It's heartbreaking when even Sir Edmund Hillary feels the need to comment on and criticise the mentality of today's over-ambitious Everest conquerors who walk past fellow climbers in obvious distress and ignore a life in danger, just to make it to the top. This season has cost another 14 mountaineers their lives so far, increasing the overall death toll on the slopes of the planet's highest mountain to almost 190.

The British team, approaching the 8,850m high summit via the notorious West Ridge, abandoned their push earlier this week when they were faced with wind slab at the Hornbein Couloir. The avalanche risk was too high to continue. The lives of the team members were more important than the ambition to finish the mission successfully. Congratulations.

Meanwhile the server of the main Mount Everest website (www.mounteverest.net) remains unable to deal with the amount of requests.

To further explore the idea of taking a trip to Antarctica within the next two years I've been reading up on the subject and am currently hitting one outstanding fact after the next: There's a stretch of craggy mountains, called the Sentinel Range, that tower above the snowy plain of West Antarctica with peaks as high as the Alpes. Until 1957, no one had ever seen them. Among the highest is Mount Bentley, at 4,247 meters (13,930 feet) above sea level.

Well, I knew the highest peak in Antarctica was the Vinson Massif with 4,897m - but had never heard of Geophysicist Charles Bentley before...

In the same region of the world's coldest continent is a trench the size of Mexico filled with ice that is thousands of meters thick, reaching far below sea level. It's called the Bentley Subglacial Trench, and it spans the breadth of the region and extends for hundreds of miles. At its surface is the deepest ice yet discovered and the world's lowest elevation not under seawater.

more Antarctic Facts >

A British team is currently on its way to the Summit of Everest via the difficult West Ridge. The weather window for the final push is predicted for May 16 - 21 - so, pretty much any day from now. Their progress can be followed here on this flipping freezing website.
Somehow I much prefer the Army getting involved in mental and physical conquests like this one...

To the beautiful music of José Gonzalez, SONY has produced a fascinating TV commercial for their BRAVIA high-definition TVs. The full length version of this ad - which was filmed in San Francisco by Danish director Nicolai Fuglsig - can now be viewed on SONY's UK website.

A fabulous source for development solutions helping initial design ideas on their way. Lokesh Dhakar deserves a tripple hurray for his great work. >>>>>