IceCube is a neutrino observatory for astrophysics to be installed at the South Pole over seven austral summers ending in 2011. IceCube will look for extremely high-energy neutrinos coming from the northern sky whose sources are active galactic nuclei, supernova remnents, gamma-ray bursts, and active supernovae. The IceCube In-Ice detector will consist of a minimum of 4800 optical modules deployed on 80 vertical strings buried 1450 to 2450 meters under the surface of the ice, and an IceTop surface air-shower detector array comprised of a minimum of 320 optical modules. By early 2008, one half of the detector, 40 strings with 2400 optical modules, was collecting, storing and analyzing data. Weekly updates during the austral season, November-January, are posted here.

IceCube is an international project sponsored and conducted by the United States and several non-U.S. countries. The United States National Science Foundation supplies funds for the design, development, fabrication, procurement, testing, drilling and operations of the project at the South Pole.

The International Polar Year (IPY 2007-09) gives the public, teachers and students an extraordinary opportunity to experience the process of scientific discovery in action. Ice Stories provides a public face for IPY by using the power of contemporary media to bring current research to mass audiences with unprecedented intimacy and immediacy.

Ice Stories includes:

• A media-rich, dynamic and continuously updated public Web site

• A media-assets database for journalists, media producers, educators, and museum partners

• Training program in media production and story-telling for 15 scientist-correspondents a year.

This Activity involves science and social science research that has been initiated as a result of the recent melting of glaciers and alpine ice patches. Melting of these scientific “deep freezes”, is providing unanticipated data sources that are giving us insight into past northern societies, flora/fauna, environments, and their changes through time.

Extensive research, completed in all eight Arctic countries (Greenland/Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, and USA/Alaska), is now available on contaminant levels (persistent organic pollutants and metals), social and cultural change, climate change impacts and disease rates in human populations. Much of this research also examines specific ‘change factors’ or pressures. The majority of this work has been reported or published through the assessment reports of the Arctic Council of circumpolar nations; however, integrating and communicating the various streams of research disciplines has been difficult. This project will draw together new and established scientists and policy makers in an international symposium at the end of the IPY. Invited

Launched in August 2007, the Phoenix Mars Mission is the first in NASA's Scout Program. Phoenix is designed to study the history of water and habitability potential in the Martian arctic's ice-rich soil. The harsh climates and exotic biology of Antarctic dry valleys provide an analogue to the more extreme environments of northern polar regions of Mars. Understanding how systems in the Antarctic work therefore provides useful information during future explorations of Mars.