Antarctica - After 12 hours breaking through pack ice, passing groups of penguins and seals on the ice flow, and tracked by pods of Minke whales, we arrive at the edge of the great southern continent. This part of the Antarctic coastline is the windiest place on the planet at sea level and, as we pull alongside the towering ice cliffs in the Russian research ship Akademik Treshnikov, we are whipped and buffeted by their ferocity. The following morning the wind has abated and with blue skies and sunshine, the same giant ice cliffs have a meringue-like appearance. These walls of ice are the edges of glaciers, which stretch more than 40km from land out over the ocean. Cracked and crevassed, chunks of ice periodically "calve" from these glaciers, forming icebergs that are driven offshore by wind and current.

Dr Milne, who has already climbed Carstensz Pyramid (Oceania) Vinson Massif (Antarctica), Elbrus (Europe), Kilimanjaro (Africa), Denali (North America) and Aconcagua (South America), will be the first mountaineer to use the IM-PACs (intelligent messaging, planning and collaboration) system. The technology, developed at the Artificial Intelligence Applications Institute in the University of Edinburgh's School of Informatics, has been designed to provide computer support to people and teams performing a range of tasks - not just expedition teams operating in extreme conditions, but also key personnel involved in planning and rescue services responding rapidly to emergencies. IM-PACs' foundations in artificial intelligence planning technologies supply a framework that encourages a methodological approach to any task and allows users to transmit and respond to information in ways that can adapt to the circumstances the expedition team finds itself in. During his ascent, Dr. Milne will be in regular contact with colleagues in base camp who will monitor his progress against his ascent plan. A laptop computer and satellite phone will allow details of his current status and progress to be sent over the internet to a support team in Edinburgh.

How my penguin pal turned a shy schoolboy into a swimming... Can¿t someone warm it up a bit? How my penguin pal turned a shy schoolboy into a swimming... Can¿t someone warm it up a bit? Fox Valley Mall forced to close as huge brawl breaks out Chaos as people rush out of NJ mall after reports of gunshots Grizzly bear attacks TV woman who recklessly tries to stroke it Tears of joy? Emotional moment boy learns his mum is pregnant Partygoers allegedly arrested at a'mixed' party in Jeddah Mayhem outside Fox Valley Mall as police make several arrests Hero dog saves his injured'girlfriend' on deadly railway track CAT ATTACK: Pet pounces on man as he opens Christmas present Self-driving car predicts horrific crash and slams on breaks Just beautiful! Tears of joy? Emotional moment boy learns his mum is pregnant Partygoers allegedly arrested at a'mixed' party in Jeddah Hero dog saves his injured'girlfriend' on deadly railway track SWAT teams dispatched, families flee from'gunfire' and... Star Wars actress Carrie Fisher dies aged 60 four days after... 'Step Up' actress, 46, who vanished on her way to Christmas... Carrie Fisher'relapsed' before European tour that ended in... 'How could they let him drink and smoke himself to death?'... 'He became a recluse because he couldn't bear people to see... Bikini-clad Ivanka Trump and shirtless husband Jared enjoy a... Health curse of the middle aged: 80% are now'overweight,... How Carrie Fisher's brutal wit and very public battles with... The Texas border lake where Mexican cartels'are killing... George Michael's £100m fortune'will go to his Godchildren':... It's my quinceañera and I'll cry if I want to!

Antarctica may look like a forbidding white expanse, but life below the sea ice is full of colour. Scientists from the Australian Antarctic Division sent a robot down to take a look, capturing a small forest of underwater organisms in bright purples, yellows and pinks. The Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) was submerged at O'Brien Bay in east Antarctica. According to biologist Glenn Johnstone, the organisms survive in water that is -1.5 degrees Celsius (29.3 degrees Fahrenheit) and covered in thick sea ice for most of the year. "This footage reveals a habitat that is productive, colourful, dynamic and full of a wide variety of biodiversity, including sponges, sea spiders, urchins, sea cucumbers and sea stars," he said in a statement.

A tiny crack in one of Antarctica's ice sheets has now grown 70 miles long and more than 300 feet wide, and it's causing an iceberg the size of Delaware to break off of the continent. The crack is in one of the Larsen ice sheets, which NASA has been tracking since a large piece broke off in 1995. Larsen C is expected to break away soon, which could have a major impact on the rest of the sheet.

Artificial Intelligence is a branch of computer science concerned with making computers behave like humans and pursues to create the computers or machines intelligent as human beings. It deals with the simulation of intelligent behavior in computers. It is the capability of a machine to imitate intelligent human behavior. According to the father of AI, John McCarthy, it is "The science and engineering of making intelligent machines, especially intelligent computer programs". AI is a way of making a computer, a computer-controlled robot, or a software think intelligently, in the similar manner the intelligent humans think.

Several years ago, I attended a Buddhist retreat in which I was introduced to the idea of the "retinue," a constellation of influential and supportive people whom one imagines in an enveloping cloud as one meditates. I took the concept one step further and decided to create an actual photo montage that I could hang on the wall above my desk: my childhood piano teacher, my high school English teacher, my rabbi, mentors in science, writers who encouraged me--in all, 20 people who had profoundly influenced me. Some members of my retinue were still living, some not. In some cases I could find the photographs myself. In others, I had to contact the mentors. When I finally tracked down William Gerace, who introduced me to physics nearly 50 years ago, he was puzzled as to why I should desire such a montage. We had not spoken for decades. Reluctantly, he sent me an old, out-of-focus photo of himself, dating back to the days when I knew him. Now, Gerace is a professor of science education at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, after a 30-year career as a professor of physics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, during which time he made the transition from theoretical nuclear physicist to leader in science education and co-founder of the Scientific Reasoning Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. When I knew him, in the late 1960s, he was a lowly instructor in physics at Princeton, where he had recently received his Ph.D. I was an undergraduate. The photo shows a man in his late 20s, about 5 feet 6, slight in build, dark hair beginning to thin, dressed in a button-down shirt and blue sweater, and a Mona Lisa smile. Each new mathematical technique Bill taught us was offered with the enthusiasm of a 12-year-old boy showing his friend a strange new butterfly. I first met Bill Gerace during a physics lab my sophomore year.

They are wise-cracking companions, able to communicate in more than six million languages. Others are bent on enslaving or destroying humanity, deeming themselves better, more rational caretakers of the Earth in light of our irrational behaviors. Pilot or garbage man, soldier or slave, hero or villain--robots have played every role imaginable in popular science fiction for nearly a century. In the 21st century, real-life robots inspired by their fictional counterparts are beginning to take starring roles in everyday life. Several companies, Google among them, are testing autonomous cars (unfortunately, there is no indication that they will be able to travel into the past or future anytime soon).

A leading Antarctic researcher died on 22 October after his snowmobile plunged 30 metres into an unseen crevasse. Glaciologist Gordon Hamilton of the University of Maine Climate Change Institute in Orono was fatally injured as a result, according to a statement released yesterday by the National Science Foundation. At the time, Hamilton was working with a team from the US Antarctic Program (USAP) actively identifying and filling in newly formed crevasses along the McMurdo shear zone. This is a stretch of intensely crevassed Antarctic ice where the Ross and McMurdo ice shelves meet. Hamilton was using robots equipped with ground-penetrating radar to study the stability of the ice shelves.

In a study published earlier this month in the journal Astrobiology, two researchers say the scientific community should take a closer look at a study of Mars' soil published in 1976. Because two NASA robots may have discovered signs of life on Mars almost four decades ago, say Gilbert Levin from Arizona State University and Patricia Ann Straat from the US National Institutes of Health. It all started when NASA sent two probes, named Viking 1 and Viking 2, to Mars in 1976 to test for signs of life on the Red Planet. As the first spacecraft from Earth to reach Mars, the Viking probes conducted three studies on the planet's biology. To conduct one of the studies, the labed release (LR) experiment, scientists took soil picked up by the Viking probes and mixed it with nutrient-rich water.