Science Stuff

On Sunday (our one and only day off) I went on a tour of the Crary Science Center, which I believe is the biggest building at McMurdo. At the time the Crary was built several years ago, it was also the most expensive building the US Government had ever built. I noticed immediately that it's humidified (at least in some areas), a welcome change from the extremely dry air outside.
Our guide met us in the hallway and explained what all goes on there, and it is a lot. We saw meteor fragments found on the ice (it's a good place to look for them since they stand out on the ice desert), gigantic pickled sea fleas (giganticism is common in many marine species here, probably due to the cold), volcanic crystals that are only found in two places in the world: Mt. Erebus in Antarctica and Mt. Kenya, seal skulls and penguin eggs.
One wing is dedicated to biology, another area houses atmospheric studies. We saw video of Mt. Erebus (Antarctica's only active volcano) errupting and diagrams of the path the atmospheric balloons are following around the ozone hole. But my favorite area was the aquarium.
We walked into a chilly room filled with large blue tanks of sea water. The tanks held sea urchins, anemones, sea stars, sponges, octopus, sea spiders (really creepy looking!), and of course the famous antifreeze fish. These fish develop a chemical in their bodies to prevent them from freezing. They looked a lot like groupers to me. I asked the biologist if they were related and she said they are not sure, as they have not found any fossil record of these fish yet. She also said that they have to be really careful when catching these fish because if a single ice crystal hits their bodies when they come out of the water, they freeze instantly (as she put it, instant fish popcicle). Crazy! She allowed us to dip our hands in the tank and it was cold! Just under the freezing point of sea water, which I think is 23 degrees F -- something like that.