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High Impact Science in Antarctica
Big changes in store for the Mertz Polynya: in February 2010 iceberg 9B9 collided with the Mertz Glacier, breaking the 70 km floating glacier off at the base. The Mertz Polynya was extensivley sampled by scientists at the JCVI in the summer of 2007/08, and this metagenomic survey will form an important baseline for evaluating on-going changes in the area.
Science Festivals
With spring around the corner (or at least we hope), there are several upcoming science festivals. These festivals are designed to provide students and families opportunities to find out what is happening in local science research institutes, universities and companies. These organizations are expanding the text books beyond our imaginations. These are EXCITING times in science – we are just scratching the surface of understanding the diversity of life on our planet, beginning to understand...
2010 Internship Program Ready to Go
Are you thinking about summer already? We are!! The 2010 Summer Internship Program is open to accept applications. Last year, we received and reviewed over 300 applications from all over the US and the world for our summer program. Interns were selected to work in most of the research groups throughout the Institute: 18 interns were selected in San Diego and 37 selected in Maryland. 2009 Maryland Summer Interns Some of the projects interns worked on were the...
Scientist Spotlight: Karen Nelson
Karen’s interest in the natural world was sparked at a young age. Born in Jamaica, she enjoyed the outdoors and wonders of nature. Karen was drawn to animals and wanted to become a veterinarian, but after taking some human and animal nutrition courses in college she was hooked on microbiology. Karen received her B.Sc. in Animal Science from the University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago, her M.Sc. in Animal Science from the University of Florida, Gainesville, and her PhD in...
Antarctic Epiblog: Leaving McMurdo
Ice formation outside McMurdo Station After we took our samples out at the ice edge, we returned to McMurdo Station for several intense days of demobilization. We had to return all of the large drills, power equipment and camping gear, and spent a considerable time preparing our own gear for shipment back to the United States. Our samples and some of our critical gear will go by air transport to Port Huemene in California, and the rest will be shipped back to the US by icebreaker during...
McMurdo Sound
It took another day for the storm to blow itself out, but by Tuesday the wind and driving snow had abated, and we drove our Pisten Bully back out to our temporary shelter near Cape Evans. It took several hours of digging to clear the snow away from our vehicles, but once we started driving away from the hut we quickly ran into another problem: the snow was so Jeff McQuaid using a Kovacs drill to obtain an ice core deep that our sleds and vehicles would bog down in the snowdrifts....
Scientist Spotlight: Greg Wanger
Greg Wanger was 3.7 km below the Earth’s surface, trapped not only underground but also in a country distant from his native lands of Canada and Liechtenstein. He looked around him. It was very hot and smelled like rotten eggs. As many people do during their graduate careers, Greg pondered the questions: “What was I thinking when I agreed to this project? Does my advisor know what he’s doing? Am I claustrophobic, or just paranoid about being claustrophobic?” JCVI’s own science...
The last leg of the Volvo Ocean Race, the Swedish Archipelago and the Gulf of Bothnia Sampling Transect
The morning of June 25th we left Stockholm and followed the Volvo race boats into the Baltic to watch the start of the last leg of the race to St. Petersburg. Once again there were hundreds of boats on the water to watch the start of the race. As the race began we saw someone waving to Dr. Venter and Dr. Norrby from another boat. It turned out to be King Carl XVI Gustaf! (Note: our friends on PUMA achieved second place in the final standing of the race. Congratulations!) After we watched the...
In the News
We docked in the Volvo Ocean Race Village for a week. It was very exciting to be so close to all of the activities surrounding the race. Over the week Dr. Venter and Karolina and I were interviewed by many local and national TV, radio stations and newspapers. Here are some links to a few of the news stories: Story on Xconomy; Story on TV4play.se. Dr. Venter was also part of a half-day symposium moderated by his good friend Dr. Norrby and attended by the King of Sweden. After the lectures...
The Volvo Ocean Race
We arrived in Sandhamn at 10 p.m. on June 15th. It was perfect timing because the Volvo Ocean Race boats were arriving around 11 p.m. The Volvo Ocean Race, formally known as the Whitbread “Around the World Race,” began in Alicante on October 11th 2008 and ends in St. Petersburg on June 25th 2009. Sorcerer II was docked in a perfect location to watch the boats come into the finish line. I was not very familiar with the Volvo Ocean Race, but now I know these people are true sailors and...