Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio Pay
Speaker 1: brain Stuff Lauren Vogal bamb Here. We tend to think
Speaker 1: of Antarctica as being a giant, frozen, empty waste land.
Speaker 1: If that's the impression you personally have of the continent
Speaker 1: at the south end of our planet, well done. It
Speaker 1: is indeed just as huge, frozen and full of a
Speaker 1: whole lot of nothing as you think it is. And
Speaker 1: that's said. As with all deserts, people do live and
Speaker 1: work there. In the case of the southernmost continent. The
Speaker 1: humans they're mostly comprise polar researchers trying to figure out
Speaker 1: what Antarctica's deal is, and the drivers, mechanics, cooks, pilots,
Speaker 1: and electricians who support them and keep the research stations running.
Speaker 1: So what's it like living and working on the most
Speaker 1: remote place on the planet. There are a few different
Speaker 1: ways to live and work in Antarctica. The continent is
Speaker 1: home to seventy five individual research stations, and they're run
Speaker 1: by thirty countries. Of these science spaces, forty five are
Speaker 1: actively operating year round, although most are accessible for only
Speaker 1: a three month window every year due to weather conditions.
Speaker 1: Researchers first have their stuff shipped to a base like
Speaker 1: the U. S. McMurdo Station on Ross Island, which they
Speaker 1: use as a staging area for their field expedition. McMurdo
Speaker 1: Station was officially established in nineteen fifty two and can
Speaker 1: support more than one thousand, two hundred residents at a time.
Speaker 1: Once team members are ready for the field, they're taken
Speaker 1: with all of their stuff in a plane and dropped off.
Speaker 1: Some researchers work on ships, but not all ships are
Speaker 1: research vessels. During the austral summer, cruise ships regularly depart
Speaker 1: from Argentina and travel to the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula,
Speaker 1: which is considered the Banana Belt of Antarctica. It's much
Speaker 1: warmer than the rest of the continent and is where
Speaker 1: virtually all the wildlife hangs out. However, for such a
Speaker 1: largely lonely place, you're early alone there. Pretty much everybody
Speaker 1: on Antarctica lives in cramped quarters, either in tents or
Speaker 1: in dormitories or on ships. We spoke via email with
Speaker 1: Dr Narita Wilson, an invertebrate marine molecular biologist at the
Speaker 1: Western Australian Museum. She said it's tough not getting any
Speaker 1: loane time for many weeks at a time. I've always
Speaker 1: been based on ships, where the work hours are long
Speaker 1: and the sleeping quarters are close, often four in a
Speaker 1: very small bunk room. Being alone requires a having the
Speaker 1: time and be having a place to go. Because of safety,
Speaker 1: you can't always roam the decks of the ship alone,
Speaker 1: so mostly you are in company. The research stations themselves
Speaker 1: are kind of like small towns, but only kind of.
Speaker 1: Very few people over winter there, and the continent has
Speaker 1: no indigenous population, so nobody was born there. There are
Speaker 1: no children around, and nobody has much of a history there.
Speaker 1: We also spoke with Dr Jenny Baseman, a polar researcher
Speaker 1: and the executive director of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research.
Speaker 1: She said, and an Arctic research station is like a
Speaker 1: remote mining town, but because it's nobody's permanent home, it's
Speaker 1: everybody's home. Everybody's very friendly and helpful. Everyone feels excited
Speaker 1: and fortunate to be there. Because there's twenty four hour
Speaker 1: daylight during the austral summer. The temporary residents work a lot,
Speaker 1: but in their free time they hang out at the
Speaker 1: bar or the coffee shop and go to a movie
Speaker 1: or play trivia. Sadly, the bowling Alley that the U. S.
Speaker 1: Navy built at McMurdo in the nineteen sixties closed in
Speaker 1: two thousand nine. However, there are absolutely challenges to living
Speaker 1: and working normally. For example, the weather can and I quote,
Speaker 1: turn to milk in five minutes. One Dr David dal Mayer,
Speaker 1: Professor emeritus in the University of George's Geology department, spent
Speaker 1: twenty years as a naturalist on small Antark Dick cruise ships.
Speaker 1: He also spent a few field seasons out on the
Speaker 1: ice studying the geology of the area. He remembered my
Speaker 1: first day in the field, we got dropped off six
Speaker 1: hundred miles inland from mcmurdough. We watched the plane turn
Speaker 1: into a little speck in the distance, and we started
Speaker 1: to our field site. Pretty soon the wind came up,
Speaker 1: a thick fog developed, and all of a sudden I
Speaker 1: realized we were walking over our own tracks. We were
Speaker 1: walking in circles. We shut it down, put up the
Speaker 1: emergency tents, and we sat there for two and a
Speaker 1: half days. I'd say the wind was easily fifty knots
Speaker 1: and making it even more difficult out on the ice.
Speaker 1: It's tough to judge distances. Del Mayer said, you look
Speaker 1: at something and you think, oh, that's maybe four miles away.
Speaker 1: Eight hours later, you're only halfway there. There's no reference
Speaker 1: for distance out there. All of this is part of
Speaker 1: why scientists who arrive in an Arctica must undergo survival training.
Speaker 1: Survival schools teach them skills like how to build shelter
Speaker 1: out of ice and snow. Perhaps most strangely, though, there
Speaker 1: are no smells there. With the exception of the other humans,
Speaker 1: you're almost constantly around almost nothing on Antarctica smells throughout
Speaker 1: most of the continent. There are no plants or animals
Speaker 1: to stink up the place. Baseman said, when you're coming
Speaker 1: back on the plane from McMurdo to New Zealand, about
Speaker 1: three quarters of the way back, you can start smelling plants.
Speaker 1: Your sense of smell is so desensitized that the smell
Speaker 1: of pollen in the air just washes over you. It's incredible.
Speaker 1: Today's episode was written by Jescelyn Shields and produced by
Speaker 1: Tyler Lang. For more on this and lots of other
Speaker 1: cool topics, visit how Stuff works dot com. Brain Stuff
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