Welcome to Ice Stories: Dispatches from Polar Scientists, where you’ll meet penguin biologists, glaciologists, cosmologists, geologists, and marine scientists working in Antarctica and the Arctic. We’ve given them cameras and blogging tools and asked them to document their adventures, so you can follow their research, ask questions, and share in their discoveries as they occur. This experiment, in celebration of the International Polar Year (2007-08), gives you an up-close-and-personal look at research in extreme environments through the thoughts and experiences of the scientists working there. We’ll post their photos, videos, and blogs on this site.

The adventure began in Antarctica in November 2007 with a series of Webcasts from the South Pole and the McMurdo and Palmer research stations. It will continue for two years, shifting polar locations to the Arctic in summer 2008. In winter 2008-09, we’ll return to Antarctica. Join us and see what it’s really like to be a research scientist at the top or bottom of the world.