03
Scientists at the British Antarctic Survey have a clever new way to find emperor penguins around Antarctica: look for their poop. From space. Read all about it! Note that I did manage to quote the guy calling poop “poo.”
Several people have asked if it was strange coming back from the Bering Sea, where I considered 35 degrees Fahrenheit to be seriously balmy, to D.C., where it’s 88 degrees right now. The answer is, actually, no. The majority of the time I was up there, I was in a heated ship – it’s not like I was camping for 40 days – and there hasn’t been much of a temperature shock.
What’s really weird is the light. It feels like I came back to winter. I can’t believe it’s already dark by 9 p.m. Where are my midnight sunsets, I ask you?
Also, there are no baby seals here. Lame.
01
A moment of culture clash: today I interviewed a researcher in England about his work on poop, only he didn’t call it poop, he called it poo. I hope to quote him on that. We also bonded on the topic of how much you miss lettuce when you can’t get it, although my experience is from the last couple of weeks of a 40-day boat trip, and his is three months of the year on a remote subantarctic island. That’s a long time to go without lettuce. I didn’t think to ask him if they have alcohol on his island.