Antarctica: Unlocking the Icebox

Only a few years ago, Antarctica seemed as remote and forbidding as the moon. Since 1957, however, lights have burned year round across the silent white desert that surrounds the South Pole. As new equipment and technology have helped to subdue the hazards of the hostile land, the U.S. and nine other nations*have set up some 35 permanent research stations, where scientists and servicemen who "winter over" en joy most of the comforts of home as they seek to unlock the secrets of the earth's ice-age continent.

Last week, when New York's...

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