Dispatches from the Field, a new digital program designed to bring The Explorers Club community closer—wherever you are.
Each session kicks off with a 15-20-minute talk from a Featured Speaker, recorded and posted later to the public on explorers.org and our YouTube channel.
This will be followed by Campfire sessions—intimate, Members-Only breakout groups where you can connect, share ideas, and build relationships.
This edition features Jonathan Shafter MR’26 and John Malone FR’06, to present “Radiation and Resilience – An expedition to the Bikini Atoll”
In July 2026, the XX500-Bioastra Expedition team of 18 explorers conducted an Explorers Club Flag Expedition to the Bikini Atomic Bomb Test sites in the Marshall Islands (E.1), to carry out genetic, molecular, and radiological research examining the long-term metagenomic impacts of radiation. This was the inaugural expedition of the Extremophile Expeditions 500 (XX500) program which will conduct a series of scientific missions to extremophile environments across the planet aimed at unlocking healthcare innovations today while building the long-term path towards a human future in space.
The expedition was grounded in a larger scientific question: as humanity considers the long-term challenge of survival beyond Earth, understanding biological adaptation to elevated levels of harmful radiation may offer important clues. The study of radioresistant extremophiles can help illuminate how living systems withstand radiation and what those mechanisms may ultimately teach us about protecting the human genome. Additional related research projects included a study of human microbiomes under expedition stress conditions and testing a new technique for radioactive soil remediation and portable DNA sequencing.
In this talk, members of the team will share what they set out to investigate, how the field research was conducted, and what they learned from the samples and observations gathered during the expedition. They will also reflect on the practical realities of organizing and carrying out scientific fieldwork in such a remote and historically significant environment, including lessons learned for organizing future expeditions. Finally, they will discuss how Marshallese knowledge, concerns, and local skill building were integrated into the expedition.
The XX500 team was forged at the Explorers Club and hopes interested members will join in our future expeditions and scientific research.
Members only – click here to register.
Jonathan Shafter
A lawyer, scholar, and filmmaker, researcher, and entrepreneur Jonathan Shafter holds degrees from Brown and Columbia Law and has published on global debt restructuring. He co-founded the North Fork Television Festival and is the head of NFTV Productions, where he develops independent film and television. He is the CEO of Ankarana which is developing AI technologies oriented towards healthcare and bioscience.
John Malone
John Malone is a Co-Founder of XX500-Biastra and a Fellow of the Explorers Club and Royal Geographic Society. A geologist and deep-sea explorer, he develops and invests in energy transition and sustainable digital infrastructure projects worldwide. He has undertaken expeditions in the Arabian Peninsula, North Atlantic and North America, including submersible expeditions with Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute, and is a PADI OWSI and Registered Maine Guide. John holds a PhD in Geological Sciences from Trinity College Dublin, an MSc from the University of Maine and a BA from Lehigh University.
