A windy weeks start.

One of the nice things about McMurdo is if you wake up too late for a shower, simply walking between the buildings en route to work does a good job of waking one up.  Today was no exception.  Here are some grabs from the weather station that lives on the building next to the lab:

 

Always a nice way to start a monday…

Ask A Scientist: The amazing shape shifting octopus

From Hill’s Hope Academy, homeschoolers in Plano, Illinois:

That first picture of the octopus is amazing!  But later you show it very small in the palm of your hand.  Does is really get that small? Or are they two different creatures?

 

 

 

 

Yes, all of the photos are of the same octopus.

What I found most amazing was how quickly the octopus was able to change not just its size and color but the color and texture of its skin too. The octopus is a master of camouflage.

Check out this Roger Hanlon video from NPR’s Science Friday and see if you can spot the octopus.

A week already?

Talking to a friend down here, he said “days and months can drag by like they are never going to end but weeks always fly by.”  That was sure this week.  We collected a few samples on Monday but the most memorable part of the dive was that we were mirrored by a seal the whole time.  He didn’t feel like getting his photo taken as is clear from this grainy shot below:

This seal was constant company but would not hold still for a good photo.

Rory labeling away. This week we sliced our cores into a total of 288 different containers to undergo a variety of processing later.

But the main task for the week was breaking down one of the big time points of our experiment. The cores have started to take on their mind of their own and integrate the food we have given them.

Here is one of our cores mid processing. Each one of the syringes go to a different analysis and the rest of the mud that is not in those cores gets sieved and the species separated out from it.

The processing involves getting a bunch of sample vials and bags labeled and then sub coring the mud with a series of syringes that we have cut the tops off. On Tuesday and Thursday we processed a total of 24 cores, which made up four replicates and each of our six treatments. One of those subcores gets sorted live under a scope and that is how I have spent my waking hours since Tuesday. Here are some of the things I have been looking at:

Spiophanes:

 

Ask A Scientist: Can anyone go to Antarctica?

These questions come from Tracey Rojo’s IB Biology class at Tucker High School in Atlanta, Georgia:

Is it possible to go to Antarctica without being affiliated with a research team at a university? And what do you do for fun?
Yes, it is possible to go to Antarctica even if you are not a researcher. The National Science Foundation contracts out many different types of job opportunities for people to come down and work. There are carpenters, electricians, janitors, dish washers, heavy machinery, fire fighters, etc. and  everyone has the most interesting background stories. We met this one guy, Sven, on the way down who used to be one of the California smokejumpers (forest fire fighters that jump out air planes to control forest fires), but he wasn’t coming down to be a fire fighter… I think he was a heavy equipment operator for the summer.

To be honest there are far more support personnel than science personnel. Most people come down to live and work here for 4-8 months, and I believe 18 months is the limit on the amount time anyone can stay on the ice. There is a minimum age 18 to work down here.

There’s a lot of amazing hikes if you want outdoor stuff and coffee house with theatre libraries, and lounges for indoor fun.

What is your housing like?  What type of meals do you eat?

Housing is a mix of different arrangements.  Some are dorm style, some buildings were left over from the old Navy days, and there are talks of modernizing all the housing soon.

There are three meals a day always at the same time so your body gets sort of trained to get hungry around these times, like it knows it is due for a feeding. An excellent team of chefs prepare different things each day and it is all you can eat.