Tara Damocles Expedition

Two years in the heart of the Arctic Sea to study and understand climate change phenomena in the higher atitudes. As of september 2006, Tara will be anchored in the arctic pack-ice by 82° north and will be delivered from it nearly two years later after a 1800 kilometer drift. (read online)

Press release

Jacques Cousteau

Jacques-Yves Cousteau was a French naval officer, explorer, ecologist, filmmaker, scientist, photographer and researcher who studied the sea and all forms of life in water. He co-developed the aqua-lung, pioneered marine conservation and was a member of the Académie française. (see Wikipedia full article)

Cousteau Society biography

Related: PBS Jean-Michel Cousteau, Ocean Adventures - Sharks at Risk.

MegaTransect

MegaTransect was the name for a project conducted in Africa in 1999 by J. Michael Fay to spend 455 days on the expedition hike of 2000 km across the Congo Basin of Africa to survey the ecological and environmental status of the region. 'MegaTransect' is named for the transect methodology.

For 15 months Wildlife Conservation Society biologist J. Michael Fay hiked across central Africa (map)—2,000 miles (3,200 kilometers) through dense forests and remote villages—to Africa’s Atlantic coast.

Along the way Fay and his team surveyed the land and wildlife of the Congo River Basin, recording animals and plants that may well become threatened as humans press into the wilds.

Mike Fay later went on to carry out the MegaFlyover in 2004.



See also National Geographic description

CHAMPOLLION

For many years people tried to understand the egyptian characters found everywhere in ancient Egypt, the hieroglyphs, but without much success.

But in 1799 took place a decisive fact that eventually would change all that. At that time Napolean was pursuing his Egypt campaign and one of his soldiers made a remarkable discovery, the Rosetta Stone.
This artifact would be the key to unlock a mystery with thousand years and reveal to the world the secrets of a civilization and a golden era.

The text crafted on the stone surface was the description of the coronation of Ptolemy at 196 BC, but what was remarkable was that besides egyptian native language the report was translated in two more, demotic and greek.

Greek was one of the languages known at that time by a particular linguist, one that had persuit the deciphering of egyptian language since he was a boy. His name was Champollion.

When Napolean came to Egypt he took with him many scientists to study the egyptian science and culture and to help revealing and exposing many precious artifacts.

One of them was Fourier. When he come back to France he took with him some of this minus artifacts that would capture the attention of a 11 years old boy that he take to his care, Champollion. This, by the time, strange artifacts would lead Champollion to devote his life to uncover the secrets hidden in them, specially those mysterious symbols and characters that nobody knew the meaning.

He came to be a skillful linguist and with the Rosetta Stone and another obelisk about Cleopatra he manage to discover all the egyptian vocabulary.

In 1828, he finally set foot in the land that induce such wonder in him by an expedition to the ancient city and temples of Karnak. What he and his companions saw overwhelmed them and produce a fascination of a lifetime. In that walls he was able to read and decipher the meaning of the messages printed many eras ago.

From that moment on the clouds that were blocking our understanding were lifted revealing the apogee of the egyptian civilization.


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