There was no trail that the young man could see, but they were working up and around the face of the mountain and now they crossed a small stream and the old man went steadily on ahead up the edge of the rocky stream bed.

NPR: Robert Jordan, Hemingway's Bipartisan Hero

Next week, if all goes according to plan, a small mountain of snow will be melted, repeatedly sterilised and then injected in a high-pressure stream of near-boiling water to clear a bore-hole through the two miles of the ice-sheet.

BBC: New age of exploration in the hunt for extreme life