Meet the Adventurers of the Year: Explorer Albert Yu-Min Lin

Conjuring Genghis Khan: Explorer Albert Yu-Min Lin

Picture the young explorer, standing in his StarCAVE, searching for the tomb of Genghis Khan. Picture the world around him, the wilderness stretching away in all directions. Picture him stooping to inspect some rocks near his feet, rocks that together form a suspiciously tidy rectangle, a rectangle that stands out for its orderliness amid the surrounding chaos of green lichen and gray talus. Picture him making a note to himself, then turning toward a faraway peak topped by an ancient shrine and launching himself toward it at several hundred miles an hour.

It’s an illusion, of course. The StarCAVE, this five-walled Cave Automated Virtual Environment, is a trickster, a dream-bringer. It squats in an earthquake-proof room in a laboratory at the University of California, San Diego, and allows its users to immerse themselves in huge three-dimensional projections of computer-generated molecules or architectural CAD blueprints or, as now, high-resolution satellite imagery of northern Mongolia. The explorer squats to examine pixels, not rocks, and when he flies away, he’s standing still. None of this is real.

Except for the explorer.

He’s as real as it gets. Read the story and watch the video >>

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Three weeks ago we announced the 2009 Adventurers of the Year, selected for their extraordinary achievements in exploration, conservation, action sports, and humanitarian work. Now, for the first time ever, you can vote for the Readers' Choice Adventurer of the Year. To help you get to know them, we are going to highlight a different adventurer daily. You can only vote once, so make sure to check out each adventurers' profile, video, and photo gallery, before firing up our voting machine.

Age of Citizen Science - Four Websites Where You Can Lend a Hand

Crowdsourcing. Group thinking. Call it what you will, but in the past ten years, average Joes tasked with online assignments (from bird counting to cloud identification and more) have contributed reams of data to the scientific body. Just one thing: Few scientists ever took it seriously. That’s changed. Sites are better, questions keener, and citizens are becoming viable foot soldiers in legitimate scientific studies. “We have over 30 ornithology papers published in peer-reviewed journals that use volunteer-collected data,” says Rick Bonney of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Citizen Science Program. Here are four ways you can lend a hand.

Geo-Engineering: Five Radical, Dangerous Global Warming Solutions

Text by Joe Battle

Geo-engineering, the intentional manipulation of nature to compensate for the damage humans have done over the past two centuries, has become a very hot topic. In "Re-Engineering the Earth" (The Atlantic, July/August 2009), writer Graeme Wood profiles several scientists who are developing radical "solutions" to climate change. Here are five of the most outrageous. 

1. Launching zeppelins to fly through the air with long tubes connected to them that pump out sulfur dioxide. During the day, these continuously puffing machines would protect us against the sun. Unfortunately the pollutant's chemical makeup would cause the sky to glow red. 

2. Creating 20 electromagnetic guns that shoot 800,000 Frisbee-size ceramic disks into space every five minutes to block and redirect sunlight. The firing of these disks would go on continually for ten years. Imagine the Earth with an ostentatious pair of sunglasses. 

3. "Carbon eaters" - Engineered trees created to suck carbon out of the air: like normal trees—but on steroids. 

4. Painting the skies white through the use of propellers that are individually attached to a permanent fleet of 15,000 ships. The propellers would cause sea water to fly in the air creating more moisture. Wind would take it to the clouds making them the clouds bulkier and whiter. Sunlight would then be bounced back into space. 

5. Taking carbon to the ocean floor to create an enormous bloom of carbon-absorbing plankton. In essence, sweeping our carbon problem under the (plankton) carpet.

Get the full story here.

Peter Greenberg on Mexico: "It's time to be an intelligent, contrarian traveler"

Text by Alyson Sheppard

Travel journalist Peter Greenberg has been vocal in his support of continued travel to Mexico in the wake of the H1N1 virus scare, and on May 23, he took his crusade to a whole new level—he broadcast his radio show from the abandoned beaches of Cancún.

“I’m happy to report that I am not frothing at the mouth, I’m not glowing in the dark, and I’m not sleeping with a pig,” Greenberg wrote on his blog at petergreenberg.com.

Convinced that travel to and from the country is safe as long as tourists act responsibly, use common sense, and practice basic personal hygiene, Greenberg spent three days in the luxurious spa resort El Dorado Royale in the Riviera Maya in Cancún, Mexico, and joked about the health panic on his weekly radio show, Peter Greenberg Worldwide.

“The point is: Are we going to be intelligent travelers or fearful travelers?” Greenberg said. “It’s perfectly all right; In fact, I insist on an abundance of concern and caution. I also insist on throwing out an abundance of fear and stupidity.”

Greenberg, who also advocated—and did—travel to China during the SARS crisis, said hotel occupancy in the Mexican region is averaging under 20 percent now, and severely hurting the tourism industry.

“It’s time to be an intelligent, contrarian traveler. That’s right. And there’s nothing wrong with that as long as you do your homework,” he said.

His three-hour long show, available on podcast, includes interviews with over a dozen experts from the tourism and medicine industries, such as New York Times columnist Michelle Higgins, who says tourists can grab last-minute bargains if they act quickly, and Josef Woodman, the author of Patients Beyond Borders, who gives advice on how tourists can protect their immune systems on the road.

To download a podcast of Greenberg’s tips and read more about his trip, click here. 

Swine Flu Update: U.S. Reports Second Death, Tips for Travelers

Text by Keith Rutowski, updated 05/06/2009

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is still recommending that travelers avoid nonessential trips to Mexico, the supposed epicenter of the current swine influenza outbreak. Swine flu, or H1N1, is a respiratory disease in pigs caused by type A influenza, which is regularly spread among pigs, and, less commonly, between humans. However, according to the World Health Organization, the current outbreak of the disease is responsible for 1,516 confirmed infections worldwide and 17 deaths, including a toddler boy and a 33-year-old woman in the U.S.

Decidedly less severe cases of infection are continuing to show up outside of Mexico—including in Canada, Spain, and the United Kingdom—and many countries are taking action to prevent the spread of the virus. The U.S. has stepped up its border patrol. Southeast Asia is utilizing thermal scanners to check for fever at airports. Russia, Hong Kong, and Taiwan all said they would quarantine travelers displaying symptoms of the virus.

Media accounts vary on the overall severity of the current outbreak, so let’s review some of the basic facts about the virus and what travelers can do should they need to travel to an affected area. The disease is transmitted by exposure to infected animals and through human-to-human contact such as sneezing and coughing (not by consuming properly cooked pork, according to the CDC). Therefore, experts advise individuals to obey strict rules of hygiene and to seek immediate medical attention if one should exhibit flu-like symptoms (i.e. fever, lethargy, lack of appetite). And while there is no vaccine to prevent swine flu, the CDC recommends that individuals needing to travel to Mexico bring along oseltamivir (Tamiflu) and zanamivir (Relenza)—the same drugs used to combat the regular flu.

Speaking of the regular flu, you may be wondering how swine flu stacks up against it? In terms of sheer numbers, swine flu still seems to be considerably less critical. CNN has recently pointed out the fact that while swine flu shouldn’t be taken lightly, seasonal influenza kills 36,000 people in the U.S. each year. Since January, there have already been 13,000 deaths due to regular flu complications. However, the vague nature of this flu strand makes it imperative that individuals who must travel to Mexico continue to update themselves as the situation develops and that they exercise caution when abroad and once they return home.

Related Links:

http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/ http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/updates/en/index.html http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090427/ap_on_he_me/med_swine_flu http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/04/28/regular.flu/index.html

Adventure in 60 Seconds: The News

Text by Tetsuhiko Endo and Keith Rutowski 

The BBC reports that the Japanese government is sending navy ships to the Gulf of Aden in order to protect their cargo ships from pirates. Japan has oficially been a pacificist nation since the end of World War II, and their intervention is raising a few eyebrows among people who have apparently never been threatened by pirates. 

Which century-old company started by developing punched card data processing equipment, survived the Great Depression, was an early competitor in PC development, and is now diving into water management? If you answered "IBM," then you're either a history buff or you just read The New York Times technology blog today. According to the Times, IBM will be present at the World Water Forum in Istanbul on Monday to unveil Strategic Water Management Solutions, a package of research findings and potential answers to some of our water-centric conundrums. The solutions package is the newest component of the company's "smart planet" initiative, which uses information technology to address everything from health care to energy. 

Last Tuesday marked the 50th anniversary of the Tibetan national uprising. Despite harsh words from a Dalai Lama, a heavy Chinese military presence kept civil unrest to a minimum (or at least reports of unrest to a minimum) and the Adventure Blog has announced that some climbing teams are optimistic about their chances to take a shot at the currently closed Tibetan side of Everest in April. 

Six climbs from 2008 have been nominated for the 17th annual Piolets d'Or or Golden Ice Axe Awards that recognize excellence in big mountain climbing. David Turner, the sole American nominee will head to Chamonix in April to see whether or not his ascent of a new route on Chile's Cerro Escudo will snag him one of the most coveted awards in climbing. 

Researchers at Rice University have found that fear has a smell—and it's not very pleasant.

Headliners: Adventure in 60 Seconds Election Edition!

A roundup of the latest adventure news, by Mindy Zacharjasz

Final showdown: This two-year, multi-stage ultra-marathon has challenged top endurance competitors in enough battles to K.O. Mike Tyson. Need a refresher? Now it’s down to two major contenders and the finish line is finally in sight, as is the much anticipated prize--the Presidency of the United States. In this special edition of Adventure in 60 Seconds, we turn our attention a few adventure-worthy tidbits of the Presidential election.

Some 39,000 raced in the New York City Marathon on Sunday and more than a few took the opportunity to show their politics, despite the sweat. And there’s never lack of creativity in campaign gear. Case in point: This year’s Barack Obama bike and Sarah Palin hockey puck.

It doesn’t matter if you’re red or blue, just vote green–-or at least that’s how some groups are trying to steer the vote. No doubt green issues and opinions are everywhere, and so are the campaign funding boosts by environmental, alternative energy, and coal mining groups. And of course there’s big oil which has contributed well more than $20 mill this go 'round. How will the next president really handle all of this, not to mention other talking points like global warming and terrorism? Time will tell, but here’s a physics lesson that one professor thinks could do just the trick.

And now for that election public service announcement you knew was coming: You can drive, walk, bike, or carpool, or travel in some adventure of your own, just make sure you get the polls Tuesday and vote.

Headliners: Adventure in 60 Seconds

A roundup of the latest adventure news, by Mindy Zacharjasz

Father-son bonding, Adventure style: John and Ryan Dahlem added Himalaya’s Cho Oyu to their résumé after their latest summit of the world’s sixth highest peak. It’s just another notch on the father-son team’s climbing belt, which already includes the highest peak on five of seven continents.

Triathlete Chrissie Wellington won Kona, Hawaii’s Ironman competition women’s division, after overcoming a ten-minute flat tire delay. The still-undefeated Brit finished the 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike and 26.2-mile run in just over nine hours, a full 15 minutes faster than the runner up.

BMW's going electric, Fiat’s offering hypermiling help, but how about finding your car fuel from your pantry? A canola oil-powered car hit 72 mph and beat out all the other fuels at the 600-mile race, Escape from Berkeley (by any non-petroleum means necessary).

Looking for a bright way to save some big bucks and help the environment? Switch you regular light bulbs to LEDs and CFLs, save hundreds of dollars and help Unscrew America.