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.

On the upcoming SpaceX CRS-10 mission, a rocket will launch carrying the next batch of cargo to the International Space Station. Inside its Dragon capsule's unpressurized trunk will be a critical Earth-facing instrument--one that maps ozone molecules and other compounds in the atmosphere. Its name is the Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment III, or SAGE III. When the Dragon arrives at the ISS, a robot arm will reach into the trunk, pull out the experiment's parts, put them together, and install them on the outside of the habitat. Scientists at NASA's Langley Research Center will watch streaming video of their baby being assembled, breaths held till everything is in place.

Babylonians develop the clepsydra, a clock that measures time using the flow of water. It's considered one of the first "robotic" devices in history. For centuries, inventors will refine the design. Around 270 BC, the Greek inventor Ctesibius becomes famous for a water clock with moving figures on it. The Greek philosopher Aristotle imagines the great utility of robots, writing, "If every tool, when ordered, or even of its own accord, could do the work that befits it then there would be no need either of apprentices for the master workers or of slaves for the lords."

It's a hot late-spring Friday on a cactus-studded cattle ranch in Mexico, and nothing is happening. Nothing, in fact, has been happening for going on a week now, and it's starting to get tedious. Ordinarily, the group of scientists, engineers, and students who have gathered here might have enjoyed a respite from their otherwise crazy schedules. But they didn't come here to catch up on their reading, play the guitar, or take long, leisurely walks. They came here to work. Their goal is to field-test one of the most intelligent and agile underwater robots ever crafted, a possible predecessor of a machine that might someday swim the vast, ice-crusted ocean of Jupiter's mysterious moon Europa. Called DEPTHX, for DEep Phreatic THermal eXplorer, the 1.3-metric-ton machine can maneuver freely, draw detailed, three-dimensional maps of its watery surroundings, and collect solid and liquid biological samples as it senses changing conditions in its environment. Most important, it does all that without any guidance from human operators. Such autonomy would be essential if the robot ever does swim on Europa--which may be warm enough, thanks to geothermal activity, to have given rise to some sort of life. Human control of a robot sub that far away isn't an option: radio waves don't effectively penetrate water. Even if they did, a round-trip radio signal would take 2 hours or more, making remote control unlikely. But today, on this sweltering retreat near the Gulf Coast of Mexico, with cicadas buzzing and a hazy sun beating down, Europa seems a long way off.

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.

The origins of robotics go back to the automata invented by ancient civilisations. The word robot entered our vocabulary only in 1920 with Czech writer Karel Čapek's play R.U.R (Rossum's Universal Robots). Over the past 20 years robots have been developed to work in settings that range from manufacturing industry to space. At Cambridge University, robotics is a rapidly developing field within many departments, from theoretical physics and computing to engineering and medical science. Lord Martin Rees is Emeritus Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics at the University of Cambridge. He holds the honorary title of Astronomer Royal.

Few concepts capture the human imagination more than robots, undoubtedly because they are often designed to mimic us. Even their technological development seems to parallel our advances. We can judge the progress of our ability to harness scientific achievement simply by looking at a robot and asking this question: Exactly how much is this machine like a human? Or as Matt Mason, head of the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, says, "In studying robotics we're really just studying ourselves." To take a measure of our progress, Discover offers a look in that mirror as we analyze the 25 greatest stepping-stones in robotics, points in time where science fiction meshes with science fact.

Yesterday, the Halley VI Research Station was forced to close its Antarctic research base amid rising fears it could fall into a huge ice chasm. Shocking new drone footage has now been released that shows just how massive the growing crack in the ice is. The worrying footage has forced the British research base to relocate 14 miles (22 km) across the Brunt Ice Shelf and close its doors for the winter. The footage shows a 25 mile-long (40km) crack that appears to be a few feet deep. In some areas, the crack has split into two, leaving behind small islands of ice.

In late December 2016, I announced a small gift of 10 Deep Learning books to people interested in or working in AI. This is my way of paying back to the community which has been extremely generous with ideas and code. I asked people to send me an email letting me know their interest in AI and their contributions to the community. Here is the video of the announcement. I received nearly 300 emails from people from around the world -- pretty much every continent other than Antarctica!

Being a scientist can be like willingly entering into a Roman gladiatorial contest. The hours are long, there's a rank smell of indentured servitude, and at any minute your colleagues may attempt to eviscerate you for the pleasure of the crowds. A lot of the time we can look beyond these challenges because we have an innate need to explore our curiosity. Or perhaps (shockingly) because we feel that a life spent in pursuit of knowledge is still a noble and useful thing. At other times I suspect we only stick around because we're playing the real-world equivalent of a video game--conditioned to crave the chemical release from a momentary discovery, or a satisfactory fitting of a curve to data points.