You're about to listen to a BBC podcast and I'd like to tell you a bit about the

podcast I work on. I'm Dan Clark and I commissioned factual podcasts at the BBC.

It's a massive area but I'd sum it up as stories to help us make sense of the forces shaping the world.

What podcasting does is give us the space and the time to take brilliant BBC journalism

and tell amazing compelling stories that really get behind the headlines.

And what I get really excited about is when we find a way of drawing you into a subject

you might not even have thought you were interested in.

Whether it's investigations, science, tech, politics, culture, true crime, the environment,

you can always discover more with a podcast on BBC Sounds.

Thanks for downloading the Life Scientific from BBC Radio 4.

I'm Jimal Kalelli and in this interview I get all excited about Martin Seagut's forthcoming

expedition to Antarctica to explore a hidden lake that's buried more than a mile deep beneath the ice.

Check out the bit where he says I can come too but only if I pay my way.

Hmm.

Buried beneath three kilometers of ice, Lake Ellsworth is one of the most extreme and remote environments on our planet.

And the big question is, can life exist in such a dark, cold and isolated place? And if it can, what's it like?

The Ellsworth exploration is, in more than one sense, going to be a groundbreaking piece of

research, and it's all happening because 15 years ago going to be a groundbreaking piece of research.

And it's all happening because 15 years ago,

you, Martin Seagut, decided that if no one else was going to organize an expedition

to Lake Ellsworth,

you'd have to get on and do it yourself.

...