, two ships from the doomed Franklin expedition lost for nearly 200 years. After searching thousands of square meters of ocean, they found one ship in 2014 and the other in 2016.

Arctic conditions preserved the wrecks remarkably well, but ice covers the two sites for most of the year. So, for just a few weeks each year -- with the freezing water just above 0°C -- there is a narrow window for a team of marine archaeologists to piece together what happened.

Nat Geo's best photos of 2025

National Geographic Pictures of the Year: Each year, National Geographic photographers snap thousands of images around the globe. They range from a polar bear feasting atop a dead sperm whale trapped in the Arctic ice to the first underwater photo of a great white shark off Maine to a portrait of the King of the Luchazi people. This is their selection of the 25 photos that have moved and inspired them the most in 2025.

Five Questions With a Solo Bikepacker: Julia Esser is bikepacking alone from Colombia to Argentina. Starting in early 2025, she’s already covered nearly 8,000km, survived three dog attacks, a bout of dengue fever, and shoulder bursitis. Here she discusses her love of cycling, the weirdest places she's slept, and the hardest parts of the trip. 

The Scottish Highlands

The Last Wilderness of Scotland: After planning their trip during lockdown, Jamie Barnes and Ian Finch set out on a remote canoe-and-portage journey across the Highlands. Their plan was to link Lochs Maree, Fionn, and Fada. With pounding rain, constant wind, midges, and heavy portages across heather bogs, they are forced to reconsider their plans in a place they consider to be the last wilderness in Scotland. 

Navigating Military Checkpoints, a 16-Year-Old Map, and Land Mines to Reach the Crag: Armed with only a 16-year-old map drawn by a Swiss expat, Fatima Ayoubi navigates military checkpoints, abandoned suburbs, and the threat of land mines to find potential climbing spots in Syria.

In 2024, Ayoubi tried to get to Monte Rosa, a limestone wall that was once a climbing spot. She didn't get far before a military checkpoint blocked her way. She gathered GPS coordinates and photos, vowing to return. After the downfall of the Assad regime, Ayoubi teamed up with other Syrian climbers to scale the long-forgotten crag and help develop a new climbing community in Syria. 

This past summer, neuroscientists, anthropologists, philosophers, oceanographers, and Marshall Island navigators spent 40 hours at sea to understand how indigenous sailors sailed by “feeling the ocean.” Traveling between the atolls of the Marshall Islands, between Hawaii and Australia, the Marshallese sailors did not use GPS or sextants, but the ancient skill of wave-piloting.

For centuries, master navigators read the feel and sight of waves, the shift of swells, the movement of wind, and the motion of the canoe to sense islands over 50km away. The Marshall's 29 atolls are all low-lying, often rising just a few feet above the waves. They are nearly invisible until you’re almost upon them.

The ancestral practice has nearly vanished. Between the 1940s and 1950s, the Marshall Islands were the site for U.S. nuclear tests. Entire communities were displaced, and with them, many traditional skills were lost.

A small group has tried to keep the tradition alive. A central figure in the current research is Alson Kelen, the director of a local canoe-building school. He was taught to wave-pilot by his cousin, Captain Korent Joe, one of the last fully trained master navigators.

This joint project, involving University College London, the University of Stirling, the University of Hawaii at Hilo, and Harvard University, aimed to investigate what happens inside the brains of expert navigators as they read the ocean. Most navigation-based research focuses on land using city navigation, virtual environments, or controlled laboratory tasks. Navigation at sea is far harder, as there are almost no landmarks.

Second nature for Marshall Islanders

Over a two-day voyage this summer, researchers used mobile eye-tracking, 360° motion capture, heart rate and brain activity monitoring, and regular mapping tasks to collect data on how Marshallese sailors navigate the ocean. Every 30 minutes, everyone on board marked their perceived location on a map. They also noted from which direction the waves seemed to be coming.

For most, this was a bewildering challenge, but for the Marshallese sailors, it was second nature. Hugo Spiers, one of the lead scientists who has studied navigation for decades, admitted, “I found it extremely hard to know where I was.”

The 360° motion capture registered all the cues throughout the journey -- the changes in swell, wind, clouds, and water. Meanwhile, the eye tracking and brain activity monitoring will help map what was happening in the brains of the navigators and which cues they were using.

This study is not just academic. It hopes to pass on ancient cultural knowledge at a time when climate change and rising seas threaten the Marshall Islands.

The researchers will publish their findings next summer.

A week ago, a bright green fireball shot across the sky above the Great Lakes in Michigan. At around 5:30 am, witnesses across Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin and Indiana saw the meteor leave a vivid green streak until Lake Huron, where it exploded.

More than 40 individuals logged eyewitness reports with NASA and captured images of the eerie meteor. At the time, many were unsure of what they were actually seeing, but scientists at NASA and the American Meteorological Society have confirmed that this was a fragment of a comet hurtling at roughly 160,000kph.

The fragment became visible around 100km above Hubbard Lake, a tiny Michigan village west of Lake Huron, before traveling 132km and disintegrating at an altitude of 74km over Lake Huron.

Such fireballs are often associated with meteor showers, but NASA said this was a one-off explosion, unrelated to the Leonid meteor shower at the time.

"This event appears to have been caused by a small comet fragment," said NASA. "It was too small and too fast to have dropped any meteorites into Lake Huron."

The fragment's eerie emerald hue likely came from its chemical makeup, in particular, a high concentration of nickel. As the fragment burned up, the combination of heat and high speed caused the nickel to emit green light as it ionized.

When we’re not outdoors, we get our adventure fix by exploring social media and the web. Here are some of the best adventure links we’ve discovered this week.

Major New Face Climbed in a Remote Corner of Patagonia: Three women have made the first ascent of Cerro Steffen’s 900m west face in Patagonia. To get to the wall, Paloma Farkas, Catalina Unwin, and Angelina Di Prinzio had to go to the end of Chile’s famous Southern Highway, take a multi-day boat ride across Lago O’Higgins, and then trek 22km to the base. A coreshot rope, some jury rigging, and a night spent perched on a tiny shelf later, they made it to the summit.

Henry Todd, LSD Kingpin Turned Everest Guide, Dies at 80: Henry Todd, a Scottish-born expedition leader and legendary Himalayan figure, has died at 80 in Kathmandu. After a career producing and supplying LSD in the UK, which culminated in a seven-year prison stint, Todd started mountaineering in Nepal. Over four decades, he organized dozens of major expeditions but faced repeated criticism over safety and ethics. 

New Zealand's 24 highest peaks

XXIV: In 2021, Sam Smoothy was part of a team that made the second-ever descent of the Caroline Face of Mount Cook. After the 12-hour descent, he was in tears, relieved to be alive. He fled to the coast and took months off from skiing.

He returned to the mountains after reading about two mountaineers who had climbed the 24 highest peaks in New Zealand. Smoothy had already skied seven of their descents; why not try to ski them all? So far, he has completed 21 of the 24. 

Travis Rice and 11 Minutes of the Most Insane Alaskan Terrain: Travis Rice has spent more time than most in the Alaskan Range. Until last year, one line had eluded him: Final Boss. This short film shows Rice guiding Estelle Pensiero on her first Alaska expedition. As they work through the levels, she becomes the first woman to ride The Wizard, before they finally reach Final Boss. 

Out of Eden

What It’s Like to Walk 29,000km Across the World: Paul Salopek reflects on the 13-year odyssey that has taken him roughly 29,000km. Starting in Ethiopia’s Rift Valley, Salopek has returned to North America, all on foot. Now he is on his final stretch, walking to the southern tip of South America. He has walked with locals, from desert herders to Himalayan villagers, and listened to their stories. 

Rob Matheson Interview After ‘The Bells, The Bells!’: In April, veteran British climber Rob Matheson, 74, successfully repeated The Bells, The Bells! (E7), one of the most feared trad climbs on the sea cliffs of Gogarth in North Wales. He felt compelled to climb it after reading Grant Farquhar’s The White Cliff. 

Technical climbing on Baffin Island

The Fluidity of Grief and Beauty: Heather Smallpage recounts a five-week expedition to Baffin Island’s Arviqtujuq Kangiqtua. The group, consisting of Smallpage, Kelly Fields, Shira Biner, and Natalie Afonina, skied over 160km of sea ice and trekked across frozen lakes, moraine, and talus to reach Eglinton Tower. They complete a first ascent, Lemnos in the Clouds (5.11+ A0), navigating extreme alpine exposure and technical climbing.

Four of New Zealand’s Best Wilderness Rides: Australian Geographic spotlights four of New Zealand’s most breathtaking wilderness bike rides. On the North Island, the Timber Trail Great Ride comprises two days in ancient woods, crossing tramways and suspension bridges above remote valleys. The coastal Motu Trails Great Ride threads through dunes and secluded bushland. Over on the South Island, the West Coast Wilderness Trail Great Ride is 133 km of rainforest and driftwood‑strewn beaches in the shadow of the Southern Alps, and the historic Old Ghost Road Great Ride is an 85 km mountain biking trail.

Mosses are some of the hardiest plants on Earth. These pioneer species can thrive in some of the most extreme environments on Earth. New research shows that mosses are even tougher than we thought. They can survive in space. 

The vacuum of space makes it nearly impossible for most living organisms to survive, but one species of moss, Phycomitrium patens, survived outside the International Space Station for nine months. Tomomichi Fujita, who led the study, was intrigued by mosses' ability to grow everywhere from Death Valley to Antarctica.

“I began to wonder: Could this small yet remarkably robust plant also survive in space?” he said in a statement. 

He and his research team selected Phycomitrium patens, commonly known as spreading earthmoss, because it is well-studied and widespread on Earth.

UV radiation the hardest to deal with

They began by testing how the moss would perform in a simulated space environment. “We anticipated that the combined stresses of space, including vacuum, cosmic radiation, extreme temperature fluctuations, and microgravity, would cause far greater damage than any single stress alone,” said Fujita. 

They tested juvenile moss, brood cells (specialized stem cells that are produced in stressful conditions) and sporophytes (the reproductive structures that produce spores). The biggest stressor to all three structures was UV radiation, but the sporophytes coped with it much better than both the juvenile moss and the brood cells. The next step was to see how the sporophytes actually handled space. 

In 2022, the research team brought hundreds of sporophytes to the ISS. The astronauts then attached the sporophytes to the outside of the space station for 283 days, after which they were brought back to Earth.

"We expected almost zero survival, but the result was the opposite," said Fujita. "Most of the spores survived. We were astonished by the extraordinary durability of these tiny plant cells."

Nine months in a vacuum

Over 80% of the sporophytes survived nine months in space and the journeys to and from the ISS. Of those, 89% were still able to germinate once they landed back on Earth.

The protective capsule around each spore might be the key to its success. It acts as both a chemical and physical barrier and absorbs the UV radiation that other structures in the plant could not cope with.

As well as this, almost all types of chlorophyll, the green pigment in photosynthesis, remained at normal levels. Only chlorophyll a declined by 20%. However, this did not seem to affect spore health. 

Based on the plants' success, computer models suggest that the spores could have actually survived for 15 years in space.

“This study demonstrates the astonishing resilience of life that originated on Earth," said Fujita. 

High in the mountains of western Norway, researchers have uncovered a 1,500-year-old reindeer trap that was preserved beneath the ice for centuries, until recent melting exposed it.

In 2024, 76-year-old local hiker Helge Titland spotted some unusual wooden stakes protruding from a patch of melting snow on the Aurlandsfjellet plateau. He had already discovered several ancient hunting sites nearby and was certain this was a significant find.

Researchers from Vestland County Council and the University Museum of Bergen came this year and found the trap even more exposed by melting ice.

“We have never seen anything like this before,” said local archaeologist Oystein Skar. “It is completely unique.”

Ancient corral

Hundreds of logs and branches are arranged in two long rows, creating a funnel-like guiding fence that converges into a large enclosure. Here, hunters could capture or kill the reindeer. Archaeologists believe that this mass-capture corral dates back to the mid-sixth century, at the end of the early Iron Age.

It is the only ancient wooden facility of its kind ever found in Norway and possibly Europe. The ice that imprisoned it for hundreds of years helped to preserve it. The team believes that snow and ice buried the structure soon after it was abandoned.

Nearby, archaeologists have found hundreds of reindeer antlers, many with cut marks across them. There were also iron spearheads, bits of arrows and bows, and several carved wooden items.

The discovery “gives insight into the importance reindeer hunting may have had...We now suspect that wild reindeer hunting played an even greater role [in the early Iron Age] than earlier believed,” Leif Inge Astveit, an archaeologist at the University Museum of Bergen, told the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation.

One of the most puzzling finds at the site, which sits at 1,400m, is a richly decorated wooden oar. “What these were used for, and why they were brought into the mountains 1,500 years ago, is still a mystery,” said Skar.

Though melting ice revealed these extraordinary objects, its disappearance also makes them vulnerable to rapid decay. All items are kept frozen at the University Museum of Bergen, allowing them to be slowly thawed and dried to prevent further damage.

When we’re not outdoors, we get our adventure fix by exploring social media and the web. Here are some of the best adventure links we’ve discovered this week.

The Museum That Is Only Accessible Via an Eight-Hour Hike: The Frattini Bivouac is a minimalist “museum” perched at 2,300m in Italy’s Alta Via delle Orobie. There is only one way to reach it -- a six- to eight-hour hike across scree, moss, and snow.

It does not house paintings or sculptures. Instead, it is part of the Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo’s ‘Think Like a Mountain’ project. Designed in part by the Italian Alpine Club, the bivouac is lightweight, ecologically sensitive, and open to anyone who wants to visit. It will act as both an emergency shelter and a scientific outpost. 

New Film Shows Why Skiing in Scotland Is (Still) Worth It Every Time: Every year, Scotland's backcountry ski and snowboard community meet for a "Winter Opener." The night entails watching ski films and slideshows, all set in Scotland. This year, the final movie was Worth It Every Time. Made by skier Harris Booth and videographer Ben Girdwood, it captures the stubborn joy and resilience of Scotland’s ski community.

Over the last few years, shrinking snow and tougher conditions have not deterred these Gaelic diehards. Booth reflects that despite the challenges thrown at them by Mother Nature, “that extra effort … is totally worth it,” and that you can always get a few truly epic days skiing in Scotland.

Chasing land speed records

Meet the Daredevils Chasing Down Speed Records at the Bonneville Salt Flats: Once an ancient lake, Utah’s Bonneville Salt Flats are the home of land speed racing. The evaporated water left behind a dense salt crust that hardens every summer into one of the flattest natural runways on the planet.

For over 75 years, the Flats have drawn everything from home-built motorcycles to futuristic vehicles, all competing for speed records. All these speedsters and inventors form a close-knit community. This article highlights some of the faces of Bonneville.

Red Bull Erases a Sherpa From The Summit of Everest: When Andrzej Bargiel skied down the South Side of Everest without oxygen in September, sponsor Red Bull was there to film the event. Its 31-minute video of the descent is just a teaser for the full film coming in 2026.

Bargiel made it clear that this was not a solo effort, that he had a full team supporting him throughout. Dawa Sherpa accompanied him to the summit, but was originally erased from the YouTube thumbnail. The film has already racked up millions of views, and Red Bull’s decision to manipulate the imagery to show Bargiel alone raises questions about recognition and the ethics of storytelling in high-altitude expeditions. 

Rescue by storytelling

Inside the Daring Night Rescue To Save Two Paddlers in New Mexico’s Taos Box: John Fullbright was making soup when he got the call. Two underprepared paddleboarders were stranded after dark on the Lower Taos Box.

The pair had taken to the river on inflatable paddleboards. lost them in a set of rapids and ended up soaking wet, cold, and disoriented. As night fell, they had to make an SOS call for help. The sheriff sent the message to veteran river guides Fullbright and “Copper John” Nettles.

Using their expert knowledge of the river, the men navigated it in the dark to find the paddleboarders. They started a fire, handed over soup and sleeping bags, and spent the night telling them stories from the river until rescue teams reached them the next day.

She Hiked 13,536km In Less Than A Year: Madison “Peg Leg” Blagden has become the first woman to complete a border-to-border Calendar Year Triple Crown. She hiked an astonishing 13,536km in just 318 days across the Pacific Crest Trail, Continental Divide Trail, and Eastern Continental Trail.

At around 6,500km, she was almost forced to stop when she tore something in her hip. To recover, she rested for 17 days, had multiple days of slack-packing, and then two weeks averaging 37km a day. After that, she had to ramp up her pace and hit an average of 59km per day for a few months to make it through Colorado before snowfall made it impossible. 

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Pushing through fear

The Psychology Behind Why Outdoor Sports Are So Much Fun: After several failed attempts to surf at Dessert, a standing wave in the middle of Canada's Ottawa River, Dan Rubinstein wondered why he had spent countless hours returning to the same spot. Intrigued, he began to explore the psychology behind why outdoor sports feel so rewarding.

Research shows most outdoor enthusiasts are not daredevils, but meticulous planners. We are not chasing thrills, but the satisfaction that comes when we push through fear and frustration. 

Is This Rescue Company To Blame For A Climber’s Death? Last month, Australian climber Chin-Tark Chan died on Nepal’s Himlung Himal. According to his outfitter, 8K Expeditions, Global Rescue (the evacuation service that Chan had a policy with) refused to approve a helicopter long-line rescue at around 6,800m, insisting that rescuers move him to a lower camp first and that they speak to him directly.

8K Expeditions says this request cost precious time and forced them to try to arrange a separate helicopter evacuation. Global Rescue insists that the altitude made a helicopter rescue too risky, and that had the outfitter concentrated on moving Chan to a lower altitude rather than arranging a different helicopter, the outcome might have been different. 

On Thursday, November 20, a grizzly bear attacked a group of school children and their teachers on a trail in British Columbia, Canada. The incident left 11 people injured, two of them critically.

The group consisted of two teachers and 20 fourth- and fifth-graders from Acwsalcta School, which the Nuxalk Nation runs. They were on an outing in a valley near the town of Bella Coola and stopped for lunch at around midday. At this point, the bear emerged from the forest and charged at them.

The latest information now indicates that there was more than one bear -- a mother and her two cubs.

The teachers were well-equipped and fended the animals off with bear spray and noisemakers, putting themselves between the students and the bears.

Veronica Schooner, a parent of one of the 10-year-olds on the trip, commented that one male teacher “got the whole brunt of it.” Paramedics rushed to the scene after receiving a call about the attack. The male teacher and one other person were critically injured. Two others sustained serious injuries. All four were eventually airlifted to the hospital. Seven others were treated at the scene.

Nuxalk Nation Chief Samuel Schooner commented on the “significant trauma” the incident has caused to both the school group and the wider community.

Heroic actions

“We are incredibly proud of our teachers and students who responded heroically in the moment to protect one another,” he said. He did not comment on the condition of those who had been seriously injured.

According to officials, the bear seemed unusually aggressive and was potentially acting erratically due to a prior injury. Speaking about the attack, Kevin Van Damme from the B.C. Conservation Officer Service said, “I really need to stress how dangerous the situation is with this bear at large. We need to keep people away from the area.”

In 34 years of working in the region, he has never known a grizzly attack on such a large group of people.

The school has temporarily closed, and conservation officers are patrolling the area. They have set traps for the bear and have collected forensic evidence to identify exactly which animal attacked the group. They are asking residents to stay indoors until the bears are found.

Since our last roundup, one soloist has taken to the water. He is the only person rowing the world’s oceans at the moment.

Why? Because it's hurricane season over both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans -- not exactly the best time to go rowing. In the Pacific, hurricane season runs from May to November. In the Atlantic, it goes from June to November. Once these end, more rowers will begin their challenges.

Dave 'Dinger' Bell (UK): In 2021, Dave 'Dinger' Bell became one of the first people to row from New York to mainland Britain. Now he is taking on a challenge that dwarfs his previous 5,000km effort. He set off from Lima, Peru, on November 9 with the aim of rowing 25,000km solo across the Pacific and Indian Oceans to Mauritius in East Africa.

During the first two weeks, he has given no updates on his progress, but his tracker shows he has covered just under 900km.

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The route

During the first part of his row, he will cross the Pacific Ocean alone and unsupported, an immense feat in its own right. If he reaches Australian waters in good shape, he won't come ashore but will carry on through the notoriously difficult Torres Strait. He will then skirt the top of Australia and continue all the way across the Indian Ocean -- still solo, still non-stop, and still without support.

If he completes this, it will be the longest single-stage unsupported row ever. He's making his attempt in a brand-new carbon-fiber craft built by The Ocean Rowing Company, a boat that is designed for up to four rowers. Though it is lightweight for its size, it is still very big for a single person to haul across two oceans.

However, he needs it so large in order to store 330 days of food and supplies. He calculates that should be enough to row two oceans and the Torres Strait in a single, unbroken push.

This week, Daragh Morgan became the first person to swim around Ireland -- a staggering 1,468km. Setting off from Galway on May 31, the 27-year-old spent the last five months swimming clockwise along the coast. In total, he spent 338 hours in the water, thereby covering an average of about 4.3kph.

Morgan has been planning his so-called Swim Éire for six years. From the start, the plan was ambitious: a tidal-assisted, staged swim around the island. He would use the periods when the currents and tides were favorable to cover as much distance as possible. He aimed to swim for about six hours a day. If conditions were good, he continued even longer. Now and then, he even swam at night.

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His daily distance depended largely on conditions. Typically, he covered 15km a day, but some days were less than 10km, and one day he did 36km.

A one-man support crew

In all, he took 99 separate swims over 93 days in the water. Throughout, he had a one-man support crew named Dara Bailey. A seventh-generation fishermen, Bailey captained a traditional 13m Galway Hooker that was by Morgan's side at all times.

“A wizard of the sea…I will be forever grateful for this man," said Morgan. "Without Dara, none of this would have been possible.” 

Morgan battled cold Atlantic waters, stinging jellyfish by the hundreds, salt sores under his arms from the many hours in the water, fatigue, and significant weight loss. However, none of these was the hardest part of the journey. His ultimate enemy was the weather, the control it had over his swim, and the many days it forced him to stay out of the water. He was weatherbound for close to two months out of the five.

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The logistics were complex. His support boat was responsible for navigation, safety, and working with the tides, wind, and ever-changing sea state. Small good weather windows put pressure on him to swim as far as possible, since the bad weather often lasted for days at a time.

Morgan admitted to struggling with these enforced layovers. The constant stopping and starting was difficult. Even though he knew it helped him recover physically, he often felt more fatigued after a few days out of the water.  

The beauty and the madness

Despite the difficulties, Morgan loved the experience. “[This] is my way of showing what Ireland means to me," he said. "The beauty of it. The madness of it. The sea, the land, the weather…all of it. I’ve been shaped by this place, and this journey is my way of honoring that.” 

The swim was not just about setting a record but about sharing his passion and love for Ireland, while promoting ocean conservation and various charities.

Hitting certain milestones was a huge boost. On July 5, he reached the northernmost point of his swim. A few weeks later, in August, he reached his halfway point. On October 8, he became the first person to swim the length of Ireland from Malin to Mizen Head. All these moments spurred him on.

Other moments of joy came from meeting people along the way who showed support and shared stories of Ireland. And he enjoyed spotting marine life around him as he swam. 

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Once, as he swam near Aran Island at the start of his swim, he said, “It was beautiful. I was in really deep water, and there were dolphins underneath me. Then I swam into this passage, and the water got a lot shallower. I could see all the seagrass and different things; it was almost like I was snorkeling. I turned my head up, and there was gorse burning in a field. It was just a huge, sensory, immersive experience, and it was the first step of the whole journey."

Researchers have recently uncovered at least 30 unknown deep-sea species around Antarctica. These include a bizarre carnivorous sponge they nicknamed the “death ball.”

Two different vessels explored volcanic calderas, the South Sandwich Trench, and the seafloor around Montagu and Saunders Islands.

The Southern Ocean is one of the most poorly studied bodies of water on Earth, and new discoveries are not surprising. Just north of Montagu Island, some 3.5 kilometers below the surface, researchers encountered a bizarre-looking sponge with white stalks tipped with what looks like ping pong balls, and covered in microscopic hooks. The new sponge is carnivorous. Any small creature unlucky enough to brush against it, mostly tiny crustaceans, is snared by the hooks and slowly absorbed.

A horrible way to go

“They’re doomed, unfortunately,” said Michelle Taylor from the University of Essex, who led part of the expedition. “To be absorbed slowly over time is a grim way of going.”

The “death ball” wasn’t their only find. Among the 2,000 samples collected, they also found an iridescent worm, at least one unknown species of sea star, and several new crustaceans. At the moment, just 30 percent of the collected specimens have been examined. From this small fraction, 30 new species have already been confirmed.

The two expeditions were part of the broader Ocean Census program, a collaboration of over 500 institutions from around the world. In 13 expeditions, the program has discovered over 800 new species. Its goal is to find many more. Currently, we are aware of approximately 240,000 marine species, but scientists estimate that there are actually between one and two million. 

Classifying new species often takes years, but these specimens go directly to the University of Magallanes in Punta Arenas, Chile. There, international taxonomists work side by side to verify new species.

“By coupling expeditions with species discovery workshops, we compress what often takes more than a decade into a faster pathway while maintaining scientific rigor,” said taxonomist Tina Bolstad.

Latvian adventurer Karlis Bardelis has died at the age of 40. He passed away on November 17 after being diagnosed with a brain tumor earlier this year.

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Adventure defined the last decade of Bardelis’ life. In 2016, he embarked on an eight-year journey to circumnavigate the globe under his own power. Combining rowing and cycling, he traveled 58,298km over 2,898 days, circling the Earth to return to his starting point in Namibia.

Over the course of his round-the-world journey, he became the first person to row from South America to Asia, and the first to row from Asia to Africa. 

Over the years, ExplorersWeb interviewed Bardelis on several occasions, and what always came through was his positivity and the joy he found in the challenges he set himself.

“When you see a child playing around, and he’s full of energy, jumping around all over the place, you never ask, Where do you get this motivation from? It’s just there. Like internal nuclear power. It’s the same for me. I never needed any extra or external motivation. It was just there,” he explained.

Becomes an adventurer

He decided to become an adventurer after reading Nick Bullock’s Echoes: One Climber’s Hard Road to Freedom.

Speaking about that decision, he said, ”I deliberately read it really, really slowly, because I already knew what decision I was going to make by the end of this book: That I would quit my stable job and try to find my way as a full-time adventurer.”

From that moment, he didn’t look back. In 2013, he crossed Europe from North Cape in Norway to Gibraltar on Nordic skates. A few months later, he cycled from his home in Latvia to the Sochi Olympics. Later in 2014, he skied 750km from Russia to Norway. After this, he started planning his circumnavigation.

He started by rowing from Namibia to Brazil with a friend, then he cycled to Peru with his girlfriend. His 26,000km row across the Pacific to Malaysia was completely solo, but he did stop at several islands along the way to wait out storms and hurricane seasons. 

He rowed part of the Indian Ocean with fellow circumnavigator Dimitri Kieffer. After parting ways in the Maldives, he continued on to Tanzania. Winds carried him too far and he was forced to land in Somalia. After sorting out the logistical nightmare of landing in that war-torn country, he rowed back to Tanzania and cycled across five countries in Africa to get back to Namibia.

“I never took it as a done deal before I jumped in the ocean in Lüderitz in Namibia, where I started.”

Falls ill

Less than a year after completing his journey, in February 2025, Bardelis suffered a stroke after a blood vessel in his brain burst. He suffered paralysis on one side of his body. During surgery, doctors discovered a malignant brain tumor.

Despite treatment, his health continued to decline. His family shared the following message yesterday: “With light and loving sadness, we would like to announce that yesterday, November 17, 2025, our beloved son, brother, husband, friend, and infinitely good man Karlis Bardelis went into his ocean of eternity.”

Some fossils of long-extinct sea creatures display brilliant rainbow colors. Known as ammolite, these gems come from the fossilized shells of ammonites, squid-like marine animals that vanished with the dinosaurs. While other fossils are hues of browns and greys, many ammonites burst with greens and reds and purples and pinks.  

Chemist Hiroaki Imai first spotted the beautiful fossils at a mineral fair in Japan. Intrigued, he and his research team launched a study to understand why these fossils are colorful. 

Ammolite is composed of layers of the mineral aragonite, with tiny gaps of air between them. These gaps are only a few nanometers (a billionth of a meter) wide, but they reflect specific colors of light, depending on the thickness of the aragonite layers. All this color seems to start in the inner layer of the shells, which is made of nacre, commonly known as mother-of-pearl. 

Mother-of-pearl vs ammonite

Mother-of-pearl is made of thin, stacked plates of aragonite, separated by organic material. It occurs in many marine creatures, but they do not all share the iridescence of ammonite fossils. To understand what makes ammonites unique, Imai’s team started comparing ammonite fossils from around the world with shells from modern creatures such as abalone and nautilus.

All the shells showed the same general nacreous structure, with key differences. The aragonite layers were of different thicknesses, the gaps between them were of different sizes, and the organic material between the plates was different. This combination determines the exact colors we see.

The most vivid and colorful ammonites all came from a single location: the Bearpaw Formation in Alberta, Canada. The fossils found here showed particularly uniform layers and tiny air gaps, which seem to be key to their coloration.

“[They] are an art form created by living organisms and the Earth,” Imai told The New York Times.

The mystery didn’t end there. In the same formation, scientists found plenty of ammonites with no iridescence at all. They were just pale, creamy shells. Why some fossils preserve these perfect optical structures while others lose them is unknown. The researchers believe it might be due to subtle geological differences within the region. They hope to explore this question in the next phase of their work. 

When we’re not outdoors, we get our adventure fix by exploring social media and the web. Here are some of the best adventure links we’ve discovered this week. 

Glass-faced Mountain Hut Nests in the Alps: Carlo Ratti Associati has unveiled a ground-breaking alpine shelter design for the Italian Alps. The structures will completely veer away from traditional huts with the aim of blending man-made structures with nature.

Built from timber, metal, and aerogel, with a huge glass front that will let users look out at the mountain views, it will be assembled off-site and airlifted into the mountains. The structure will be initially showcased at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, before being later reassembled in the Alps as a lasting refuge for climbers. 

An Ode to the Company We Keep on the Water: “If you fly with the crows, you die with the crows,” is a common phrase. Rather than having its normal negative meaning, Scott MacGregor reframes it, thinking about the lifelong bonds he has made with fellow paddlers. He recalls early canoe trips on Ontario’s Madawaska River with his friend James, and how three decades later they’re still paddling together, now with his 20-year-old son. Now they are a pair of “old crows” -- still together, and a little bit misunderstood. 

A peculiar disappearance

The Missing Kayaker: On August 11, 2024, Ryan Borgwardt went to a church service with his family and then headed to Big Green Lake, Wisconsin. He was going fishing and wanted to see the Perseid meteor shower from the lake. At 5:12 am the next day, his wife raised the alarm. He had not come home.

Jamie Thompson delved into his bizarre disappearance. Rescue teams found his kayak, tackle box, and a life jacket floating on the lake. They searched the waters for months, looking for a body. What began as a presumed tragic drowning soon unraveled into a tale of self-reinvention. He had staged his own death, dumped his belongings into the lake, and fled by inflatable boat and e-bike to Europe, all to start a new life. 

What It’s Like to Work at a Luxury Ranch for Celebrities: A full-time wrangler lifts the lid on life working at ultra-luxury dude ranches that host celebrities and influencers in the Wild West. Guests pay up to $5,000 a night for trail rides, mock cattle drives, wine tastings, facials, and sound baths. The guides earn just $25,000 a year, without tips, while working 95-hour weeks in peak season and sleeping in camper homes because they can’t afford rent in the area. 

Tragedies on Mt. Whitney

Mt. Whitney is Not a Casual Hike: This month, a series of rescue efforts have taken place on Mount Whitney in California. The local search and rescue organization is urging visitors not to underestimate how dangerous the peak can be, even for experienced hikers.

In five days, three hikers had to be airlifted to safety from the Lower 48’s highest peak after two medical emergencies and a fall from the mountain’s “99 Switchbacks” section. This comes just weeks after another climber died in a separate slip on the same section of the trail. 

Bothy Bogs -- The Art of the Outdoor Toilet: As more people take to the hills around the UK, bothies are becoming more popular, and all their visitors need somewhere to go to the toilet. Sanitation in these remote hill shelters has become a bit of an issue. Most visitors depend on a spade and a bog, but at the more popular shelters, this is creating a minefield of poorly buried toilet paper and poo.

The Mountain Bothies Association is now trying to build simple but carefully engineered toilets, all of which are designed to be low-maintenance, hygienic, and reduce environmental impact. 

A historic treasure hunt

Cache 23: Inspired by the 1924 voyage of James Critchell-Bullock and John Hornby across the Barren Lands in Canada, Michal Lukaszewicz and his partner, Karolina, set out to retrace their century-old canoe journey. Bullock and Hornby were attempting to capture the first footage of muskoxen. After months, they abandoned a cache containing spools of film and their camera. Lukaszewicz wanted to find the cache left on a small island in the Hanbury River. After weeks of paddling, the pair finally made it to the island. All that was left to do was find the hidden cache.

Go Climb a Rotten Desert Tower With Your Spouse. What Could Go Wrong: Duane Raleigh writes about what it really feels like to climb the crumbly sandstone towers of Arches National Park with your partner -- equal parts adventure, misadventure, and relationship stress test. Making it to the top of the soft sandstone spires requires technical effort and patience, both with the wall and your climbing partner. 

When marine scientists put suction-cup cameras on humpback whales off Australia’s east coast, they were trying to observe their behavior and migration patterns. At the same time, they unwittingly filmed the journey of hitchhiking remoras. 

The rare footage shows the remoras clinging to the whales until mere moments before the whales breach. Then, at the last minute, they quickly detach. What surprised the team most was the remoras’ ability to stick with their whale host during rapid ascents and reattach with astonishing precision and speed as the whales crashed back into the water. 

“Whenever the whale was breaching and doing in particular fast movements…the sucker fish were responding very quickly,” said Olaf Meynecke of the Whales and Climate Research Program at Griffith University in Australia. “They knew exactly when to let go of the body of the whale before it breached the surface of the water and then returned to the same spot only seconds later.”

The little hitchhikers are harmless to the huge whales. The videos demonstrate the mutual benefits of this unusual partnership. The remoras graze on dead whale skin and any sea lice the whale has. In return, they get a free ride and as much food as they could want.

"They have their entire meal, and they all have their mates with them as well," Meynecke explained. "So they are mating and reproducing on the whale's body. It's like the perfect vehicle for them." 

Research found that whales that appeared to be shedding more skin carried more remoras, often 15-20 fish per whale. In some cases, as many as 50 remoras had suctioned themselves onto a single marine mammal. 

They hitchhike on sharks, too

These sucker fish do not just attach themselves to whales but occasionally onto sharks, manta rays, turtles, dolphins, and even scuba divers. The relationship is often seen as benefiting both parties, although the whales often appear less than enthusiastic about their persistent passengers.

“We have observed whales eyeing them, undertaking multiple breaches, then checking again,” explained Meynecke.

He admits that several mysteries still surround the fish. It’s unclear whether remoras remain attached for the entire migration, all the way from Australia to Antarctica and back, or if they switch hosts along the way. There’s also the question of timing and reproduction: Remora larvae are born in the East Australian Current and must find a host soon after developing, hinting that the timing of their life cycle might be tied to the whale's migration route.

The Moon has a little-known companion -- a slightly lopsided dust cloud that never leaves its side. The cloud leans toward whichever side of the Moon happens to be facing the sun. After years of wondering, scientists think they have finally figured out what the cloud is and how it got its wonky shape. 

Micrometeoroids constantly strike the surface of the Moon. These are tiny bits of rock around 1mm in diameter that hurtle through space at high speeds. Several tons of this cosmic dust hit the Moon every day. The constant bombardment turns the small surface rocks into dust, forcing this lunar powder into the air. As it rises, it forms a huge cloud above the Moon. 

Though the cloud stretches for hundreds of kilometers, you can’t see it with the human eye.

“The maximum density measured was only 0.004 particles per cubic meter," Sebastian Verkecke, lead author of the new study, told Live Science. The density is not evenly spread throughout the cloud. It is always denser on the Moon’s daytime side, especially at the dawn terminator -- the line between light and darkness on the lunar surface. 

Researchers think the cloud is so lopsided due to the huge temperature fluctuations on the Moon. During the day, it can reach 285˚C, while nights can drop to -183˚C.

To test their hypothesis, they ran computer simulations of micrometeoroids hitting the lunar surface at different temperatures to mimic night and day on the Moon. The models showed how both dust and regolith responded. 

The results showed that heat makes a big difference. When the surface is warmer, the impacts blast more dust into space and send it higher. The compactness of the lunar soil also matters. Tightly packed surfaces released more dust when struck, while fluffier, looser surfaces tended to absorb more of the impact’s energy and throw up less material. All of this explains why the Moon’s dust cloud is thicker on the sunlit side, giving it a strangely lopsided shape.

When the micrometeoroids slam into the hot daytime surface, the heat makes the dust particles fly higher and spread farther. But when it hits the cold night surface, the dust doesn’t travel as far, and much less of it escapes. Over time, that creates a thicker dust cloud over the Moon’s sunlit side and a thinner one over the dark side.

The research team now wants to extend their study to look at other objects in our solar system. Mercury is of particular interest. Sitting closer to the sun, its daytime temperatures are significantly higher, which could create an even wonkier dust cloud. 

Over the past four decades, shark bites have been on the rise. In 2024, 71 bites were reported worldwide, seven of them fatal. While encounters with sharks are still rare, the increasing numbers have inspired a new idea -- a wetsuit that could protect against shark bites.

A team of Australian marine biologists at Flinders University decided to find out if this was possible. They developed and tested new bite-resistant wetsuit materials to see if they could withstand a shark’s teeth while allowing movement in the water. Their findings suggest that the right fabric blend could significantly reduce the severity of shark-bite injuries.

Traditional “bite-proof” wetsuits rely on chain mail or steel mesh. The materials can stop skin punctures fairly well, but they are heavy and massively restrict movement in the water. The researchers tested four bite-resistant wetsuit materials: Aqua Armour, Shark Stop, ActionTX-S, and Brewster material to see how well they reduced damage from bites.

They then tested the four different suit designs against white and tiger sharks, the species responsible for most unprovoked bites in Australian waters. Using bait balls, they lured sharks close before swapping the bait for test samples attached to buoys. The sharks bit down with full force on all materials.

Dramatic difference

The difference between regular neoprene and the reinforced materials was dramatic. Standard wetsuit fabric was easily shredded, showing deep punctures and tears. The experimental materials showed only shallow indentations that didn’t penetrate all the way through. While none of the suits could eliminate crushing injuries, they could prevent the kind of deep lacerations that cause rapid blood loss, which is often what makes shark bites fatal.

“While there were small differences between the four tested materials, they all reduced the amount of substantial and critical damage, which would typically be associated with severe hemorrhaging and tissue or limb loss,” said lead author Tom Clarke.

The suits won't stop sharks from attacking, but they would give victims a better chance of surviving if they do.

Three men who were swept out to sea as Typhoon Kalmaegi tore across Vietnam’s central coast earlier this week have been rescued. In an incredible story of survival, all three managed to endure drifting on the rough sea for over 40 hours. 

It all started on November 6 on Ly Son Island in the province of Quang Ngai. Two local men, Phan Duy Quang, 47, and Le Van Sanh, 37, spotted a third man, Duong Quang Cuong, 44, in the water. They grabbed a small basket boat and paddled out to help him. They never came back.

The pair had initially managed to pull Cuong out of the water, but the strong waves soon overpowered their little boat and swept it out to sea. On Thursday night, it capsized in the storm, dumping the three men into the South China Sea. The storm shredded their basket boat, and they had to rely on their life jackets to stay afloat. 

Drifted apart

According to Vietnamese media, the trio stayed together by holding hands through the night and all the next day. But by Saturday morning, exhaustion had taken hold, and they were unable to hold on to each other any longer and drifted apart.

Meanwhile, regional authorities received a distress report on Thursday and launched a search for the missing men. Several vessels and even helicopters were unsuccessful. As the storm continued through Friday, rescuers feared the worst. 

Then, miraculously, on Saturday morning, the captain of a cargo ship called the Hai Nam 39 spotted Quang in the water. Barely conscious but still in his life jacket, he had floated 110km from Ly Son Island, where they had begun their ordeal.

"From the bridge, the captain saw someone adrift and immediately ordered the crew to slow down, turn back, and prepare rescue gear," Le Van Luong, director of the Quang Ngai Maritime Port Authority, told local reporters. 

All three survived

Speaking about the rescue, Captain Hoang Phu Xuyen said, "It wasn’t easy to get close because the ship still had engine momentum, and the waves were rough. He was conscious but very weak.” After several attempts in the choppy waters, they managed to throw a life preserver to Quang and drag him onto the ship. 

Hours later, another vessel, the An Vinh Express, recovered Le Van Sanh, likewise over 10km from shore. And finally, just after 6 pm that same day, the fishing boat QB 92198 TS found and rescued Duong Quang Cuong.

Typhoon Kalmaegi struck Vietnam’s central coast earlier this week with torrential rain, gale-force winds, and widespread flooding. As of Saturday, authorities reported that five people have died, 11 boats sank, 57 houses in two villages collapsed, and 3,000 more lost their roofs. 

When we’re not outdoors, we get our adventure fix by exploring social media and the web. Here are some of the best adventure links we’ve discovered this week.

How Mallory Duncan’s Artistic Vision Crystallized Into a New Kind of Ski Film: Three years after his award-winning The Blackcountry Journal, filmmaker and skier  Mallory Duncan has a new film: LINES. The piece draws parallels between performing in the mountains and writing and rapping. He shows the behind‑the‑scenes process of skiing in the backcountry set against preparations to take to the stage. 

The Canadian Mountains Where Heli-Hiking Was Born: In the roadless corners of British Columbia’s Purcell Mountains, heli-hiking blends hiking and high adventure. Originating in the 1970s as a summer counterpart to heli-skiing, heli-hiking opens up pristine backcountry peaks. After only a 15-minute helicopter flight from the town of Golden, hikers are dropped into the otherwise inaccessible Purcell Range to scramble along ridgelines and summit remote mountains.

The future of sea kayaking

Deb Volturno On The Future Of Sea Kayaking: Deb Volturno is a pioneering figure in sea and surf kayaking. In this interview, she reflects on the changes that have occurred over the last 40 years, her first mentor, and the growth of women in paddling. 

Will Moss Becomes Youngest to Free The Nose in a Day: Twenty-year-old Will Moss has become the youngest climber to free The Nose on El Capitan in a single day, completing the 900m granite wall in just 11 hours and 48 minutes.

Earlier this year, Moss became the first person to flash Free Rider (also on El Capitan) in less than 24 hours. Unlike most climbers -- who prepare by tackling the routes over multiple days before making their single-day attempt -- Moss trained by rehearsing cruxes, and when he felt ready, he attempted the wall. Wet conditions hampered his first two attempts, but his third was a success. 

Crowds on El Capitan

Wall of Dreams or Crowds and Chaos?: Not all is well on El Capitan, however. Katie Keeley gives a candid account of climbing on this mecca of big-wall climbing. Her climb up The Nose was crowded and noisy, littered with heaps of tangled ropes, climbing traffic, and a "Disneyland-like" atmosphere. 

Why So Many Thru-Hikes End in a Breakup: In 2024, 46% of people who took on the Appalachian Trail were in a relationship when they set off. Only 42% of them were still in a relationship at the end of the trail.

Couples counselor Michele Weiner‑Davis explains why so many relationships fail on the trail, regardless of whether you are hiking together or you leave your partner at home. She believes clear communication, realistic expectations, mutual appreciation, and addressing pre-existing issues are often the difference between deepening your bond and arriving at the end of the trail alone.

Baffin Island

Frozen Fiords and First Ascents: This podcast features Shira Biner discussing the physical and emotional aspects of her 2025 expedition to Baffin Island. Over 29 days, the Canadian climber led an all-female team as they skied 150km across the sea ice to the granite walls of Eglinton Fjord. There, they established a new 600m route on Eglinton Tower.

The Most Baffling Mysteries in America’s Great Outdoors: Mike Bezemek has spent years scouring America for outdoor mysteries, covering everything from unexplained phenomena to baffling disappearances. Here he writes about seven of his favorite mysteries, including the ancient stone ring of the Bighorn Medicine Wheel in Wyoming, the mysterious half-million symmetrical lakes across the East Coast, and three Alcatraz runaways that vanished.

Karl Bushby has been walking across the world for 27 years. On Nov. 1, 1998, he set off from Punta Arenas in Chile. Nearly three decades later, he is back in Europe and on the final leg of his incredible journey. With just months to go, he has hit a logistical roadblock -- crossing the English Channel.

When he set out on his journey, he established two rules for himself: He would only return home when the walk was complete, and he would use no form of transportation. Since then, he has crossed the Darien Gap between Colombia and Panama and the Bering Strait to Siberia. He then spent years trying to cross Russia before heading into Mongolia, China, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Azerbaijan.

Earlier this year, he hit a huge milestone. He crossed Istanbul's Bosphorus Bridge, officially crossing back into Europe. Since August, he has walked across Turkey and Bulgaria, and is now picking his way across Romania, but has hit a logistical snag.

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His Goliath Expedition has been plagued by logistical nightmares, including visa issues, war zones, and a lack of funding. The latest issue is crossing the English Channel. Using his own rules, he cannot sail across it, so the most obvious way for a man who has been walking for 27 years is to walk through the Channel Tunnel. This is strictly forbidden. He had hoped to secure special permission to walk the 4.8m wide service tunnel used by maintenance crews, but so far, he has failed to get that clearance.

No response

His support team has made multiple attempts to contact Channel Tunnel officials, to no avail. They have not responded to his requests.

"It would be pretty miserable if it was a no. Even the Russians let me through [their country], despite world tensions,” Bushby told the BBC.

If they continue to ignore his requests or do not grant him permission to cross using the service tunnel, Bushby only has one option left -- to swim the Channel. Last year, he and Angela Maxwell swam across the Caspian Sea. Again, this was not his original plan, but unable to cross from Turkmenistan into Iran, he needed to backtrack along his route to Uzbekistan, cross the Kyzylkum desert, and then swim to Azerbaijan.

The 288km swim took the pair, plus the two young Azerbaijani swimmers who joined them, 27 days. On becoming one of the first people to make the crossing, Bushby commented,  “I’m definitely not a swimmer, nor do I like swimming.”

His feelings have not changed. He commented recently, "If I have to swim across, I obviously will. But it will be colder than the Caspian."

There is still time for Bushby to get the permission he is looking for. He still has to cross Hungary, Austria, Germany, and France before reaching the Channel, but the complete lack of response so far is not promising.

Over the last few years, orcas have been making headlines around the world for their bold behavior. They’ve been ramming boats in Europe, taking down dolphins, and now they’ve been filmed deftly killing great white sharks.

Killer whales have previously been seen attacking sharks off the coast of South Africa, but these videos from the Gulf of California in Mexico show their precise hunting technique like never before. They flip young great whites onto their backs and then zero in on their favorite meal, the sharks' nutrient-dense liver. Flipping the sharks over triggers tonic immobility, a kind of paralysis that leaves the sharks frozen and helpless.

“This behavior is a testament to orcas’ advanced intelligence, strategic thinking, and social learning,” said Erick Higuera-Rivas, lead author of the new study. “These hunting techniques are passed down through generations.”

This isn’t just a one-time trick. Scientists first documented it in 2020 when a pod led by a large male named Moctezuma immobilized and killed two great whites in quick succession. A camera captured both attacks.

In the first, drone footage shows five female killer whales hunting down a young great white and then sharing its liver between them. Moments later, they are on the attack again, and another juvenile shark meets the same end. Two years later, in the same region, a mixed group of orcas used the same technique -- flipping them, paralyzing them, and hastily removing the shark's liver.

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“Drone footage is invaluable here," Marine biologist Alison Towner was not involved in the current study but published earlier drone footage of orcas killing great white sharks in South Africa.

"It changed what we understood about these interactions,” she told CNN. "This new footage from Mexico lets us compare behavior across different orca groups and shark populations.”

Here, 'playing' dead becomes permanent

Why sharks display tonic immobility is a mystery. They are not the only species that do this. Most others display the behavior to try to escape predators by "playing dead." Sharks seem to fall into this trance involuntarily when turned upside down, putting them at a serious disadvantage.

Higuera-Rivas believes that shark hunting in orcas might be far more common than we think, and that it could be due to climate change. As the Pacific Ocean warms, shark nursery grounds are expanding and young great whites are venturing into prime orca territory.

The young sharks are much easier prey for killer whales than fully grown great whites. Their smaller size means it is easier to flip them into their frozen state, and they have not yet learned to escape when a pod of orcas is in the vicinity.

Interestingly, all the attacks occurred in August, leading Higuera-Rivas to speculate that juvenile sharks might have become seasonal prey.

When small red devil spiders colonized the Canary Islands millions of years ago, they began one of the strangest genetic journeys of any creature. Although the Dysdera tilosensis looks very similar to its mainland cousins, the island spider has shed almost half of its genome. Yet it is, paradoxically, the most genetically diverse of its genus. 

The discovery goes completely against what scientists thought they knew about how species evolve on islands. Known as the founder effect, when a small group of animals becomes isolated on an island, they usually face less selective pressure. Their genome usually expands with the accumulation of repetitive, non-functional DNA. Genetic diversity drops. This spider took the opposite path.

“The genome downsizing of the spider D. tilosensis...is one of the first documented cases of drastic genome downsizing,” said study co-author Julio Rozas.

Researchers think that millions of years ago, a few adventurous ancestors of the Dysdera genus made their way from Europe to Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands, off the northwest coast of Africa. Possibly, they hitched a ride on floating debris.

Once there, the little spiders found a brand-new world of volcanic landscapes and empty niches. There are now almost 50 Dysedera species on the islands. 

The new study focuses on one particular type, Dysdera tilosensis. Over a few million years, it went through this remarkable genetic streamlining. Compared to its mainland relative, Dysdera catalonica, the island spider’s genome is about half the size. It has roughly 1.7 billion DNA bases compared to Dysdera catalonica's 3.3 billion. 

Most would expect such a massive cut in genetic material to make a species less genetically diverse, but the opposite has happened. The spider didn’t lose any essential genes for survival. Instead, it seems to have gotten rid of large stretches of repetitive and unnecessary DNA -- the “genomic junk” that makes up a huge portion of many genomes. The little arachnid actually shows more DNA variation than other closely related species.  

Scientists think this might be because the island population has stayed large and stable for a very long time. With fewer pressures from predators and a stable environment, natural selection could steadily weed out unnecessary DNA. Over time, only the useful and efficient parts of the genome were kept.

For over four decades, paleontologists have been arguing about a small dinosaur skull found in Montana. Several Tyrannosaurus rex fossils have been found in the same Hell Creek rock formation, and this little skull shares several similarities with the giant dino predator.

Some experts claimed it was simply a young T. rex. Others argued it was a completely different animal. A new study answers the 40-year-old question: the Nanotyrannus lancensis is its own species. 

The little skull dates back 67 million years, the exact time period when T. rex roamed North America. Because of its small size, researchers who found the skull in the 1940s said they had found a new species, which they called Gorgosaurus lancensis.

In 1988, scientists reclassified the species and renamed it the Nanotyrannus lancensis. Then, just a few years later, the general consensus changed, and paleontologists insisted that it was actually a young T. rex.

Since then, much of the research done on how this fearsome species grew to adulthood hinged on the remains of this supposed juvenile dinosaur. Now, consensus has changed again, and this time for good. 

'Dueling dinosaurs' cracked the case

The new research team has been studying the “dueling dinosaurs” at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences for five years. The remains show two dinosaurs frozen in mid-battle - a Triceratops and a small Tyrannosaurus rex. At least, that is what everyone thought it showed. Actually, it shows a Triceratops and a Nanotyrannus. 

The team cut into the limb bones of the dinosaur and looked at its growth rings. The dinosaur was not a juvenile; it was 20 years old when it died -- almost fully grown.

They also examined its general anatomy. Its skull shares features with the N. lancensis skull from Hell Creek. Despite its smaller size, it has larger forelimbs than a T. rex, more teeth and fewer vertebrae in its tail. All of these factors would occur in the early stages of development. There is no way this dinosaur can have morphed into an adult T. rex.

“For it to change from that to an adult Tyrannosaurus would defy our knowledge of how vertebrates grow,” said Lindsay Zanno, co-author of the study. "It just doesn’t hold up as a teen rex." 

They estimate the small dinosaur would have weighed around 700 kilograms -- tiny in comparison to an adult T. rex, which weighed an estimated 6,700kg to 8,200kg. They believe the Nanotyrannus is a relative of the T. rex, which diverged from Tyrannosaurs around 100 million years ago. 

Overturns decades of research

“In a very real way, this discovery overturns decades of research on the growth and biology of Tyrannosaurus rex,”  Zanno told The New York Times. “A wealth of studies on the biology of T. rex over the past three decades have unknowingly mixed data from Nanotyrannus with that of T. rex. Those studies need to be reevaluated in light of this discovery,” she added. 

Many palaeontologists, who have spent much of their careers studying the T. rex, have expressed support for the new research.

"For many years in my research on tyrannosaurs, I've considered a set of smaller skeletons found in the same rocks as the famous skeletons of huge T. rexes to be juveniles of T. rex rather than a distinctive smaller species," Steve Brusatte admitted to Live Science. "Evidence from this exquisite new specimen shows that I was wrong — at least in part. The case for Nanotyrannus, a species of long-armed tyrannosaur smaller than T. rex, looks strong, and I think proven beyond a reasonable doubt now."

Rather than viewing it as years of wasted research, Zanno sees it as an opportunity.

“What’s exciting is that this discovery opens the door to a whole series of new questions about how these different predators — one built for brute strength and one built for speed — interacted in the twilight of the dinosaurs.”

When we’re not outdoors, we get our adventure fix by exploring social media and the web. Here are some of the best adventure links we’ve discovered this week.

Did Conner Herson Just Have the Best Three Days in Yosemite History?: Over three days in October, 22-year-old Connor Herson made the first free ascent of Triple Direct (5.14a), a route that brings together segments of Salathé (5.9 C2 or 5.13b), Muir Wall (5.10 C3), and The Nose (5.9 C2 or 5.14a).

Then, just a few days later, he became the third person to free climb The Nose (5.14a, 915m) on El Capitan in a single day. In this interview, he talks about his “six-year saga” with Triple Direct.

Billions in Treasure Lies on the Seafloor. Finders Keepers?: For centuries, tension has existed between history and profit in maritime treasure hunting. Last month, treasure hunters recovered more than 1,000 silver coins and several escudos (gold coins) from the wreckage of Spain’s 1715 treasure fleet. But who should profit from the treasure?

Fake summit photos

How To Spot A Fake Summit Photo:  Were Italian climber Marco Confortola's summit photos on Gasherbrum I in Pakistan fake? Those questioning Confortola’s achievement claimed his images looked like manipulated versions of photos taken by other climbers. Experts approached by Outside say the photos do show some level of manipulation.

New Greenland Climbs by Ben Kent and Robbie Milne: In July, Ben Kent and Robbie Milne spent three weeks climbing in Greenland. Dropped off at the head of Ikamiut Fiord, their first job was to haul their kit to a nearby lake and then canoe the four kilometers across it. Over the next three weeks, they used every available scrap of good weather to make four summits, three of which were first ascents. This is Kent's account of their trip.  

Urban bears

I Encountered a Bear in the City: Alison Karlene Hodgins was walking around Burnaby Lake, Vancouver, when she spotted a large black bear walking in her direction. She had bear spray to hand, but was still caught off guard. The bear had no interest in her, but it brought on a wave of emotions: wonder, alarm, guilt, and concern about how we are negatively impacting the wildlife around us. 

First SUP Descent of the Chuluut Valley: Canoe and SUP guide Matt Phillips recounts his seven-day, 270km SUP descent of the Chuluut Valley in Mongolia. The trip took Phillips and Phil Collins across five rivers. The first few days in the basalt canyons of the Somon Gol were the trickiest, with steep gradients, large rapids, and powerful currents. From there, they wound through the Chullute, Ida, Delgermörön, and finished on the Selenge. 

Full-time, unpaid

Yosemite Asks for Full-Time, Unpaid Volunteers: Yosemite National Park is facing criticism after posting a volunteer role that asks individuals to live on-site and work full-time (40 hours per week). The duties that come with the role -- staffing visitor centers, conducting patrols, and handling public information -- are essentially the same as those of a ranger, but with no salary. After the backlash, Yosemite stopped advertising the position. 

Over 20 Hikers Rescued From Snowy Mount Washington: Over 20 hikers had to be rescued after finding themselves trapped in “full winter conditions” on the summit of Mount Washington in New Hampshire. Most had no idea that the park was closed for the season, and so had no summit services. Many of the hikers were not wearing proper gear, some admitted it was their first-ever hike, and members of the group were showing signs of hypothermia. They were rescued by the Mount Washington Cog Railway after crew members spotted the distressed hikers. 

Scientists found a single antivenom effective against 17 venomous African snake species.

Until now, antivenoms have been far from perfect. Although they save lives, some do not neutralize every toxin in the venom they work against. Often, a specific antivenom only works against a single species. Finally, not all venomous snakes have an antivenom available that counters the poison. 

As a result, every year, about 7,000 people die and 10,000 require amputations annually in sub-Saharan Africa. Globally, up to 150,000 die annually from snakebites, according to the World Health Organization. Many victims live in remote areas, far from prompt access to medical help.

Most antivenoms are created in the same way. Horses are injected with small doses of a particular snake’s venom. Their immune systems respond by producing antibodies, which are then harvested from the horses’ blood plasma and purified for use in humans.

This process has its drawbacks. The horses produce a mixture of antibodies, and only a fraction of them are effective. The other issue is that antivenoms can have harmful side effects.

Horse antivenom

“It’s similar to [getting] a blood transfusion from a horse,” explains Andreas Hougaard Laustsen-Kiel, a researcher with the new study. “The quality varies, because different horses are used in each production.”

The new, broad-spectrum antivenom addresses several of these issues. It neutralizes multiple snake venoms, and it is created differently.

“[This antivenom] does not require us to constantly extract antibodies from animals,” said Laustsen-Kiel, “[We] select and copy effective antibody fragments (nanobodies) and later produce them on a large scale and with consistent quality. This means that we can produce the antivenom in large quantities without compromising on quality."

To create this new antivenom, the team combined eight nanobodies. All eight are capable of binding to toxins from more than one snake species. Nanobodies are smaller, more stable antibodies that you get from animals in the camel family. The mixture of eight nanobodies was tested against 18 different snake venoms, including cobras, mambas, and rinkhals. It worked against all but one snake -- the green mamba. 

In addition to neutralizing various venoms, this antivenom also appears to reduce tissue damage caused by bites. Because nanobodies are so small, they penetrate tissues faster, improving effectiveness.

To date, the treatment has only been tested in mice, so further research and clinical trials are necessary before it can be used in humans. Though it acts against 17 different venoms, it only partially neutralizes some of them. 

“I have to be careful not to promise too much," says Laustsen-Kiel, "but I am quite convinced that our antivenom has the broadest coverage of snake species.”

On October 25, a two-kilometer-long chunk of ice broke off the Ismoil Somoni Glacier in eastern Tajikistan, roaring down a gorge for nearly three hours before finally coming to a halt. It's attached to the 7,495m mountain of that name, formerly known as Communism Peak. It is the highest peak in Tajikistan.

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Indian climber Anurag Maloo, who nearly died after falling into a crevasse on Annapurna in 2023, shared footage of the collapse to raise awareness of melting glaciers. Following his near-death experience, Maloo launched The Voice of Glaciers initiative. After spending three days trapped and praying for rescue, he came to see the Annapurna Glacier as a form of protection rather than something trapping him.

Earlier this week, the churning mass of ice, approximately 200m wide and 25m high, created a deafening sound as it tore through the valley. It stopped just four kilometers from the nearest village, Safedob. There were no casualties. However, scientists are warning nearby communities that heavy rain could cause more of the glacier to collapse, potentially triggering floods and landslides.

Authorities are particularly concerned about the nearby Gulrez area, a farming region. Emergency services have been placed on high alert and continue to monitor the glacier closely for signs of further instability.

Tajikistan has nearly 14,000 glaciers, and Ismoil Somoni is one of the largest in the country. Over the past three decades, these glaciers have been melting at an alarming rate; more than 1,000 have completely disappeared due to climate change.

Experts warn that events like this could become increasingly common in the Pamirs, which could be disastrous for people in Central Asia. The glaciers of the Pamirs feed into the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers. Both are crucial sources of water in this desert region.

Now in its tenth year, the Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards competition has once again brought us offbeat animal moments, from break-dancing foxes and vaping ducks to a squirrel with a bad hair day. The finalists, which have just been announced, are guaranteed to put a smile on your face.

Paul Joynson‑Hicks and Tom Sullam launched the competition in 2015. Over the last decade, it has grown into a global showcase of unusual wildlife photography. This year’s contest attracted almost 10,000 entries from 108 countries. The judges, a 16-member panel of wildlife photographers, filmmakers, conservationists, comedians, and organizers, have whittled down the submissions to these finalists. They will select the winners on December 9.

Categories

The finalists are contenders in various categories, including mammals, birds, reptiles/amphibians/insects, and fish & other aquatic species. There are also two age-based categories, Junior Photographer and Young Photographer, for those under the ages of 16 and 25, respectively.

After the December 9 decision in London, all finalists’ images will be on display from December 10 to 14 in a public exhibition at the OXO Gallery in London.

There are approximately 600 species of venomous snakes on Earth, and to the untrained eye, most of their strikes appear similar -- a flash of movement as the snake lunges forward. But in reality, different species have evolved distinct fang positions, strike speeds, and venom-delivery techniques. Now, scientists have captured these rapid attacks in stunning slow motion, allowing them to determine exactly what happens when a snake strikes.

A typical snake strike lasts less than 100 milliseconds, far too quick for the human eye to perceive. Using two high-speed cameras recording at 1,000 frames per second, researchers have now filmed bites in extraordinary detail. The study analyzed 36 species of venomous snakes from three families to understand how each one delivers its venom. The three families are the vipers, elapids (including cobras and mambas), and colubrids (a diverse group that includes both non-venomous species and deadly species like the boomslang).

Better technology

The idea of using high-speed cameras to study snake strikes isn’t new. Researchers have been doing it since the 1950s. But advances in technology now allow much higher resolution and detail. Most previous studies have only used a single side-view camera and focused on differences within a single species, such as the differences in bites when it serves as a defense mechanism compared to biting prey. The new study compares snake strikes between species. 

All 36 species were filmed under identical conditions. Inside a small arena, snakes were presented with a warm cylinder of medical gel. Heated to 38˚C, it closely resembles the temperature and texture of mammalian tissue. Each strike was captured using two cameras. Using the frames from both cameras, the team reconstructed each strike in 3D. This meant they could measure jaw movement, strike speed, and how the fangs functioned for each species. In total, the researchers recorded 108 high-speed videos, three per species.

Cobras strike the most slowly

Elapids struck the slowest. That's not surprising, considering how mongooses can prey on cobras, nimbly evading their strikes, but are helpless against the much faster rattlesnakes, tests have shown. Elapids typically slithered close to their target before lunging, using short, permanently erect fangs. Rather than delivering a single fatal blow, elapids often bite multiple times, tensing their jaw muscles to inject venom during each bite.

In contrast, colubrids have fangs positioned farther back in their mouths. They tended to lunge from slightly farther away and deliver a single, forceful bite. Instead of multiple strikes, colubrids used a sawing or rotating jaw motion to deepen the wound and deliver more venom.

“Once they’re biting down, they saw or rotate their jaws and cut into the prey, which presumably gives better penetration of the venom,” explains co-author Alastair Evans.

The fastest strikers were the vipers. In 84% of viper strikes, the snakes sank their fangs into the gel in less than 90 milliseconds. This is faster than the reaction time of nearly all the mammals they prey on. Vipers also have the longest fangs, and the fangs are hinged.

“When the snake is about to hit its prey, the vipers are actually able to fold out their fangs,” Evans told Science Alert. He also explained that many vipers could adjust the position of their fangs after the initial bite to optimize venom delivery.

When we’re not outdoors, we get our adventure fix by exploring social media and the web. Here are some of the best adventure links we’ve discovered this week.

Do You Know the Marree Man?: The Marree Man is an enormous figure carved into the Australian desert; head to toe, he measures 3.2km. The Marree Man was first revealed via an anonymous fax in 1998, and for 26 years, people have been trying to figure out who created him and why. Some locals love the artwork, while others want it removed because it is on Indigenous land and has damaged native plants.

Countdown to the Search for Amelia Earhart’s Plane Begins: At the start of November, a new expedition is setting out to try to solve the disappearance of Amelia Earhart. A team from Purdue University, the Purdue Research Foundation, and the Archaeological Legacy Institute will spend three weeks on Nikumaroro Island. In 2020, a visual anomaly was spotted in one of the island's lagoons.

World's most beautiful hiking trail

Turkish Hiking Trail Named The Most Beautiful in the World: Time Out has named the Lycian Way in Turkey as the world’s most beautiful hiking trail. The 540km trail was the first long-distance hiking route in Turkey. Originally a trade route connecting settlements across Lycia, the trail runs from Ölüdeniz to Geyikbayırı through ancient ruins, dramatic cliffs, and secluded beaches.

Who We Are Is How We Climb: Valerie Karr is researching the ways that human factors shape climbing outcomes. Skills and gear are only part of the equation when it comes to failure or success; our habits and social interactions also play a huge role. By studying these, you can find patterns.

Karr and her climbing partner, Pete, set out to climb the East Ridge of Disappointment Peak. She is the less experienced climber, used to partners who talk to her every step of the way. This climb was very different, showing her first-hand how elements like authority gradients, partner communication, fear, fatigue, and complacency can influence a climb.

Gender differences in endurance races

Do Older Women Have Endurance Superpowers?: Keri Wallace examines why veteran female runners frequently excel at ultra-distance events. Ageing inevitably brings reductions in muscle mass, aerobic capacity, and cardiovascular output for both men and women. However, women have been understudied in sports science due to their changing hormones. Now, research is showing that women and men age differently, and hormones play a crucial role.

There is evidence that women are often better at tactical pacing, self-care, coping with sleep deprivation, and nutritional planning. Some research also suggests that freedom from earlier-life constraints, such as often being the main caregiver for children, gives them a competitive edge.

First Ascents and New Routes on Stunning Peaks in Tibet: The Nyanchen Tanglha range in Tibet features many unclimbed peaks. After Tamotsu Nakamura wrote a series of articles on them in 2003, there was a flurry of climbing activity in the area. But this boom was relatively short-lived because of difficulties with permits and access. Now, Chinese climbers are discovering the area. Xia Zhongming reports on three ascents by Chinese alpinists in late 2024, including a new route on Manamcho (6,264m) and first ascents of both Chuchepo (6,613m) and Jiongmudazhi (6,590m).

Unauthorized activity in Yosemite

Shutdown Brings More BASE Jumpers and Drones to Yosemite: National Parks across the U.S. are struggling during the federal government shutdown. The shutdown has put over half of the National Park Service staff on furlough, with no indication of when this will end. Yosemite National Park is still open, and the lack of staff has led to a dramatic surge in unauthorized activities such as BASE jumping off El Capitan and the use of drones.

A Radical Reading List on Cartographic Power, Perspective, and Possibility: Maps have always fascinated Kanya Kanchana. She views them not just as navigational tools, but instruments of power. This reading list weaves together essays that challenge how we think about maps, what they show and hide, how they are made, and how mapping shapes our understanding of the world.

Scientists in Turkey have found a new route that ancient people used to spread north from the Middle East. Lying between western Anatolia and southeastern Europe, a now-submerged land bridge may have been a crucial migration route for both Homo sapiens and Neanderthals.

Until now, researchers believed that humans entered Europe mainly overland through the Balkans or the Levant -- what is now the Israel/Jordan/Syria region.

This new find suggests an alternative route. Archaeologists working with Turkish universities have discovered 138 stone tools at 10 sites off the coast of Ayvalık in northwestern Turkey, suggesting early peoples walked across a land bridge spanning the shallow Aegean Sea to Greece. 

A vital bridge for human migration

“These findings mark Ayvalık as a potential new frontier in the story of human evolution,” said study co-author Goknur Karahan. “This now-idyllic region once offered a vital land bridge for human movement during the Pleistocene era, when sea levels dropped and the submerged landscape was briefly exposed.”

During the Pleistocene era, the Earth was in the midst of the last Ice Age. Vast amounts of water were locked in glaciers, lowering global sea levels. This newly dry land would have turned the islands and peninsulas of today’s Ayvalık into an unbroken stretch of land linking the two continents.

The North Aegean coastline is geologically active, and artifact preservation rare. Even so, the team uncovered tools showing clear signs of the Levallois technique, a Paleolithic tool-making method. They also found hand axes and cleavers that are typical of early human cultures across Africa, Asia, and Europe.

“The presence of these objects in Ayvalık... provides direct evidence that the region was part of wider technological traditions shared across continents,” said Karahan. 

The discovery suggests that ancient humans weren’t just walking along the land bridge. They likely lived or stayed in the area for extended periods. This possible new route into Europe could reshape our understanding of early migration.

Since our last ocean rowing roundup, both crews have set firsts by successfully crossing the Pacific Ocean. 

Seas The Day (UK): Miriam  Payne and Jess  Rowe have become the first women's team to row nonstop across the Pacific from South America to Australia. After 165 days and 15,210km at sea, they have completed their journey from Lima, Peru, to Cairns, Australia.

From the start, their journey was anything but straightforward. At times, the obstacles they encountered seemed relentless. Only days after launching in April, they had to turn back because of a broken rudder. Not long after they relaunched in early May, the pipes on their water maker burst, and their electrical system was constantly running out of power.

"After nine repairs, we managed a bypass and just limped along with little power for the rest of the crossing,” Payne told the BBC. "Every time something went wrong, we just looked at each other and went, ‘Of course it has!’ But we kept going."

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'Ghost-ship' mode

The constant power issues persisted for the rest of the row, despite their best efforts to resolve them. For most of the crossing, they were forced into “ghost-ship” mode. Their batteries were losing power so quickly that they had to switch off all non-essential electronics, including the AIS beacon and chart plotter.

Even with the power issues, the pair managed to row for around 16 hours a day, covering an average of 95km. As with most ocean rowers, the long days were exhausting. Their hands were covered in blisters, and the constant sea spray left them with salt sores. The cabin was so hot that it was nearly impossible to sleep. Despite this, the pair were almost always upbeat, bringing as much fun as they could to the row. 

They had initially intended to land in Sydney, but they changed their plans to Brisbane, a less busy location. However, they changed their plan again because of headwinds. Even with the change, the last section of the row in the Coral Sea was tricky. The wind was pushing them southeast, so they had to work hard to keep south, making sure they did not get blown over to Papua New Guinea. Waves crashed over them, worsening their salt sores, and the hot temperatures left them with prickly heat. It was a pretty uncomfortable few days.

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Heavy traffic

Off the east coast of Australia, the challenges continued, this time in the form of busy shipping lanes and coral reefs. One big positive was that the ozone over Australia is a little thinner, and their batteries managed to charge more, allowing them to turn their chart plotter back on.

Although they only did this intermittently, it was a significant boost, especially when navigating coral reefs. The pair had planned a good route across the Great Barrier Reef, aided by a local fisherman who was on standby to help guide them if needed. Though it was made harder by crossing it at night, they crossed successfully. 

After landing in Cairns, Rowe said, “Those final few hours were brutal. The wind was pushing us off the channel, and we honestly thought we weren’t going to make it. We ended up outside the channel and thought we might have to swim to shore. To finally be here, after talking about it for so long, just feels incredible.”

Margot's challenges

Louis Margot (CH): Louis Margot is the first Swiss rower to cross the Pacific Ocean. On October 16, he landed on Waigeo Island after 254 days and 17,718km at sea.

He started his cycling and rowing world circumnavigation just over two years ago.  He began by biking from Switzerland to Portugal, then rowed across the Atlantic to Colombia. From there, he cycled to Peru to begin his second rowing stage. The row hasn’t been entirely continuous. He paused for several months on Hiva Oa in the Marquesas Islands to repair his boat, replenish supplies, and rest. He set off again on June 1.

This section has been the hardest of the entire journey so far. He has had issues with solar panels and his navigation system, but the hardest part has been the seemingly endless isolation. Pushing into Indonesian waters at the end of September and seeing more boats and local fishermen was a huge boost, even though they didn’t speak the same language. 

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The difficulty of rowing alone

Near shore, the currents became more changeable, so that almost as soon as he stopped rowing, the boat began moving in a different direction. Once again, highlighting the difficulty of rowing alone, there was no one to take over when he rested. Even with the anchor to try to stop the boat from moving, it was impossible not to lose some ground. 

He initially wanted to land in Bali, but after much deliberation, landed on Waigeo Island, part of the Indonesian archipelago.

“It's not an easy decision, but I've learned to listen to my body and accept when it needs [relief],” he said on social media. "The currents are not in my favor, and continuing in these conditions would be risky. "

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Getting to land was much trickier than expected. With just 200m to go, his anchors got stuck on rocks on the seabed. He was unable to dislodge them himself, but some local divers came to help free him. Then he sat there, waiting for his visa and the paperwork needed to set foot on the island. This took a few days, but finally he stepped ashore onto dry land.

"I'm immensely proud of it, even if I've had a hell of a hard time," he told the media. "I didn't think it could be this hard.

His planned route going forward remains somewhat unclear. “There are several possible options, and each has its advantages and risks. I have to think about all this with my team and experts.”

In general, he will rest for a few weeks, then continue to Bali. After that, he has the small task of cycling and rowing back to Switzerland. 

We think of lead poisoning as just damaging, but a new study suggests that periodic lead exposure might have given our ancient ancestors an advantage over Neanderthals.

Researchers analyzed 51 fossilized hominid teeth, which came from early Homo species, great apes, Neanderthals, and early Homo sapiens. All are between 100,000 and 1.8 million years old. In these enamel and dentine layers, they found evidence of lead exposure in 73 percent of the specimens.

Lead exposure is not good for us, but apparently, it was even worse for our Neanderthal cousins. The reason for this lies in a single gene called NOVA1. Modern humans carry a different version of NOVA1 than Neanderthals did. It differs by just a single base pair. The researchers recreated this difference in lab-grown brain cells. Some contained the modern human NOVA1 variant, others the older version that Neanderthals had. 

Both sets of brains were exposed to levels of lead similar to what they found in the fossilized teeth. Those with the ancient Neanderthal version of NOVA1 all showed less neuron development and more damage to a particular gene that is key to speech and language skills.

This suggests that the modern NOVA1 variant may have protected those parts of the brain responsible for language and communication. These traits are widely believed to contribute to Homo sapiens’ ultimate success.

“These results suggest that our NOVA1 variant may have offered protection against the harmful neurological effects of lead,” says co-author Alysson  Muotri. “Language is...our superpower. Because we have language, we are able to organize society and exchange ideas, allowing us to coordinate large movements. There is no evidence that Neanderthals could do that.”

Some scientists in this field still have doubts about the researchers' conclusions. Anthropologist Shara  Bailey told Science, “The evidence doesn’t really convince me yet,” since the study does not show that the exposure took place during childhood, when lead exposure would most likely impact brain development. 

The study's researchers emphasize that this is not why Neanderthals went extinct. But it does give insight into how environmental exposure and superior resistance might have affected us. 

Japan is having its deadliest year on record for bear attacks. Since April, seven people have been killed and another is missing and presumed dead.

That is the highest annual death toll since officials began keeping data in 2006. More than a hundred others have been injured as bears are increasingly wandering out of the forests and into towns, farms, and even supermarkets.

The most recent death came on October 8, when a man in his seventies was found in a forest in Iwate Prefecture. It is reported that his head and torso had been completely severed. Two more elderly men have been found dead in forests in Iwate and Nagano, both with deep claw marks. Authorities suspect bears in both cases.

It’s not just the number of fatalities that have shocked people in Japan. It is also the ever-rising frequency of bear encounters. Last week, in the Gunma region north of Tokyo, an adult bear burst through the doors of a supermarket, injuring two customers as terrified shoppers fled. On the same day, five more attacks were reported in Akita and Fukushima -- all in one 24-hour span.

Bears are becoming a national concern. Once seen as elusive, both species of bear in Japan are now appearing regularly in inhabited areas. Experts believe the surge in attacks is due to a combination of climate change and Japan's aging human population.

Fewer acorns

Bears in Japan depend heavily on acorns as a food source. This year, that food source has plummeted because of unseasonably warm weather and erratic rainfall. Wildlife experts claim that the bears aren’t actually becoming more aggressive, but that they’re hungry and disoriented because forests no longer provide what they need.

Warming temperatures are also playing havoc with the bears’ hibernation patterns. Some are sleeping less or waking earlier, extending their active season and increasing the chances of crossing paths with people. 

Adding to the problem is Japan’s aging population. There are fewer hunters now than ever before. They used to keep the bear population in check, but that is no longer happening. Fewer people are also living in the rural areas, so abandoned farmland is creating new corridors between forests and human settlements.

Local authorities are struggling to adapt to the situation. Some villages and towns are experimenting with loudspeakers, fireworks, bearproof bins, and even drones to try to deter the bears. Experts warn that these are only temporary fixes and that the underlying causes of the bears venturing into inhabited areas will be far harder to solve.

When we’re not outdoors, we get our adventure fix by exploring social media and the web. Here are some of the best adventure links we’ve discovered this week.

Circumnavigating Sørøya: Helen Schur gives an account of circumnavigating the island of Sørøya, in Arctic Norway, over 10 days. Schur was part of a team from Sea Kayaking Wales, and the group was inspired by the historic 1975 Nordkapp Expedition, the first major expedition to use modern fiberglass Inuit-style sea kayaks. Starting in the port of Hammerfest, the group paddled over 200km around the island's coastline.

Climbing with Alex Honnold: Watch as Alex  Honnold and his partners Carlo  Traversi and Nik  Berry tackle the formidable East Face of the Plectrum, a 5.13b finger-crack above Lake Tahoe that Honnold describes as "pretty hard and pretty painful."

Phantom islands

Phantom Islands of the Southern Ocean: Throughout the 19th and early 20th century, mariners reported a myriad of phantom islands across the Southern Ocean. Shadowy shapes and fleeting land sightings were quickly added to nautical charts. Some were misidentified icebergs or mirages, others navigational errors, and a few deliberate fabrications. Despite failed attempts to verify the islands, names like Emerald Island, the Nimrod Islands, and Dougherty Island stayed on maps for decades.

Packrafting Beneath the Grand Canyon: Stephen Eginoire describes an expedition into the underground aquifer system of the Grand  Canyon to take photos and collect data. Using packrafts, the researchers navigate the hidden Redwall‑Muav  Aquifer. With no GPS or internet underground, the only way to collect data about the waterway is to manually check the various data logging systems.

Reducing bird-window collisions

Testing Raptor Decals: The Cornell Lab of Ornithology debunks the myth that raptor decals effectively reduce bird-window collisions. Researchers carried out controlled tunnel tests with glass panels that had a raptor silhouette stuck to them. The decals had no impact; birds still flew straight at the windows. However, they offer other suggestions on how you can stop collisions.

The Great Unknown: In September 2005, Michelle Vanek vanished while hiking Colorado's Mount of the Holy Cross. Too tired to continue as she neared the summit, she and her hiking companion separated, and Vanek disappeared.

Despite extensive searches, her disappearance remained a mystery for nearly two decades. Then, in 2024, a volunteer search team discovered her remains in a steep couloir along with her belongings. Forensic analysis suggested she died from a fall. While her family found some peace in the discovery, questions about what happened to Vanek remain.

Free soloing

The Strange Story Behind Why We Call Ropeless Climbing 'Free Soloing': The term "free soloing" has an intriguing origin that stemmed from a miscommunication. In 1945, novice climber John Salathe thought that when his guide said "climb freely," it was an instruction to ascend without a rope during a Sierra Club clinic. This misunderstanding led to the word "free" coming to mean ropeless climbing, while "soloing" means climbing alone without a belayer.

He’s Bow Hunted Elk for 40 Years But Hasn’t Killed a Single One: Carl Cocchiarella first went hunting in 1983 and killed two elk on his first day. Successful with a gun, he moved on to using a bow and arrow. After 40 years of bow-hunting elk in Colorado and not harvesting a single one, the seasoned outdoorsman is still as enthusiastic as ever. Cocchiarella considers the pursuit itself -- the long days, the quiet moments, and the near-misses -- to be reward enough.

Few people ever get to see Antarctica, but for 300 Australians, it could soon become part of their everyday life. The Australian Antarctic Program has begun recruiting for its 2026–2027 season, with hundreds of roles available.

Successful candidates will take on roles at Australia's three Antarctic research stations: Casey, Davis, and Mawson, or work on Macquarie Island and aboard scientific voyages. They need carpenters, chefs, electricians, IT technicians, mechanics, and scientific researchers. Many of the research projects focus on climate change and environmental science.

Extreme isolation

The catch is that you need to be willing to completely remove yourself from normal life and hole up in one of the harshest environments on Earth for months. Contracts vary in length from four months to over a year, with all positions beginning in July 2026.

Getting one of the jobs isn’t as simple as filling out a form. Applicants go through a detailed recruitment process that tests both their professional skills and their ability to cope with the environment and isolation.

“Antarctica tests you -– physically, mentally, emotionally. But the rewards are incredible,” said Andy Warton, who leads the Casey station. “It’s a profound adventure. You’ll make friendships that last for decades, and you’ll see and experience things that you would have never imagined.”

Despite the extreme conditions, life on the stations is far from bleak. Each base has a gym, sauna, hot tub, and even a small cinema. Hydroponic gardens mean they can grow fresh herbs and vegetables.

For many, the salaries are a major temptation. Some positions offer nearly double what you would get paid in Australia. Workers can receive generous allowances, some of which add up to around an extra $65,000 a year. There are no living costs at all, meaning that nearly everything you earn goes straight into savings.

Nearly half of those who take on an Antarctic posting return for future seasons. They speak of the addictive thrill of living somewhere so otherworldly, making long-standing friendships, and working on cutting-edge research.

Applications for the 2026–2027 season close on November 16, 2025.

For centuries, the giant stone statues on Easter Island, known as moai, have fascinated the world. The colossal human figures, some up to 10 meters high and weighing 86 metric tonnes, have had both scientists and the general public asking the same question: How did the Rapa Nui people move them into position?

Crafted between 1250 and 1500 CE, nearly 900 moai were carved and placed across the island. How they were constructed and transported was passed down orally through generations. When modern researchers asked the Rapa Nui people how the statues were moved, the answer was astonishingly simple: They said the moai “walked.” New research proves that this was, in fact, the case. 

Easter Island has very few trees, so the idea of dragging the statues on wooden sledges or rollers seemed highly unlikely. So researchers began considering that “walking” might not be a metaphorical expression. Could the statues really be moved upright, rocking side to side in a forward motion? 

A team of researchers led by Carl Lipo from Binghamton University and Terry Hunt from the University of Arizona took a creative approach in their new study. They previously showed you could move statues using an upright rocking motion.

First, get it rocking

“Once you get it moving, it isn’t hard at all,” explained Lipo. "The hard part is getting it rocking in the first place."

Following this success, they sought to determine if the same principles applied to statues as large as the moai. Researchers used computer simulations and built a 4.35-ton replica of a moai to get their answer. By looping ropes around the statue and having 18 people rock it side to side in a zigzag motion, they successfully moved it 100 meters in just 40 minutes. The experiment showed that the statues could “walk” with surprisingly little effort.

“The physics makes sense,” said Lipo in a statement. “What we saw experimentally actually works. And as it gets bigger, it still works. All the attributes that we see about moving gigantic ones only get more and more consistent the bigger and bigger they get, because it becomes the only way you could move it.”

The secret lies in the moai’s design. Each statue has a forward lean and a wide, D-shaped base, allowing it to pivot and tip safely from side to side. More evidence for this method is the roads on Rapa Nui. At about 4.5 meters wide with a concave surface, they are perfectly suited for guiding the walking statues. Researchers think they were actually created as the moai were moved along the surface of the ground.

“Every time they're moving a statue, it looks like they're making a road. The road is part of moving the statue,” said Lipo.

Beyond the mechanics, this discovery highlights the ingenuity of the Rapa Nui people.

"It shows that the Rapa Nui people were incredibly smart,” said Lipo. "They figured this out. They're doing it the way that's consistent with the resources they have." 

When we’re not outdoors, we get our adventure fix by exploring social media and the web. Here are some of the best adventure links we’ve discovered this week.

The Joy of Being Uncomfortable: Tim Shuff argues that part of the thrill of paddling trips, and the wilderness in general, is the discomfort. He thinks plunging into cold water, battling wind and rain, and the aches and pains from hard days, all reset our expectations. In those moments, simple pleasures, like warmth, rest, and a hot drink, become a delight. The discomfort is a gateway to deeper appreciation and a truer sense of pleasure.

The ‘Cool’ Camino: With scorching summer heat and huge crowds along Spain's Camino de Santiago trail, a quieter pilgrimage is gaining traction. Norway’s St. Olav Ways, nicknamed the "cool" Camino, is drawing hikers seeking cooler temperatures, fewer people, and a more contemplative path. This northern alternative winds through Norway’s varied terrain, linking small towns, historic churches, and spiritual landscapes.

Ski films

Seven New Films to Get You Stoked for Ski Season: Regardless of why you're drawn to the snowy mountains, this list of skiing documentaries has something for everyone. From Cold Calls, with its spontaneous trips and array of winter athletes, to Warren Miller’s SNO-CIETY, which celebrates the spirit and community behind ski culture.

Via Ferratas Are Booming in the U.S., But How Safe Are They?: Via ferratas are rapidly gaining popularity in the U.S. These routes -- defined by fixed steel cables, rungs, and ladders -- keep climbers attached via harness and tether, with a "lower barrier to entry to the vertical realm." However, they do not eliminate risk. Studies show human errors, such as forgetting to clip in, getting distracted, or misjudging exposure, are the leading cause of serious accidents.

Earhart's disappearance

The Truth About Amelia Earhart: Amelia Earhart's disappearance has been the subject of documentaries, films, and rumors for decades. Laurie Gwen Shapiro argues that Earhart most likely ran out of fuel over the Pacific and that the enduring conspiracy theories distort her legacy.

Earhart was a daring, record-breaking aviator whose image was carefully curated by those around her. Her bravery, ambition, and imperfections deserve to be remembered in their own right.

These Climbers Are Living the Dream, Thanks to Unexpected Side Jobs: To many, climbing full-time or heading out on months-long trips is an impossibility. Four climbers map out how they juggle climbing and the side hustles that allow them to live how they want.

Jackson Marvell welds, Brittany Goris designs graphics from her van, Hayden Jamieson washes windows in luxury homes, and Suzanna Lourie guides and even strings up holiday lights.

Shark attack

British Swimmer Attacked By Shark: A juvenile great white shark attacked marathon swimmer Chris Murray while he was attempting to cross the Catalina Channel in California. Roughly two hours into his swim, the shark first bit Murray's hand, then clamped onto his right foot. He fought it off, and his safety team pulled him from the water. His hand required 20 stitches, and his foot suffered more serious damage. He is in hospital recovering.

Curious Reindeer and Hungry Polar Bears: The Arctic is warming faster than anywhere else on Earth, and it is reshaping the fates of iconic species such as polar bears and reindeer. The sea ice is the glue that holds everything in place, and as it melts, it is upending food chains and pushing animals into new territories. Every year, groups of scientists hunker down in the Ny-Alesund International Research Station to examine how the Arctic is changing, and what they can do about it.

The European Space Agency (ESA) has just made it possible for all wannabe astronauts to fly over the Red Planet -- virtually. In a mesmerizing new video, viewers can glide over the ancient Shalbatan Vallis channel as it cuts through the arid, pockmarked landscape.

The 1,300km-long channel winds from the highlands of Xanthe Terra through the lower plains of Chryse Planitia, before curving back onto higher ground. Scientists believe this huge channel was carved out around 3.5 billion years ago, when vast quantities of groundwater rushed downhill across the planet. It gouged out the immense valley system we can now see.

As you move over the channel, viewers can see the pockmarked landscape surrounding it, created by countless space rocks smashing into the Red Planet. The flight concludes with a spectacular view of the Da Vinci impact crater, a 100km-wide basin that contains a smaller crater within it.

The video is built entirely from data gathered by ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft, which has been orbiting the Red Planet for the past 20 years. Using its High Resolution Stereo Camera, the Mars Express has been steadily mapping the Martian surface in extraordinary detail, while also studying the planet’s atmosphere, geology, and even its tiny moon, Phobos.

To create this “virtual flight,” researchers created an image mosaic from the observations taken during a single orbit by the Mars Express. They then rendered them with a digital terrain model to produce a 3D view of the planet. Every single second of the film consists of 50 individual frames that have been rendered following a predefined camera path.

The video allows you to fly over Mars’ incredible landscape and imagine what our planet might have looked like billions of years ago.

Once thought of as just another icy satellite, Enceladus -- one of Saturn's 274 moons -- is now considered one of the few places in the solar system that might be able to support life. New evidence from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has shown that Enceladus holds even more organic compounds than we previously thought. The complex molecules suggest this frozen moon could be habitable, maybe not by humans but by some form of life.

The researchers point out that this doesn’t mean the moon has life, just that it is theoretically possible. Organic molecules are the carbon-based compounds that all living things require. Finding them here shows it has at least some of the raw ingredients to sustain life. 

Geyser dust

The Cassini spacecraft spent 13 years orbiting Saturn before its dramatic end in 2017. Mission controllers deliberately plunged it into the planet’s atmosphere, with its onboard Cosmic Dust Analyzer. The device analyzed minuscule grains ejected from Enceladus’s geysers -- the jets of ice and vapor that spew from cracks near the moon’s south pole.

Some of these grains were older particles that had drifted into Saturn’s outermost rings. Other, younger grains were blasted out at far higher speeds. They collided with the piece of equipment at speeds of over 64,000kph. The high-speed collisions allowed scientists to look more closely at the grains’ chemical makeup. 

Alongside molecules already identified from older samples, there were new, more complex organic compounds not previously seen -- esters, alkenes, and ether compounds. Both esters and ethers are needed to form lipids, which are essential to life.

"We are confident that these molecules originate from the subsurface ocean of Enceladus, enhancing its habitability potential," lead author Nozair Khawaja told the CBC.

Beneath its icy crust, Enceladus has a vast saltwater ocean. After using data from Cassini to prove that the ocean exists, researchers have been scouring it to try to identify the various elements and compounds needed for life.

"Having a variety of organic compounds on an extraterrestrial water world is simply phenomenal," study coauthor Fabian Klenner told the Associated Press.

The Red Sea didn't just part, as the Biblical account goes. About 6.2 million years ago, it just vanished. Then, 100,000 years later, a colossal flood suddenly refilled it.

A team of researchers has pieced this story together thanks to microscopic fossils, geochemical dating, and seismic imaging. Their results suggest that the Red Sea went from being full to the brim with water to a dry salt basin, and then back again over a short span of 100,000 years.

The Red Sea’s origins date back about 30 million years. The Arabian Plate began to drift away from Africa, and the rift that opened between them slowly widened into a narrow gulf. As the rift opened up into the Mediterranean, the Red Sea formed. The connection flooded the region with seawater and sparked a burst of marine diversity that can still be seen in the fossil reefs lining Saudi Arabia’s coast.

But this era of marine biodiversity was short-lived. As shifting landmasses narrowed the sea, water circulation slowed down, and evaporation increased. The result is water so salty that almost nothing could survive in it.

The basin began to accumulate thick layers of halite and gypsum that grew into huge salt formations. Its final demise came about 6.2 million years ago, when the Red Sea lost its last connection to the Mediterranean. It dried up entirely, leaving behind a salt desert.

Rebirth

Then, 100,000 years later, came the dramatic rebirth. A massive surge of water from the Indian Ocean crashed through the volcanic ridge that separated the two. The water tore through the natural barrier, carving a 320km-long canyon beneath the waves and forcing open the Bab el-Mandab Strait. With the passage cleared, the Indian Ocean poured in, drowning the salt flats and refilling the basin.

Researchers are planning further surveys across the Bab el-Mandib Strait and over the Hanish region to more precisely map the canyon’s shape and exact age. They also want to take more sediment cores to see exactly how the chemistry of the sediments changed when the water from the Indian Ocean flooded in.

In 1844, Jon Brandsson, Sigurdur Isleifsson, and Ketill Ketilsson set out for Eldey Island, off the southwest coast of Iceland. The three hunters were after a particular pair of rare birds: the great auks. Unbeknownst to anyone at the time, these two birds were almost certainly the last of their species. With their deaths, the great auk disappeared forever. For decades, researchers have been trying to locate their specimens and have finally tracked down the last female great auk.

When the hunters reached Eldey, they found a pair of great auks with a single egg. The records state that the group of Icelandic men captured and strangled the breeding pair, trampling the egg in the process. A paper trail shows that their bodies were sold to an apothecary in Reykjavik. Here, their innards were sealed in jars and sent to a museum in Denmark. The taxidermied skins were sold to rare bird collectors and then changed hands through multiple collectors and museums. 

Male found

In 2017, researchers identified one half of the fated pair, the male from Eldey, in the collection of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences in Brussels. But the fate of the female has remained unknown until now.

Jessica Thomas, a PhD student in Wales, has long been fascinated by the great auk. She found details of a pair of auks being sold by a dealer in Copenhagen. One went to Belgium, the other to Los Angeles. She got tissue samples from both, along with a few other great auks held in museums. To determine if any belonged to that final pair, she also traveled to Denmark. Over 170 years after they were sealed, she cracked open the jars of innards taken from the Eldey Island pair. 

The DNA from the jars matched the great auk in Belgium: They had found the male. None of the other specimens matched the DNA from the female's organs. It seemed like a dead end, but the research went back to the paper trail. In the 1870s, ornithologist George Dawson bought the pair. His son eventually auctioned them off in 1934. 

Auction error

At this point, Captain Vivian Vaughan Davies Hewitt won them and added them to his collection of 100,000 stuffed birds and 500,000 eggs. When he died, his huge assemblage, including the Eldey pair, was once again up for auction. It was thought that the female went to a museum in Los Angeles, but DNA testing showed this was not the case. It seems the labeling of the female great auk was incorrect, and she was wrongly sent to the Museum of Natural History and Science in Cincinnati, Ohio, in place of a different taxidermied great auk. 

The museum had owned the mounted bird ever since, never realizing its extraordinary significance as one-half of the last pair of its kind. For generations, it had been catalogued simply as another example of Pinguinus impennis, the Latin name for the great auk.

DNA analysis has finally proven that she is the famed Eldey great auk. Finding her solves “a natural history mystery that has puzzled great auk scholars and those within the museum industry for over 180 years,” said the researchers.

When we’re not outdoors, we get our adventure fix by exploring social media and the web. Here are some of the best adventure links we’ve discovered this week. 

Alex Honnold Will Free Solo a Skyscraper in 2026: In a joint project with Netflix called Skyscraper Live, Alex Honnold will free solo the 508m Taipei 101 skyscraper in Taiwan. While the exact date of this hair-raising climb has not been announced, we do know it will be in early 2026. It adds to the growing body of Netflix live event content. For Honnold, it offers another opportunity to reach beyond the world of climbing enthusiasts and into the mainstream.

A Wild First Ascent in Idaho: Climber and river guide Matt Ward had often gazed at the steep wall overlooking the Salmon River in Idaho and dreamed of making a first ascent. The problem was accessing it.

Last year, Ward teamed up with Ky Hart to attempt the previously unclimbed Redside Wall in Idaho’s Impassable Canyon. In some ways, the climb was the easiest part. To get there, they had to hike 35km and then swim 5.7km downriver through Class III rapids, all while fully loaded with gear to circumvent the tight permit restrictions. 

Arctic collaboration

Arctic Ascent: Glaciologist Heïdi Sevestre recounts her experience on a Greenland expedition that fused elite climbing with scientific research. Teaming up with world-class climbers, Sevestre helped lead 18 experiments on Greenland’s remote Scoresby Sund. The team drilled rock cores in Pool Wall, installed permafrost temperature sensors on the face of Ingmikortilaq, and used ground-penetrating radar on the Renland Ice Cap to map its internal structure.

Colin Haley Makes First Winter Ascent of Patagonia’s Aguja Standhardt: One of the world's most accomplished Patagonia climbers, Colin Haley knows you have to make the most of good weather windows. Just six days after his success on Cerro Torre, Haley headed back to the Torre Massif to take advantage of more good weather, his sights on another winter first. The result? Haley has achieved the first winter solo ascent of Patagonia’s Aguja Standhardt, climbing the Exocet route.

Trekking Scotland

Scotland End to End: John Fleetwood recounts his solo spring trek across Scotland from Cape Wrath to Berwick-on-Tweed. He called it a "grand highlights tour" that linked some of his favorite places, summits, lochs, woodlands, and coastal scenery. Over 22 days, he covered 816km and ascended more than 30,000m.  

Artist Creates Mushroom Kayak and Crosses The Catalina Channel: Blending art and science, Los Angeles artist Sam Shoemaker has successfully grown and paddled a mushroom kayak across the Catalina Channel. Using mycelium harvested from the mushroom Ganoderma polychromum and a hemp substrate within a fibreglass mold, Shoemaker nurtured the living vessel over several weeks before drying and sealing it. It took him 12 hours to make the 42km open-water crossing from Catalina Island to San Pedro.

From paralysis to the Pacific Crest Trail

Man Told He Would Never Walk Completes 4,264km Trek: At 13 years old, Will Baxter was told he would likely never walk again after suffering a sudden brain hemorrhage that left him paralyzed down his left side. Eleven years later, he has completed the 4,264km Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada. The 24-year-old spent five months trekking across deserts, glaciers, and 58 mountain summits, covering up to 40km a day and going through five pairs of shoes. 

The Perils of Letting AI Plan Your Next Trip: Planning itineraries using tools like ChatGPT is becoming more common. This can lead to entirely fictitious destinations, bizarre itineraries, and logistical nightmares.

Two travelers were dropped off at a rural road, ready to hike to a canyon that does not exist. Luckily, a local trekking guide overheard them chatting and intervened. Others have created itineraries that take them to the Eiffel Tower in Beijing, or stranded themselves atop a mountain served by a gondola because they trusted the ropeway station times provided by ChatGPT.

World-renowned primatologist and conservationist Jane Goodall has died at the age of 91. The Jane Goodall Institute confirmed today that she passed away peacefully in her sleep while on a speaking tour in California. 

Born in London in 1934, her favorite books were Tarzan and Doctor Dolittle. She spent her childhood dreaming of traveling to Africa.

“I’ll go to Africa, live with animals, write books about them,” she once told CBS News about those early desires.

Even in these dreams, she never imagined she would be a scientist. At the time, it was almost unheard of for girls. Everything changed when she got a job as a secretary with paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey. He recognized her gift with animals and sent her to Tanzania to observe chimpanzees at Gombe Stream National Park.

He thought understanding chimpanzees would give an insight into how our ancestors behaved. In 1960, at the age of 26 and without a formal degree, she began the fieldwork that would alter the course of primatology.

At Gombe, she witnessed and meticulously recorded extraordinary behaviors. Chimpanzees making and using tools. Stripping leaves from twigs to fish termites from their mounds displayed a skill we thought only humans had. They exhibited emotions such as grief and had social relationships and a hierarchy. The study made us redefine what it is to be human. 

Chimps as individuals

Even more radically, to many in the field, Goodall insisted on seeing the chimpanzees as individuals, giving them names like David Greybeard and Flo, and following their lives over the years. Her observations forced the world to reconsider the supposed gulf between humans and other primates, and her work earned her a place at Cambridge. She began a PhD without even holding an undergraduate degree, a rarity even now.

Goodall’s personal and work lives were always intertwined. She met her first husband, Hugo van Lawick, in Tanzania. He was a wildlife photographer who filmed much of her early work. Even after divorcing, she credited his images with persuading many skeptics to take her findings seriously. In 1975, she married Derek Bryceson, then head of Tanzania’s national parks, who supported her conservation work until his death in 1980.

In 1977, she founded the Jane Goodall Institute, a leading body in primate conservation. She later launched Roots & Shoots, a youth empowerment program in 75 countries. She published over 30 books, became a United Nations Messenger of Peace, and spent her later decades speaking tirelessly on climate change, deforestation, and the urgent need to protect our planet. Even in her nineties, she was relentless in her efforts, traveling around 300 days a year to speak to the public.

Her fame and legacy extend beyond what she discovered about chimpanzees. They come from her forcing the world to see that protecting animals and their habitat is a moral duty. Over the last six decades, she has been one of the most trusted and beloved voices in science, inspiring generations of researchers and conservationists to continue and build upon her work. 

Giant underground lava tunnels have been discovered on Venus, our inhospitable, cloud-wrapped neighbor. Their huge size is peculiar and has forced scientists to discard their pet theories on how planetary lava tunnels form.

The surface of Venus is unlike Earth’s in nearly every respect. Those thick clouds that hide a direct view of its surface are made of sulfuric acid. The planet's temperature is around 460˚C, its atmospheric pressure is 93 times higher than ours, and it has more volcanoes than any other planet.

With these hellish conditions, you might think huge lava tunnels tie in quite nicely, but their size has baffled scientists. Lava tubes on Earth form when the outer layer of lava flowing beneath the surface cools and solidifies, while the interior remains molten. The molten lava continues to drain away, leaving behind a hollow underground channel. Our lava tubes are relatively modest in size because Earth’s gravity pulls heavily on the overlying rock.

On the Moon and Mars, the lower gravity has allowed lava tubes to grow larger without collapsing. The assumption has long been that weaker gravity results in larger lava tubes. So the discovery of huge lava tunnels on Venus, where the gravity is quite similar to Earth’s, turns that rule completely on its head.

“Earth lava tubes have smaller volumes, Mars tubes have slightly bigger volumes, the Moon’s tubes have even bigger volumes...and then there's Venus, completely disrupting this trend, displaying very, very big tube volumes," lead author Barbara De Toffoli told the Europlanet Science Congress earlier this month. "There's likely something more on Venus playing a significant role.”

Lava tubes leave surface hints

Scientists have long suspected the existence of lava tubes on Venus. Pits on the surface indicated they might exist. De Toffoli and her team discovered the unusual tunnels using radar imagery and mapping data from past Venus missions. They analyzed the surface pits and depressions near volcanoes and noticed patterns characteristic of collapsed sections of lava tubes.

Many of the pits also line up perfectly with the steepest section of volcano slopes where lava would have flowed, and the ratio of depth to width is consistent with the geometry of collapsed tubes.

Why these tunnels are so large remains a mystery. The leading theory relates to Venus's surface hellscape. The crushing pressure and extreme temperatures might cause lava to flow and solidify differently than elsewhere.

“Due to the very high pressure, there's an overall flattening out of the tubes, instead of having a very intense erosion at the floor that usually happens on other planets,” suggests De Toffolii.

Shelter from radiation

On the Moon and Mars, scientists have been eyeing the lava tubes as shelters for future missions. They serve as natural shields against radiation and harsh surface extremes. On Venus, surface missions are even more challenging due to the brutal heat and pressure. But these underground tunnels might someday offer some refuge for rovers and robotic probes. However, before anything like that can happen, we need to learn more about the lava tubes.

Future missions like ESA’s EnVision, scheduled to launch in 2031, will map the vast tunnels. The project will also have a subsurface radar sounder to detect the hidden cavities hundreds of meters underground. This should let scientists confirm the depth and geometry of the lava tunnels.

High in the Peruvian Andes, a tiny, unexpected surprise awaited scientists who had come to find an obscure species of squirrel. Instead, they found something far more intriguing in Río Abiseo National Park: a new species of mouse opossum.

Silvia Pavan, the lead scientist, glimpsed the little creature at 2,664m and was sure she had spotted something unusual. The altitude was one of the giveaways. Until then, marsupials have lived only as high as 1,580m in this area. This previously undiscovered marsupial lives considerably higher. It is now officially named Marmosa chachapoya, in honor of the Chachapoya people, who inhabited this region long before the Inca. 

The tiny marsupial is just 10cm long, with a tail stretching a further 15cm. It has an elongated snout, reddish-brown fur that gets softer and lighter on its underside, and distinctive, mask-like patches of darker fur around its eyes.

The team first discovered the little opossum in 2018. Since then, they have been doing everything they can to prove that this is a new species. Over the last six years, they conducted DNA analysis to rule out that it was merely a variant of a known species. This second find has finally allowed them to confirm it.

“The animal from Abiseo is very different in its DNA, about 8% different from Marmosa lepida [its closest known relative],” said Pavan. 

Virtually nothing is known about the ecology, behavior, or range of Marmosa chachapoya. The scientists don’t yet know how many there are, where else they might live, what they eat, or how they breed. What is clear, though, is that this discovery underscores how much of the Andean cloud forest remains unexplored. 

When we’re not outdoors, we get our adventure fix by exploring social media and the web. Here are some of the best adventure links we’ve discovered this week. 

These Brothers Made 14,000' Speed Records A Thing: In 1974, brothers Tyle, Flint, Cody, and Quade Smith, along with their father, embarked on a legendary challenge. Dubbed the Climbing Smiths, they summited all 67 peaks above 14,000 feet in the contiguous United States in just 48 days. Driving more than 6,000km, hiking 800km, and climbing 65,000 vertical meters, they cut 21 days off the previous record. 

Adventure Is Being Planned Out of Existence: Kevin Callan argues that the romance of spontaneous travel is vanishing as reservation systems take over. Pitching your tent wherever you stop paddling or walking is increasingly tricky. Now, adventures are constrained by site-specific bookings that you often need to make months in advance. The changes were made to help manage crowds and protect nature, but Callan thinks it also erodes some of the fun of exploration, and might push paddlers into dangerous choices just to reach a prepaid campsite. 

Too many tourists

Iceland Asks If It’s Had Enough of Mass Tourism: In 2010, when Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano erupted for the first time in 187 years, flights across Europe came to a grinding halt for eight days. Images of Iceland's spectacular landscapes circulated on global news channels. Suddenly, tourism boomed; in 2024, over two million people visited. But the downsides are obvious: overcrowded attractions, a strain on the environment, and communities pushed to their limits by tourism’s relentless growth.

Two Climbers Died on Mt. Shasta’s Easiest Route: There have been two recent deaths on Mt. Shasta’s "easiest" route in California. Rangers often suggest the Clear Creek route during the late season. In good weather, and with the volcano largely free of snow, it is a non-technical hike.

However, on September 12, a group accidentally veered off route and attempted a hazardous glissade without crampons or ice axes. One member lost his footing and slid uncontrollably down the slope. Rescue services found his body the next day. Last month, bad weather disoriented another team. One of the men lost the group and, suffering from altitude sickness, could not explain to his partner where he was before losing cell service.

Stranded at sea

I Took A Job And Was Stranded At Sea For Six Months: On New Year’s Eve 2019, Giulia Baccosi took up a last-minute role as a cook aboard the Avontuur, a century-old cargo ship. What was meant to be a three-month journey turned into six months stranded on the ship as the COVID-19 pandemic shut down ports around the world. Authorities would not let the 16-man crew off the ship, and for Baccosi, it became increasingly hard to feed everyone. 

Coasteering, The Wildest Way to Explore The Coast: Coasteering is a wild and immersive way to explore rocky coastlines, combining scrambling, sea swimming, and cliff jumping. It originated in Wales and has grown in popularity across the UK as a way to see parts of the shore that are usually inaccessible by land. The same stretch of coast might offer sea caves and arches to swim through, tricky ledges to navigate, and nerve-testing leaps into the sea. 

Matterhorn free climb

Marco Ghisio and Marco Sappa Win First Repeat and First Free Ascent of L’Amitié: On August 26, Italian climbers Marco Ghisio and Marco Sappa completed the first repeat and first free climb of L’Amitié, a 650m, 16-pitch route on the Matterhorn’s south face. François Cazzanelli, Francesco Ratti, and Marco Farina opened the line in 2021, but one of its hardest pitches had never been climbed without aid. Ghisio and Sappa climbed it freely at a difficulty of 8a/+.

Astronomers have found a space rock that has been quietly hanging around Earth for decades: a tiny asteroid named 2025 PN7. This so-called “quasi-moon” isn’t a true moon or a mini-moon, because it orbits the Sun rather than our planet. But its orbit is so similar to Earth's that it will be our companion for around another 60 years.

Though the quasi-moon orbits the Sun, it occasionally looks from our vantage point like it is looping around us. However, our orbits are slightly different, so sometimes it lags behind us and sometimes it seems to lead us. But since the little asteroid's orbit around the Sun is very close to one Earth year, it is always pretty close.

2025 PN7 is just 19 meters across and might be the smallest quasi-moon ever found. Its minuscule size means that it can be quite tricky to spot. As astronomers put it, its "visibility windows" are very narrow. We can only see it through very large telescopes when its position and the lighting are favorable. That’s partly why it evaded detection for so long.

Entered orbit in 1957

Although the Pan-STARRS1 telescope in Hawaii discovered it in August 2025, the quasi-moon has been in this orbit for far longer. When researchers later trawled through archived images, they found that 2025 PN7 had shown up decades earlier. They think it likely entered its current orbit in 1957.

It won’t stay with us in this dance forever. Simulations suggest that it will keep up company for another 60 years before it wanders off in another direction. In that time, its distance from Earth will change quite a bit. So far, it has varied between 4 million kilometers at its closest and 18 million kilometers at its furthest.

2025 PN7 is one of seven quasi-moons in Earth-like orbits, and seems to be the smallest and least stable. Astronomers aren't exactly sure where it came from. It does not pose any threat to us.

"These asteroids are relatively easy to access for unmanned missions and can be used to test planetary exploration technologies [relatively cheaply]," said Carlos de la Fuente Marcos, lead author of the study.

Since our last ocean rowing roundup, one team has set a new record for crossing the Pacific Ocean. The two remaining crews are battling their way across the Pacific, getting steadily closer to their finish. 

The Maclean Brothers (UK): Jamie, Ewan, and Lachlan MacLean have completed a record-breaking, unsupported row across the Pacific Ocean. Setting off from Lima, Peru, they spent 139 days, five hours, and 52 minutes at sea before arriving in Cairns, Australia, after covering 14,484km. 

It is the fastest human-powered crossing of the Pacific. Soloist Fedor Konyukhov set the previous record of 162 days in 2014. In interviews, since completing the row, they have said “It almost feels like a dream,” and that they are still processing the scale of what they have achieved.

Life aboard their small rowing boat was far from easy. The conditions were relatively calm until halfway, when the winds and weather became much trickier.

Weather worsens

They faced an anti-cyclone, a 36-hour storm with winds up to 60kph and six-meter waves. They suffered several knockdowns, where the boat tipped quite violently onto its side. At one point, Lachlan was thrown overboard. Luckily, he was tied to the boat, and his brothers scrambled to haul him back on board.  

As they neared the end of the row, a cyclone forced them to change their plans and head toward Cairns instead of Brisbane. They had to detour around the New Caledonia archipelago to avoid the storm. They had enough food to last 150 days. Unsure how the weather would affect them, they started rationing in the final few weeks to ensure they had enough to make it to Australia. 

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When they finally reached land, four friends with bagpipes piped them in from the marina walls, while Jamie played his own set of pipes from the boat. Stepping onto dry land, there were a few simple things they could not wait for -- seeing family and friends, sleeping in an actual bed, and tucking into a long-imagined pizza.

The journey was exhausting both physically and mentally. Constant sleep deprivation, blisters, salt sores, and months living on dehydrated meals would be difficult for anyone.

Their superpower

They are convinced the key to their success, their "superpower," was being brothers.

"You can be totally frank with each other, and we obviously have so much shared history, and that maybe means you are less likely to fall out,” Lachlan told the BBC.

Ewan added, “The days have been long and yet the weeks have flown past. It's strange to think of the time that we've spent out here. This has been the hardest thing I've ever done, and I couldn't have even contemplated it without my brothers."

Seas the Day (UK): Jess Rowe and Miriam Payne have also been rowing from Peru to Australia. After initially starting in April, they had to turn back because of a broken rudder and restarted in May. As with the MacLean brothers, the constantly changing weather has forced them to amend their route. At first, they were heading for Sydney; this then changed to Brisbane, and now they are headed to Cairns in an attempt to escape the headwinds. 

They have now been rowing for 130 days, and on September 3, they hit the three-quarter mark (around 9,600km) of their journey. To celebrate, while sitting in some "mountainous waves,” they opened a few small treats from their families -- chocolate bars and dried strawberries. 

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A short-lived celebration

That joy was short-lived. By September 9, they were on their para-anchor because strong southerly winds were pushing them in the wrong direction. In total, they held in place for 55 hours.

You might think this would be a great time to catch up on sleep, but their bodies were so used to moving every few hours that sitting still in the cabin was actually hurting their backs. As well as this, it was damp and hot inside, increasing the discomfort. They couldn’t have been happier to start rowing again. 

A few days ago, after weeks of many failed attempts, they caught a fish -- a huge yellowfin tuna. This is the first fresh food they have had since setting off. Sacrificing a few crucial sleeping hours, Payne filleted the fish, cooked batches of it for the next few days, and even made some ceviche. 

Louis Margot (CH): Louis Margot is rowing across the Pacific as part of a much larger journey. He is attempting to circumnavigate the earth by cycling and rowing. First, he cycled from Switzerland to Portugal, then rowed to Colombia. Here, he once again hopped on a bike and pedaled to Peru, where he started his second rowing leg. 

Currently, he is rowing 14,000km across the Pacific Ocean to Indonesia. He has not done this in one go. He paused in Hiva Oa, one of the Marquesas Islands, for a few months to make repairs to his boat, restock, and rest. Then on June 1, he pushed off again, heading for Bali. 

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Milestones

This month has featured a number of milestones. August 23 was his 300th day at sea since the beginning of the challenge. Then, September 3 marked two years since the start of his circumnavigation. Over the 731 days since leaving Switzerland, he has traveled 29,700km using only human power. Once he reaches Indonesia, he will only have one final leg to complete: the return to Switzerland. 

This section of the row has been incredibly hard for Margot. Not only have there been issues with his solar panels and navigation system, but it has also felt very isolating. He has now spent almost four months alone at sea, without seeing any land. He admits that leaving French Polynesia and restarting his row was one of his hardest moments. It took him a lot longer to readjust to life on board than he had anticipated, compared to previous rowing legs. 

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Luckily, in the last few weeks, a few moments have made him feel less alone. At one point, a huge fishing vessel passed alongside him, wanting to see what this tiny boat was doing in the middle of the ocean. They gave him a 24-pack of beer to keep him going. A few days later, he had a video call with Jess Rowe and Miriam Payne from Seas the Day. It was a huge morale boost to chat to other people who were also rowing across the Pacific. 

In the last week, he has left the Pacific Ocean behind and crossed into the Bismarck Sea. The currents are moving in all directions, and several thunderstorms have crashed around him. He is steadily rowing past Papua New Guinea and other islands en route to Indonesia. 

This September marks a huge anniversary in British mountaineering. On Sept. 24, 1975, Doug Scott and Dougal Haston became the first Britons to summit Mount Everest. Their route up the South West Face had eluded several teams. It was the high-altitude climbing challenge of the moment, and leader Chris Bonington immortalized the climb in his book Everest the Hard Way. Now, 50 years later, that same title has been given to a charity auction celebrating the ascent.

Organized by London auction house Bonhams, the event is raising funds for Community Action Nepal, the charity founded by Doug Scott. The online sale is now open, and bidding will conclude with a live auction on September 25. Collectors and mountaineering enthusiasts will have the chance to bid on pieces of climbing history, many of which once belonged to Scott himself.

Scott's Everest windsuit

One of the most iconic pieces up for grabs is the windsuit that Scott wore during that 1975 ascent. The photo of him standing on the summit, in the bright blue windsuit, is one of the most famous Everest pictures ever. Originally designed to fit over a down suit, Scott decided that was too restrictive. Instead, he opted for silk underwear and a pile suit. Scott last wore it at a charity event not long before he died.

Also on the bidding list is one of the manual Olympus cameras Chris Bonington used to document his expeditions. He has been a stalwart fan of Olympus cameras ever since Olympus loaned him one for the 1975 expedition.  

Other Everest items in the auction include Scott's Chouinard-Frost Piolet - a 70cm ice axe that he used from 1972-1975, and Dougal Haston’s aluminium expedition trunk. Haston lost his life in an avalanche only two years after their Everest summit. It has his name engraved on the lid. Eventually, Scott used it to store his tents. 

Other items bear the signatures of climbing legends, including a fine art print of Everest by Graeme Lothian signed by Scott, Bonington, Edmund Hillary, George Band, Charles Wylie, Rebecca Stephens, Michael Ward, and Mike Westmacott. Another is an Order of Service from Edmund Hillary's funeral, signed by George Band, Jan Morris, Mike Westmacott, George Lowe, and Alfred Gregory.

A walk with Bonington

Experiences are also up for auction. You can bid for a walk with Chris Bonington and to go climbing with Leo Houlding.

You can find out more about the auction and its listed items here.