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Tension is mounting at Everest base camp as frustrated mountaineers who have paid tens of thousands of dollars to climb the world’s highest peak faced disappointment due to a strike threat by guides. Thirteen sherpa guides were killed and another three are presumed dead after a devastating avalanche last Friday in the most deadly accident ever on the 8,848-metre (29,029-foot) mountain.

 

Using a new way to measure past temperatures, scientists have claimed that parts of ancient Antarctica were as warm as today’s California coast, and Polar Regions of the southern Pacific Ocean registered 21st-century Florida heat. The findings underscore the potential for increased warmth at Earth’s poles and the associated risk of melting polar ice and rising sea levels, the researchers said.

 

The Malaysian government will reportedly issue death certificates to families of passengers and crew missing on-board Flight MH370. The death certificates will open the door to financial aid for the passengers’ families and also allow any potential lawsuits against the airline to begin, The Daily Mirror reports. The news has reportedly invoked mixed emotions among those affected by the loss of their loved ones in one of the world’s most mysterious aviation tragedy.

 

Messenger has recently completed its 3,000th orbit of Mercury and moved closer to the planet than any spacecraft has been before, dropping to an altitude of 199 kilometers (123.7 miles) above the planet’s surface. “We are cutting through Mercury’s magnetic field in a different geometry, and that has shed new light on the energetic electron population,” Messenger Project Scientist Ralph McNutt, of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md said.

 

American long-distance runner Meb Keflezighi has become the first man from his country to win the men’s race of the Boston Marathon since 1983. One year after a bombing there killed three people and left more than 260 injured, the ‘ Star-Spangled Banner’ played over Boylston Street in honor of Meb Keflezighi, who added Boston to a resume that includes the New York City Marathon title in 2009 and a silver medal in the 2004 Olympics.