Stories of inspiration

I was browsing the news this morning and I stumbled across this little tidbit about a current exploration team down in Antarctica.

The ingenuity of the team is what strikes me as most impressive. These are all young scientists in their late 20's to early/mid 30's, and the brilliant minds grouped together are coming up with innovative solutions to problems they face on a daily basis. In particular the part where the mechanic jury-rigs a solution to retrieving their lost drill from a hole hundreds of feet down in the ice was just epic, or where he rigged a heater to keep the motors from freezing up in -40 temperatures.

Actually, in retrospect, the mechanic was probably the most innovative of the whole team. He continually seems to get them out of rough situations.

But still...it reminded me that humans are, at their hearts, explorers. And the purpose of this mission is multi-faceted: to find out how Earth survived global warming in the past, how high the ocean levels rose, and so on. And it's good to know that there are scientists out there working on finding the answers to questions that could help us make the most of what's left of our planet.