Here is a book designed to inspire the heart, challenge the mind, delight the eye, engage the armchair traveler and, yes, encourage your bootheels to be wanderin'. The editors of Time have sought out the most exciting new discoveries in the fields of geography, paleontology, astronomy and archaeology and combined them with classic tales of exploration to present a book that is vast in scope and pulsing with the energy of fresh knowledge. It includes the latest updates on the fascinating fossilized dinosaur-birds of China; reports of revelatory recent digs in Egypt; and an overview of new findings from the swarm of craft now investigating Mars, Jupiter and the moons of Saturn. The book's journey takes us from Siberia's Yamal Peninsula, where the 40,000-year-old carcass of the baby mammoth Lyuba emerged from the permafrost, to a mysterious cave on Indonesia's island of Flores, where an unusual species of miniature early humans, dubbed "the hobbits," once lived.
