Dan’s Wild Wild Science Journal

While in New Zealand waiting for the weather to clear in Antarctica, I met a gentleman named Mike Davis. We got to talking while looking at the view from the top of the Christchurch Gondola. It turns out that he is a Chicago college prof who did something really cool. Something right up my alley!

He constructed the world’s LARGEST PERIODIC TABLE!

World's Largest Periodic Table on the Daley Center in Chicago 2006.

Mike Davis sporting his Periodic Tattoo. The element Zinc of course!

Turns out that Mike made a promise. If his students could raise enough money to get the table installed, he would get a tattoo of one of the elements!

Did he keep his promise??

Yes indeed he did. (To his wife’s dismay she told me!)

There is another periodic table available that is totally cool. All you need is a computer to use it.

This comes under the category of why didn’t someone think of this before??

The site is

http://www.ptable.com/

Click the link and check it out!

Sir Ernest Shackleton's Hut at Cape Royds Antarctica. Mount Erebus, an active volcano in the background.

The only continent that humans did not naturally colonise is Antarctica. As I write this there are only about 250 people on the entire continent. They will be there through the long dark polar night. It will be spring before the New York Air Guard can fly a plane back in.

Robert Falcon Scott's hut is a 15 minute walk from McMurdo Base.

The first person to reach the Pole at the bottom of the world did so just 99 years ago. Having been there, I now have a deep respect for those who came first. Antarctica is a difficult and dangerous place in the 21st century.

The early explorers who survived there were more than just brave. They were shining examples of human curiosity and endurance.

You might think that all traces of their visits are gone now. Buried under snow and ice.

You would be wrong.

Food on the shelf. A century old. The Heinz logo has changed little!

These clothes have been hanging on to dry for a century. Two world wars, the moon landing, the new millennium. They hang still. The clock has stopped at 1907.

Antarctica is a frozen desert. It preserves well everything left there. There are two spots where you can literally walk through a door and go back 100 years. One is at McMurdo Base and the other is not too far away at Cape Royds.

A newspaper in Shackleton's hut that looks like it is a month old. It's over 100 years. My travel colleague Ann Posegate took the pic.

They are the huts built by Robert Scott and Sir Ernest Shackleton.

Scott used the hut at McMurdo on his attempt at the Pole in 1910-1912. He reached it  a month after Amundsen. Scott  died with is men before he could return.

Shackleton never reached the Pole, but is a legendary figure for the rescue of his men after his ship became trapped and crushed by the ice. He sailed in a tiny boat across the most treacherous ocean on the planet to South Georgia Island. He returned with help and rescued every single man.

That journey remains the greatest “endurance” of  humans on record.

He is buried at South Georgia, where he died suddenly, on a future expedition.

Sir Ernest Shackleton's Hut at Cape Royds

Shackleton's weather station. I had to have my pic taken here.

When you go into these huts, you walk into another world. A world that no longer exists except in history books and old pictures. Except it does still exist. It is right in front of your eyes. In colour, not an old yellowed photograph. You can touch it. You can smell it. You can feel it.

The cold and dry have preserved everything as Scott, Shackleton and their men left it. Under Shackleton’s hut they just discovered several crates of whiskey. It’s likely still good!

Interior of Shackleton's hut. Notice the hanging socks.

These huts are now protected places.

Permission is needed to enter them. Work is being done to make sure they are protected against the ravages of time and the curious. They are likely safe for a long time to come.

Very few people get this far South into Antarctica. Tourism for the most part is much further North along the Antarctic Peninsula.

I know that most people will never have the chance to stare out the same window that Shackleton looked through.

It was a humbling experience. No one who enters these huts leave them unmoved.

No One.

(Note: These pictures are for non commercial, educational use only. Any other use requires my permission.)

There are some fabulously well written blogs and excellent science sites online. I have never done a post of the best that I have come across before, until now!

So below is a sampling of sound science writing that got my attention this week.

Jim Robbins at Yale Environment 360 has an in depth piece on the great die off out west. Perhaps enough evidence to indict climate change for causing it, but not enough for a conviction as of yet.

I love astronomical time lapses and Amanda Bauer in the UK has a great one.

Astropixie has a beautiful time lapse from Mauna Kea. Great blog!

Tavie Greiner and Rob Keown have a post on International Sidewalk Astronomy Night.

March 20th is the equinox (No, eggs will not stand up any better than any other day) and it's also ISAN. Oh, and guess what it's free!

Nasa’s Earth Observatory site always has something I like and the rapid urbanization of Dubai is vividly shown by NASA’s Terra satellite.

All that oil makes them a lot of money doesn't it...

Dr. Erik Klemetti has a great profile of the active volcano Erta Ale on his blog ERUPTIONS

Got Magma???

Last but not least is Peter Sinclair’s Climate Denial Crock of the Week. Peter is superbly good at taking the spin out of inaccurate science reporting. This week he talks about where to get your science from, and where NOT to get it. Peter is the secret hero of a lot of scientists I think.

A lot of people who do TV weather and a lot of climate researchers have been inundated with questions along the line of “So what do you think of global warming now” after the February Blizzards in the Northeast. Recent polls even show that people are more skeptical of climate change.

Scientific theories do not rest on public opinion of course.

So what was the scientific truth of February’s weather??

Take a look at the image below from NOAA. NASA and the Univ. of East Anglia will have very similar data, although they do their calculations a little differently. The  bigger the red dot, the more above normal the month was.

Yes, it was cold in the Northeast USA and in Western Europe in February. The rest of the planet was incredibly warm. Data from NOAA/NCDC.

Canada had the warmest winter (Dec.-Feb.) ever recorded. They blew away their old record completely.

Update: NOAA has released new satellite data and both January and February were the second warmest months on record using the two independently derived global temperatures from satellite data.

December -February 5th warmest on record- from NOAA

The UAH and RSS data from satellites is even warmer:

The two independent lower troposphere temps. for this past winter. Courtesy NOAA/NCDC/ RSS/UAH

Click the image to see the return of the shoes (HD) before we departed Christchurch NZ for Antarctica.

When our first attempt at landing in Antarctica was turned back by weather, I found myself with a real problem. I had neglected to use a boomerang bag. All of your luggage is packed onto a huge pallet in the C17.  If you aren’t able to land, it stays there until you finally make it.

Now, If I had put my shoes in a boomerang bag, I would have had them for the 3 days we waited for the weather to clear!

Astrophysicist Kyle Story from the University of Chicago saved me! He loaned me some shoes!

Kyle was on his way to the South Pole Telescope. He  was one of a plane full of overachievers with me on the flight to Antarctica. We flew together again a few days later, to the South Pole itself. His research is fascinating and the science underway at the South Pole Telescope is trying to answer the very basic  questions of humanity.

How did the Universe begin!

I interviewed Kyle at McMurdo the night before we flew to the Pole. Kyle, and my travel colleague Ann Posegate of NEEF, had a couple of nice dinners with Kyle while we waited in Christchurch for good weather. Thanks for such incredible dinner conversation Kyle!

Right click on the video if you wish and watch it on YouTube in High Definition.