A team of Japanese scientists aim to be the first to drill through the planet's rocky crust and retrieve samples from the mantle, six miles below. The team hopes to learn more about what triggers undersea earthquakes, as well as to find out if bacterial life ever existed at such depths. It may take more than a year to break through the crust into Earth's mantle, and require a drill pipe 25 times the height of the Empire State building. Read more at The Guardian(1).

1. http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/news/story/0,12976,1499099,00.html