Overview
KnO2wledge 2 took place on the 6 June 2006 in central London. The theme of the conference was Lessons learnt from life at the limits
The summit of Mount Everest, the polar icecaps, our deserts and the ocean depths constitute the edges of the human survival envelope; places we have explored for the past century. More recently we have ventured successfully beyond the protective boundaries of Earth into space and, at the start of this new century, contemplate expeditions to other worlds.
KnO2wledge 2 built on the success of 2005's conference, extending the extreme environment physiology theme to include speakers from the worlds of hyperbaric and dive medicine, high altitude physiology, aerospace medicine and polar expeditions.
Speakers that year included:
- Veteran polar explorer and physiologist Dr. Mike Stroud, discussing the thermal challenges associated with polar expeditions
- Dr. Jim Milledge, who participated in the 1960 Silver Hut expedition in the Everest region of Nepal
- The European Space Agency's Professor Jim Kass lecturing on the psychological stress of interplanetary space exploration
- Dr. Phil Bryson, Director of the Diving Diseases Research Centre with data from the depths
- University College San Diego's Professor John West, whose career has touched upon all of the environmental extremes, talking about the lessons he has learnt from studies of lives lived at the limits.
In addition to the above Dr. Hugh Montgomery also provided a progress update on the planned high altitude expedition Xtreme Everest 2007 (later to become known as Caudwell Xtreme Everest); a research endeavour that aims to obtain the first arterial blood gas samples from the highest point on the surface of the Earth.
