WHITEHORSE, YUKON. The exciting start of the 2007 Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race is only days away and as the 28 mushers make their final preparations for the epic two-week journey, along with dog food, booties and trail supplies, they will be carrying something very special in their sleds this year. Commemorative Yukon Quest envelopes bearing Canada Post Corporation International Polar Year (IPY) stamps will be carried by each of the 28 sled dog teams between the Whitehorse race start this coming Saturday and the mid-way point in Dawson City, Yukon next week. The historic and well-traveled envelopes will then be presented to an IPY Canadian National Committee member at the Yukon IPY launch celebration on March 1, 2007 at the Westmark Whitehorse H...

Gretel Ehrlich, award-winning author, has received a National Geographic Expeditions Grant for the International Polar Year 2007 during which she will make a circumpolar journey to talk with indigenous Arctic people at the top of the world about how their lives are being affected by the climate crisis. Ehrlich will travel from Arctic Alaska, across Nunavut, to NW Greenland, northwestern Russia, and Chukotka in NE Siberia, traveling by skin boat, fixed wing plane, helicopter, reindeer, and dogsled, gathering traditional and ecological knowledge from elders, hunters, and village people as they face the crisis of extinction of a culture and an entire ecosystem. Farthest North: THE END OF ICE will be a book, a magazine piece, a website, and a documentary film...

The International Polar Year has begun. What a week! With US and UK launches on the Monday stirring up media attention, followed by an event in Portugal on the Wednesday and over 20 more national events on the day itself, March 1st 2007, we definitely hit the news! While traveling to Paris with Nicola, to prepare for the international launch, the phone didn't stop ringing, both sides of the Channel Tunnel and even on the Paris subway system! I was contacted by journalists as diverse as New Zealand Radio, an In-flight magazine, BBC World Service, Vatican Radio, Al Jazeera English, an Italian science magazine, Chinese TV networks, and Scientific American to name a few. During the International Ceremony itself, my phone kept shaking, and afterwards, on a tour of Paris, I saw ...

“From the scientific point of view, I have to assume that there once was or still is life in Mars,” says microbiologist Dirk Wagner, researcher at the AWI research centre in Potsdam. Because of statements like this, he is often labelled as a “sci-fi fanatic”, but he really isn’t, for the question of life on Mars has long been an intriguing possibility. Wagner and his team of seven have analysed the conditions in Mars. The most important finding to consider is that evidence of water has been found on Mars, and water is a basic building block of life. Another factor is the occurrence of carbon dioxide and hydrogen, which are nutritional bases for some life forms, just as bread is to humans. Fundamentals for life are also optimal if there are no huge temperature fluc...

Thank-you to everyone who was involved with launch events, who launched virtual balloons, who launched real balloons (see the Swedish launch web-cast!), those behind the scenes, and those on stage. IPY Celebrations around the world on March 1st, and throughout this week, have been a huge success. You can watch those you missed on the Arctic Portal, or still launch your virtual balloon now, and throughout IPY, to recognise the importance of the polar regions to the whole planet. Here is a map showing balloons that have been launched around the world (you can zoom in on where you live or zoom out to see the world map!): ...

IPY launch events around the world can be viewed live at the Arctic Portal. We also encourage everyone to launch a virtual balloon and show how many people around the world care about the polar regions and are interested in IPY. Everyone is welcome to join in, young or old, polar or tropical! The Official Opening Ceremony takes place in Paris at 11am local time. That is UTC 10:00, or, 1am in Anchorage, 5am in New York, 7am in Santiago, 3.30pm in Calcutta, 7pm in Tokyo, and 9pm in Sydney. You can watch it live or after the event on the web at the Arctic Portal, where you will also find webcasts of other national launch events from around th...

Join the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) team on the redesigned Antarctica UAB website as we explore the spectacular marine life around Palmer Station on the western Antarctic Peninsula. As part of the celebration of the International Polar Year, we want to help showcase the diversity of international cooperation in polar research and validate its worth in the public's eye. We invite you to visit the site, post comments/questions and join us as we bring the world to Antarctica during our NSF-funded expedition. The site combines traditional Web features with social networking Web sites like Digg.com and Del.icio.us. You can contribute your own knowledge, images and viewpoints as well as fo...

For the official launch in Paris at Palais de la d'couverte on 1st of March, the french postal administration, in connection with the french branch of the International Association for Polar Philately, "A.I.Phi.Pol", will open a special postal station with a special cancellation and postal stationary (pre-stamped envelope) especially designed for this historic day. The special postal station will be open in the morning for the conference attenders and in the afternoon for the public. The "A.I.Phi.Pol" have also arranged to have a small quantity of booklets available containing IPY stamps from the eight arctic countries. The booklets will be available on the opening day at the face value. To reserve a booklet, please email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it "

Watch IPY launch events on-line at the Arctic Portal and elsewhere. Throughout this week, over twenty nations around the world are celebrating the launch of the International Polar Year 2007-2008. New Zealand, Indigenous People, Argentina, and the Ukraine have already held extremely successful events. This week, Monday will see Press and Participants gathering in London, Strasbourg, and Washington DC, and Portugal will be holding their kick-off event on Wednesday. Thursday is the big day, with the Global Launch occurring in Paris at 1000 UTC (1100 local Central European Time) and national celebrations in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, Greenland, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Norway, ...

ICSU and WMO launch the largest polar research programme in 50 years IPY Launch Press Release (PDF) 26 February, 2007 International Polar Year (IPY) 2007-2008 officially gets underway on 1 March, 2007. IPY, which is a programme of the International Council for Science (ICSU) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), will be the largest internationally coordinated scientific research effort in 50 years. During the course of IPY, thousands of scientists, from over 60 countries and a wide range of research disciplines, will carry out 220 science and outreach projects under six major themes: Status: to determine the present environmental s...