I hesitate to insert a picture-less message written from an office into these wonderful tales of whales, giant bristle worms, and mysterious ski poles. With many readers, I enjoy the daily news and discoveries from the oceanographers and glaciologists and explorers. Recent stories offer hints about working conditions - storms on ice and at sea, extreme cold, elevation, sunburn. Behind the ‘sunny’ reports lie months of planning and preparations and substantial support systems that allow researchers to work and survive in the polar environment.

I remind readers that other IPY Projects currently underway do not, indeed perhaps can not, produce daily images and blogs. Yet the careful monitoring of permafrost temperatures many metres down a dark borehole, the meticulous documentation of historical prejudices against native languages, and the extraction and identification of persistent organic pollutants in tissue samples of bears or seals also represent urgent IPY research that contributes to an integrated understanding of polar regions. We enjoy and benefit from prominent and colourful daily stories - enthusiasm from those remote locations can infect the entire programme! We also need and benefit from the work in countless laboratories and libraries.

The Arctic Human Health Initiative represents one of IPY’s most complex and challenging Projects. AHHI researchers may not write a daily blog for www.ipy.org or produce a colourful image of a new discovery, but they address issues of fundamental concern to polar residents and to IPY, and they use novel web-based information systems. For an excellent summary of Infectious Diseases in Arctic Regions, in a special IPY issue of an open and accessible on-line journal, please see the most recent issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases.

I look forward to learning the answer to the mystery of the lone ski pole. Any ideas?