Quality time in the radiation lab

So the radiation lab (or rad-lab as we fondly call it), is where I spend most of my time doing experiments. I incubate seawater with different radioactive organic carbon compounds for 4 hours in either light or dark conditions. Then I filter all the water onto filters designed to capture bacteria. I can then take these home to do microscopy later. See picture of me looking official...

Today is a slow day. The morning was busy with Indian food, however the wind has picked up to 25 knots outside. When the wind reaches 20 knots, the Zodiacs are not allowed to go out sampling and any groups out sampling must return to station. Just walking from building to building has become difficult (though not impossible yet). But the birds are definitely having trouble flying against the wind.

1 knot = 1.15 mph so 25 knots is 28.75 mph. It doesn't sound like a lot until you're on a tiny rubber boat on the ocean and it's tossing about on all the white waves. It's getting worse, but hopefully it won't last more than a day more!

A respite from science... to Indian cuisine!

So one of the chefs and I had a great idea of doing Indian food for one meal at Palmer station. We planned a menu (wait till you hear what it is) and I have spent 6 hours the last couple of days helping her in the kitchen. The Indian food was a major success! Everyone loved it and was so shocked that I made several dishes of the meal. We had the following menu:

- Samosas (potatoes, peas, veggies baked in a puff pastry. See pic below.)

- Tandoori chicken

- Butter chicken

- Tandoori seitan (for vegetarians)

- Butter seitan

- Basmati rice with turmeric

- Curried Lamb

- Curried Lentils

- Cucumber yogurt sauce

- Garlic butter naan

We also had plain lentils and chicken for people with "delicate palates". Hehehe, everyone loved it and now we're all fat and fed with Indian food. Plus it made the whole station smell like mommy's house :) I love Palmer! And I LOVE Indian food.

A fleet of sailing ships and outreach

Palmer is a unique station in that sometimes cruise ships or sailing yachts come into port and stick around for a couple of days. These ships come from all over the world and if the group on them is small enough, they will be allowed to visit our station and sometimes even have lunch with us. Today we had a French yacht parked off station and the French people got to share our meal. I got a chance to meet with them and practice my French (which is sadly underused). They were all older people, about 9 of them, from all over France who had never met before their 3 week trip into the Southern Ocean. I can't imagine sharing such a tiny space with people I don't know! Hmm... wait a sec, Palmer and the Gould are a bit like that actually. Heh, it's been fun :)

A couple of days ago we had an Australian yacht about the same size also here. It was fun to give them a tour of the labs and explain our work. We also had an Italian cruise ship, an American one and a private American yacht earlier last week.

It's great that NSF allows this on station because it gives people from America, and all over the world, most importantly American tax payers to see what they are paying for down here. They get to see the underwater remote operated vehicles, our bacterial work, the virus work, and the people who study the only bugs in Antarctica. When scientists apply for funding to NSF, there is a whole section about "broader impacts and outreach" and how the proposed research will affect the American public. The fact that we can share our research in Antarctica is a great thing to put into outreach sections of grants.

Another sampling day

Today we went out sampling again, took us a very short time of about 2-3 hrs. Really nice since it was so cold and overcast, certainly different than the warm and sunny first day. I admit I didn't do so well at the second station because of the large swells tossing the little boat around... but we had already done all the water collection and we were about to leave, so I didn't contaminate any of the samples we got.

This time I am adding a new experiment, collecting RNA from the water to look at activity in other ways than only the microFISH technique I normally use. I still have all the regular incubations going plus this, so it's a busy day. The good thing is I feel a bit more prepared and less like I am "drowning". Heh.

We also got some results yesterday from a big experiment we did. They look pretty good, I am impressed! I already see a couple of interesting results- yes the bacteria are using the compounds differently. It's hard to make any conclusions (in fact we can't make any with just one experiment) so I won't try to.

The whole station smells of the fresh baked cookies they made (actually they make them everyday). I love that I have a warm home, warm food, warm bed every night while I am down here. It's so comforting!

First sampling and experiments

Sorry I have been bad about updating this blog. On the 10th of January morning we had our very first water sampling trip at Palmer! The morning was sunny and beautiful with little wind. We climbed into the Zodiac around 9am and collected water from 1m depth at 2 different stations. We had to maneuver around all the brash ice floating on the water- brash ice is ice broken off/melted from the nearby glaciers- see image below.

The other group was doing CTD casts off the side and filing 7 Niskin bottles separately. I filled up 2 x 20L carboys at each station and brought them back to the lab at Palmer. I set up a 57 bottle incubation using various radioactive organic carbon compounds, for example radioactive glucose and amino acids, etc. Most of my incubations were 4 hours long but one went as long as 8 hrs. After incubations comes filtering the water onto thin filters for either microscopy later on back in DE or scintillation counting which we did immediately. I didn't leave the lab till about 10pm, but it was a good day.

Yesterday I spent filtering more and babysiting the stupid scintillation counter- it didn't like my bottles and I had to insert each one manually- which took from 6:30pm to about 11:30pm, joy. Today I finally got to analyze some data and take it easy. Results look good so far- the bacteria are using the compounds I added to the water. The two stations look a little bit different but not a huge difference, which is good since they are only 2 miles apart, shouldn't be a big difference.

We are planning to sample again tomorrow- although the weather looks like there might be a storm brewing with 25-40 knot winds. We may end up stuck inside. We've been lucky to have beautiful weather thus far though, so I guess that makes up for it.

Some pics

Here are a few pics of the Gould (ship we took to Antarctica), the glaciers near Palmer station. Sadly I have realized that it is a serious pain to post pictures onto this blog, so please refer to Facebook for future pics. This blog will just be for updates on my activities at Palmer and the science I am doing down here.

Antarctica is beautiful!

WOW, Antarctica is breathtaking.
We "sailed" into Palmer Station yesterday around 2pm and got a great view of glaciers; they look like brilliant white toothpaste speckled with bright blue minty pieces. Since we were late taking off from Punta Arenas, the ship sailed directly into Palmer rather than going through the Gerlache Strait which is more beautiful. However, it was breathtaking enough ;)
Yesterday evening there was a huge party on station with the crew of the ship and station and all the science complement. It was a lot of fun and I got to meet nearly everyone. On station there are about 45 people. The boat, called the Lawrence M. Gould, dropped some people off and picked some people up. It will sail out early tomorrow morning. Today we spent all day in orientations and the ship was unloading all our cargo. Currently my laptop is being outfitted for wireless internet (it's taking longer than normal since I was a problem child and didn't get my antivirus software to NSF standards) but tomorrow I should be able to get some pics up.
Great to be on land! Cannot WAIT to start the science!