Ice Labyrinth

Touching the Sublime - like, in 2012?

2012-01-26T00:15:00.001-05:00

Dude!

YOU are, like, THE most AWESOME lifeform in the known universe

Like, if I was standing on the edge of the galaxy, looking in?

there would be this most AWESOME sight:

YOU - with, like, this awesome glow of energy?

streaming from you,

lighting up all the stars

Not just the nearby ones

but, like, ALL of them?

And you'd be, like, dancing with joy?

as you swirl and twirl around

planting smiles on all the creatures you encounter?

It would be REALLY awesome

And because I'd be on the EDGE of the galaxy

soooo, like, ready to drop off into nothingness?

It would be the most awesomely sublime thing

Know what I mean???

Seeing Red

2012-01-18T01:44:00.001-05:00

One of the tents we use in Antarctica, called a "Polarhaven," is large enough to serve as a dive locker for about four aquanauts.

The Polarhaven at Cape Bernacchi

Because it is heated by a catalytic propane unit, it's also a comfy refuge for sleeping and eating in subzero temperatures. There's only one problem: the walls are red, so the interior is also red.

Laura Von Rosk cinching down the Polarhaven blanket to its wooden floor. The propane heater is seen behind her.

While setting up the Polarhaven at Cape Bernacchi, Laura and I had a brief opportunity to discuss "color" and "composition" (she is a master of both). I've never understood how to use color effectively, and my compositions always feel like run-of-the-mill, "rule of thirds," ho-hum. What could Laura teach me about this during our breaks from work?

A sketch of Astrammina triangularis using watercolor pencils. My drawings seem "cartoon-like" and not very realistic. I always follow the "rules," too. For example, light comes from the upper right, shadow to the lower left. The result just doesn't "feel" interesting to me :-(

Detail of an Astrammina triangularis "arm" that I sketched in normal daylight. I try to do a lot of "deep looking" when studying a subject, but that doesn't always translate into an appealing composition.

Drawing an agglutinated foram inside the tent was an interesting experience. Seeing everything in red light is not too alien, since I spent decades in a darkroom back when photography meant working under a safelight. I never tried to manipulate color in a monochrome setting, though, and wondered if that would be instructive?

Drawing of an agglutinated foram, with notes on objects in the tent, as I remember seeing things in the Polarhaven. (Actually, I placed a red mask over the drawing below, so this is really just a simulation.)

How the drawing looked when viewed outside the Polarhaven - surprisingly ... ugly?

Looking deeply, working hard, trying something new, failing ... but having fun. Art and science share a lot in common.

Tears and hope for an adopted home

2011-12-30T12:10:00.000-05:00

Christchurch, New Zealand continues to be battered by earthquakes, and traveling through town on the way to/from Antarctica was a sobering experience. So many homes and businesses are in ruins.

I spent a solemn hour at the site of the Devon B & B, which had to be demolished. I've stayed there every season, and now understand how it feels to be left homeless.

One wish for 2012: May the earth settle so that Christchurch can heal.

Fixing what's broken ... well, the easy stuff to fix

2011-12-20T09:34:00.005-05:00

Stuff breaks. When that happens in the middle of nowhere, it helps to have a handful of different adhesives for repairs.

A split watch band is difficult to fix. Fortunately, our pal Henry was visiting and he had a pouch of some blue goop that works well with plastic ...

... it fixed Cecil's sunglasses, too ...

... and my bifocals ...

... this is what you see ...

... and this is what I saw

Team Bravo(!) 043

2011-12-18T07:01:00.009-05:00

I've been remiss by not introducing the members of our 2011 research team. I'll post more complete introductions and detail each person's role in the project at a later date. For now, from left to right:

Laura Von Rosk - Art/science collaborator (Schroon Lake, NY)

Cecilia Shin - Lead research diver and camp safety officer (University of California Santa Cruz)

Dr. Jan Pawlowski - Molecular protistologist (University of Geneva, Switzerland)

Danielle Woodward - Youngest research diver in Antarctica (Hilo, HI)

Hilary Hudson - Research diver, documentary film maker

Dr. Sam Bowser - Principal Investigator (Albany, NY)

Dr. Andrew Gooday (pictured below in the Explorers Cove lab) - Biological oceanographer (National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, U.K.)

Our project centers on characterizing the ~20 new species of foraminiferan protists we have identified in past work, and on obtaining information on the genetics of these organisms.

More about that as results pour in!

"The Look" on ice ...

2011-12-09T15:33:00.000-05:00

People often ask what we wear around camp. Here's a sampling of our "look" (eat your heart out, Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta):

The well-dressed Antarctic frogman wears dry suit by DUI, glacier glasses by Julbo, and Shibori scarf by Pavlos Mayakis (www.pavlosmayakis.com) ...

After work, casual wear includes T-shirt "Go Back" by Emek (www.emek.net) and Under Armour "Team Barriage" pants. Gloves and bunny boots issued by USAP.

Hair sanitized daily with Purell; coiffed by Antarctica ...

Photos courtesy Laura Von Rosk

Hotsie Yoga

2011-12-08T23:23:00.012-05:00

What to do in -20 weather while melting dive holes at the bottom of the world? Take up Yoga!

We use a "Hotsie" to circulate warmed glycol thru a stainless steel coil (i.e., a "finger"), which melts sea ice to fashion dive holes. It's a noisy, lengthy process (1-2 days per hole, depending on ice thickness), and as the sun goes down and the temperature drops, you can get very cold monitoring its progress, fueling the burner (diesel) and feeding its 5 kW generator (gasoline).

Last year, Cecil Shin (right, holding the finger) showed me some meditative Yoga moves, which we adopted to make tending the Hotsy a bit more enjoyable.

Tadasana modified for Hotsie hose: Heat applied to the brachial artery/vein helps keep the upper extremities functional.

Yoga poses while draped with the Hotsy hose helps stretch cold, old, aching muscles ...

And their melodic, pulsatile vibration allows one to get lost in the moment, mindful of the sublime beauty of Explorers Cove.

Watch the Skies!

2011-11-06T06:42:00.002-05:00

A beautiful display of clouds above Mount Erebus this evening ...

A Walk Around Camp: Power

2011-11-04T15:43:00.006-04:00

We need electricity in camp. Microscopes, centrifuges, fume hoods, lights, cameras, radios, computers, microwave oven, and the infamous coffee (dribble)maker use it. How do we make electricity here? Three sources: (1) solar, (2) wind, (3) diesel. Back in the 80's we only had a diesel generator, and we burned about 10 barrels of fuel each season. With improvements in alternative energy technology, we're down to burning 2 barrels. We do more science than ever before, yet have reduced our carbon footprint dramatically.

Solar Panel

Wind generator

The power system at camp centers around a box full of batteries. The electrical input (solar when it's sunny, wind when it's windy, diesel when it's neither) is stored in these batteries, and a computer system ensures that the proper current is delivered.

It all takes a lot of legwork, though ...

Flags Fly at Explorers Cove

2011-10-25T07:33:00.003-04:00

We have arrived at field camp and school flags are flying. (One more is on the way.) Weather delays and equipment failures have created setbacks, but we hope to catch up over the next few days. More photos soon!

(un)Happy Camper School

2011-10-12T04:52:00.005-04:00

New field members (or those who have been absent from the U.S. Antarctic Program for 5 or more years) are required to take a two-day survival training class on the ice, and sleep one night in snow trenches, igloos, and bivouac shelters that they build. This "Happy Camper" program teaches you to be smart and avoid rescue situations. For some it's a fun experience; for others it's a nightmare ...

Conditions in McMurdo make me think that the four B-043 team members in the class will be unhappy campers tonight.

Henry Kaiser took this IR picture of me checking outside conditions from the comfort of the Crary Lab. Wind-blown snow obscured the view, and I could feel the cold oozing through the window. (Ooops, that statement will get my thermodynamics prof turning in his grave ... OK, it's heat transferring from the air surrounding the window that I'm perceiving.)

Everyone in B043 will certainly learn a lesson tonight.

Arrival

2011-10-11T18:19:00.004-04:00

All team members are now at McMurdo Station. We've completed check-out dives and are packing bags for Camp New Harbor. Hopefully the weather clears and helicopters start flying soon ...

We've been instructed to tread lightly on the "thin" (6ft/2 m) sea ice this year, and keep alert for cracks. We will certainly tiptoe on the frozen landscape ...

2011-09-28T08:35:00.004-04:00

FIRST STEP ...

Bravo(!) 043 begins another year of research in Antarctica. We may have a different "look" this season (three new team members) but our goal remains the same: to better understand the role of unicellular organisms in the ice-cold waters of McMurdo Sound, with a commitment to minimizing our impact on the Antarctic environment.

All living creatures leave their mark on this earth. It is, perhaps, one definition of life itself. As scientists, we study those "marks" in the fossil record, and uncover the steps of carbon flow in modern habitats. Knowing where we are and where we've been is our best hope of moving forward with care and confidence.

It seems fitting that this year's voyage begins in the garden ...

Even the icicles were dirty ...

2011-01-11T13:11:00.002-05:00

This photo was taken on Nov. 15, 2010 -- roughly 2 weeks after the katabatic windstorm on Halloween. Large piles of sediment, blown onto the sea ice, are seen everywhere.

The sun was warming the labyrinth, forming icicles on the undersides of its various features.

Closer inspection revealed that these icicles were vested with sediment. They seemed to be serving as "fine sediment flypaper." I wonder if icicles have been viewed in this context before, and I wonder what role, if any, this process plays in sediment deposition?

Dirty ice everywhere ... a sign of the times? Don't worry - like everything else, icicles come and go, come and go.

Chin music, five years later ...

2010-12-10T12:00:00.003-05:00

Flags tell us many things ...

Chin music, 2005

Chin Music, 2010

... such as the passage of time.

Frances K. Bowser (March 6, 1912 - September 21, 2010)

2010-11-21T02:22:00.009-05:00

Today I honored the memory of my dear grandmother, Frances K. Bowser, by installing InterfaCE VI on the seafloor at Explorers Cove.

Nana was a "pure" artist: she received no formal training, and painted from the heart. Landscapes and floral arrangements were her favorite subjects. She always offered encouragement when it came to creative projects. She didn't like me traveling to Antarctica and diving under the ice, but nevertheless sent cookies and a Halloween card as reminders of home each year.

On her death bed in September, I told her about the upcoming field season -- especially about our project's continued art/science collaborative work. Although blind, unable to speak, and in great pain, she held my hand firmly. Her labored breathing calmed, and I'm certain that a gentle smile swept across her face ...

I inherited a good chunk of her genome. In a sense, then, her appreciation of art lives on.

Planning installation in the Explorers Cove dive tent

Arranging the InterfaCE discs on the seafloor

Following installation: a cold ascent and safety stop below 3 meters of frozen ocean

The process photos shown above were taken by Cecelia Shin. Many thanks to the divers of project G-093 and B-043. More complete documentation of the installation will follow.

Perception and perspectives on sediment

2010-11-20T11:22:00.001-05:00

I mentioned earlier that perception is difficult here. For example, icebergs and mountains can look like they are nearby, but are really many miles away. There just aren't enough visual cues to judge distance accurately (at least for this New Yorker's eye).

Mt. Coleman seems to be a stone's throw away when viewed through the kitchen window.

The mountain seems much farther away when camp is viewed from atop a nearby ridge.

The mind often encounters difficulties when dealing with unfamiliar spatial and temporal scales. With respect to our research, I simply can't imagine how many tons of sediment are deposited on the ice each year at Explorers Cove, and how much of it gets dumped onto the sea floor. Measuring this process and determining its impact on life in the Cove are major goals of the project.

Explorers Cove shoreline, seen from a helicopter. Sand from the Taylor Valley is blown by katabatic winds onto the sea ice, forming large sand dunes along tide cracks and other surface irregularities.

The tide crack behind me is layered with sediment from different storms over the past 10 years; a dune of coarse sand and pebbles rests against its (and my) base.

As Earth continues to warm during this interglacial period, more and more land will be exposed on the southernmost continent. In a real sense, what we see today at Explorers Cove is a peek into Antarctica's near future.

Shake, Rattle and Roll ...

2010-11-18T21:41:00.005-05:00

Following the magnitude 7.2 earthquake on September 3rd, Christchurch was plagued by a seemingly endless series of aftershocks. I experienced one of these tremors on the way to the Ice. In the middle of the night, the Devon Bed & Breakfast rocked back and forth for about 20 seconds. Just before it hit, I heard what sounded like a freight train thundering down the street. Several residents evacuated the building, but I was too tired and simply clung tight to the bedsheets.

Fast forward six weeks, and once again the sound of a freight train was barreling down at me. This time, though, there was no Bed & Breakfast. There was no bed, for that matter. Instead, I was jolted from a sleeping bag by the roar of flags fiercely flapping over the roof of our Jamesway tent. We all ran outside and secured camp, covered the snowmobiles, and plugged our ears. The katabatic winds -- some of the strongest we've ever experienced -- roared all night.

Flapping flags viewed thru the ceiling window of our Jamesway tent

The flags did their job alerting us to the threat. With everything quickly tied down, the only thing lost was eight hours of sleep (and breakfast).

The following day, I noticed that all the snow was blown away from camp. It was replaced by mounds of sand blown from the Taylor Valley. Only our footprints remained. Which is as it should be here ...

Again, our thanks to the schools that donated their flags!

Seeing things (?)

2010-11-18T13:52:00.005-05:00

The Ice Labyrinth forces us to look down a lot, especially at this time of year when its surface is melting. Each step can result in a fracture -- first of ice, then of shin.

Sometimes it doesn't matter how wide open your eyes are: The ice will set you down beside her. I recently came across this beautiful maiden when looking up from such a crackup.

It is a beautiful maiden, yes? Maybe skull hit harder than shin...

Still dribbling ...

2010-11-17T15:25:00.004-05:00

The drip coffee maker continues to make drips on the kitchen counter at Camp New Harbor. To be accurate, I make the drips. (This one qualifies as a spill.)

Life seems to slow down here. Data dribbles in from experiments, and daily chores turn to drudgery. Maybe it's because the sun slowly circles just above the horizon, day in but no day out. Maybe it's because science is a slow process, punctuated only occasionally by the thrill of insight.

One thing is certain: the heat of summer approaches, and Antarctica will wake us from this slumber.

Flags are Flying

2010-11-10T06:54:00.006-05:00

My team has flown flags at Explorers Cove since 1990. Besides their symbolic significance, helicopter pilots use these flags to judge wind direction and make safe landings.

In addition to the U.S. flag (gratefully representing the citizenry that pays for our research program), each year a handful of schools donates flags for us to fly. Their fluttering helps alert us to strong winds that sometimes whip up while we sleep. These "katabatic" winds will blow away unsecured camp equipment and sand blast exposed surfaces.

I'll say more about flags and wind later. For now, I'll simply say "thank you" to the students, teachers, and parents for helping us think of home while we inhabit this remote place.

Another Labyrinth

2010-11-08T05:36:00.006-05:00

One of the reasons it has been difficult for me to keep in touch this season is the miserable state of the ice in Explorers Cove. Once again, we face a labyrinth. Perspective is difficult here. The ice pillars seen in this picture rise above my head!

Besides rough terrain, which makes navigating to dive holes difficult, the old (>10 yrs) ice is laden with sediment blown down from the Taylor Valley. These sandy dunes absorb the 24/7 sunlight, forming pools of meltwater. I do not look forward to navigating the melting ice surface over the next weeks.

Nor do I look forward to dealing with the miserable cold that is taking root in my throat. We call this illness "The McMurdo Crud." Despite strict sanitary habits, healthy diet, vitamins, and flu shots, there seems to be no stopping it. Half of our crew now has The Crud.

Unfortunately, this is no time to be sick ...

Apologies for Silence

2010-11-04T00:47:00.007-04:00

All is well in Antarctica, although the work load has been overwhelming at times. It seems there's just too much to do at every level ...

So for now, I'll just post a picture of Mt. Erebus as seen at midnight.

Beginning a New Journey

2010-09-27T23:51:00.005-04:00

This season I am traveling to Antarctica on two projects funded by the National Science Foundation. The first is a follow-up to our 2008 season; the second a continuation of our biological studies of Foraminifera. I'll be reporting on our experiences in the field for the next 10 weeks.

For now, a tiny slice of what I'm leaving behind:

Compost for the lawn ...

Next spring's grass

Do trees know yellow?

Pollenating

2009-07-26T21:18:00.006-04:00

I've been photographing flowers this spring and summer. It's something my granny often did, although she would get to work with her watercolors or oils after the prints came back. Like her, I'm interested in a flower's color palette, but the objects I'm studying are pollen grains. It's a refreshing break from the hard-nose science that these past months have brought.

This Casablanca Lilly is a recent addition to my meditation rock garden. It stands tall over the eclectic menagerie of stone shapes, colors and weathered textures, each carrying a bit of history that I use to launch episodes of time travel. The Lilly seems to be getting along well with the adjacent horseradish patch (which, for various reasons, is what I would certainly be if I was a plant).

Its copious pollen will give me much to study. Ah, if only its fragrance would repel the millions of mosquitos that our wet summer has spawned!

Tadpole rescue

2009-06-27T17:29:00.033-04:00

This week I finally found time to open our swimming pool. It's not really used for swimming; rather, the pool serves as a testing ground for waterproof camera gear and aquatic sampling contraptions. I have also been known to take an underwater snooze in it (wearing scuba gear, of course).

Above the water, a 100-ft. pine tree is inconveniently situated on the East side of the pool. It's a real nuisance, shedding countless numbers of needles in the fall, depositing nostrils full of pollen in the spring, and dripping buckets of sap in the summer. More than one pine cone has conked me, usually precipitated by a frisky red squirrel giggling overhead.

Normally, the pool is tightly covered when not in use. A thick tarp keeps out sunlight, leaves, and critters all fall, winter, and spring, which makes it easier to get the pool ready for the relatively short (~10 week) swim season here in Albany. Last winter's ice storm, however, broke large branches from the pine tree, which ripped big holes in the cover. In came springtime sunlight, and months of profuse algal growth supported large populations of various waterbugs and squiggly mosquito larvae, which in turn fed loads of toads and frogs. The reproductive appetites of the latter led to the subject of this entry.

No tadpoles were harmed in the making of this blog

Hundreds of tadpoles greeted me as the pool cover was removed. I treasured tadpoles as a boy; it was so amazing to watch them develop in our makeshift aquaria: tiny legs sprout, tails shrink, and eventually they'd hop out onto the kitchen counter. Perhaps that's why I didn't have the heart to chlorinate the pool and kill the little critters. Instead, I scooped them out and let them go in a nearby pond, patting my back for being such a compassionate human being. (Better safe than sorry, I suppose: should a certain reincarnation myth ring true, maybe we're not fishes before birth -- perhaps we're tadpoles!)

Cutting down a huge pine requires skill and a large crane

Once I got the cover off and the tadpoles out, I hired a tree expert to remove the pine. A large crane and a few skilled men had the job finished in a couple of hours. Nothing was put to waste: the trunks are now planks, the branches now mulch.

And the tadpoles are now either fish food or frogs.

Stereoscopy and a wet kiss

2009-06-18T23:09:00.012-04:00

June has been a monstrously busy month, and it's only half over! Another grant proposal went out the door (er, the internet cable), two research papers were submitted, and the North American Section of the International Society of Protistologists meeting was held in Bristol, Rhode Island, where I gave the Past President's Address.

The title of my talk was "Why Should a Cell Need a Shell?" I won't get into details here, but to illustrate the selective advantage of particle agglutination (i.e., primitive shell-building behavior), I showed three-dimensional SEM images of agglutinated shells from "living fossil" species of Foraminifera. I'm not sure if the audience agreed with my scientific arguments, but it was a hoot to see some of the world's finest scholars wearing goofy spectacles.

Protistologists viewing red/blue anaglyph images

It has also been an unusually wet month, which has not been good for evening walks but has yielded lush lawns and gardens. And lots of toads and frogs. I'm particularly fond of a pair of tree toads inhabiting the back yard. They show up everywhere -- cuddled beneath the lid of the BBQ grill, clinging to windows, snuggled under the pool cover -- and at night they bellow the loudest RIBBETT! you can image. It cracks me up that this pair (I guess they're a couple?) squat next to each other and RIBBETT! full blast into each other's ears all evening. "Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now? How about now?"

"Kiss me, you fool!"

Their incessant, booming RIBBETT!s make me want to bend over and kiss one, just to shut them up. Ah, but what if the resulting princess retained her booming voice?

Square Trees and Lilliputian Architects

2009-05-30T15:33:00.048-04:00

Trees at the Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza in Albany are trimmed so that they mirror the monolithic architecture of New York State's government complex.

This spring, I've watched a particular cubic tree leaf from one of the few windows near my lab. I suppose that some might think it "cruel" to shape a tree this way; if so, you should see what artist Natalie Jeremijenko has done to her trees at Mass MoCA, or simply think of what every bonsai goes through.

Getting back to the plaza, I wonder if the "tree foraminifera" that we study would build similar monoliths if offered bricks and blocks? This is a serious scientific question: I've long held the notion that we could "train" cells to construct tiny devices. (The alternative concept that most engineers have adopted, i.e., self-assembly of components, is one of the bottlenecks, if not fallicies, of nanotechnology.) Tree foraminifera are magnificant sculptors and build micro-scale shells for a living. Why not teach them how to assemble our miniaturized goodies?

Notodendrodes antarctikos - a "tree foram" from Explorers Cove, Antarctica (photo courtesy Shawn Harper)

Since this post considers the concept of scale, we should be cautious when thinking about working at the level of foraminifera. These single-celled giants are voraceous carnivores; given the chance, they would probably trim our body parts so that we conform to their arborescent aesthetic.

And then eat us!

Bleeding Hearts (iii)

2009-05-24T15:00:00.000-04:00

Irradiate bleeding hearts with simulated sunlight ...

... capture their shadows ...

... add primary colors ...

... relive 1971

Bleeding Hearts (ii)

2009-05-23T15:07:00.005-04:00

An insect in flight encounters a string of bleeding hearts.

Upon approach, it finds company...

Bleeding Hearts (i)

2009-05-22T19:19:00.015-04:00

Flowers mean springtime and summertime, love and loss.

A solitary bleeding heart has appeared in the garden, which has me thinking about the single-minded pursuit required for success in science. Long nights spent alone in the lab, peering through the lens of a microscope; frozen hours under Antarctic ice, encased in scuba gear. So caught up in the passion for knowledge that we forget to play; forget to tell loved ones how important they are...

Even in the company of others, bleeding hearts lack comfort. I wonder what insects see in them?

Albany bloemen

2009-05-09T18:49:00.004-04:00

My brother's family is living in Holland for the next few months. Today we share a little color, as Albany celebrates its Dutch heritage with 200,000 tulips.

Boys, Girls, Art & Science

2009-05-09T17:33:00.009-04:00

I've been giving science talks to school kids for over 20 years. I tell them stories about working and living in Antarctica, and weave in some bits of knowledge about marine ecosystems, animal behavior, and climate. After spending 45 minutes with 20 bubbly students, I'll wink a smile at the teacher and leave the classroom feeling confident that our world is being left in good hands.

As part of their learning experience, the younger children are usually tasked to compose "thank you" notes or drawings, which teachers then send to me. These tokens of gratitude are treasure.

It's always fun to see which stories the kids focus on. Toilets, diving, dynamite, pycnogonids, and penguins top the list. When viewing the subjects of their art, one thing that I can predict with >95% accuracy is the gender of the child.

I bet you can, too...

Seeing Red, Feeling Warmth ... and Healing

2009-04-20T06:50:00.018-04:00

Winter is over - finally! Along with the swarming of ants and the arrival of robins, a red peppering on the deciduous forest helps announce spring in Upstate New York.

Sadly, though, last winter's ice storm left gaping wounds on most trees, especially the maples. Their red patina seems like a bloody stain on the forest's black skeleton.

Maple tree flowers are not simply red. Put your nose to them and you'll see a mix of colors that code their structural complexity. Subtle yellow and green pistils are crowned by a burst of pale filaments, each of which is punctuated by a slate-blue anther. For fun, I'll explore the hidden hues of their pollen grains using a microscope. Dan Mazia, celebrated microscopist of the last

century once wrote, "... think with the eyes and see with the brain. Deep revelations into the nature of living things continue to travel on beams of light."

In the lab, thinking and seeing are best done alone, and in silence. In the forest, I trust that beams of light will warm the trees and help heal the wounds of winter.

InterfaCE IV(b)

2009-04-01T23:22:00.029-04:00

Some images from opening night of InterfaCE IV.

Many thanks to Lynn Palumbo, Director of the Washington Art Gallery, for the invitation to show our work. I am personally indebted to DebS for her help setting up the installation, and to Wendy Bohlinger (a.k.a. Wendella) - photographer, friend, and advocate since our days studying invertebrate zoology at UAlbany.

_____________________________ ________

____________________________ _________
___________________________ __________

The scuba mantra "plan your dive and dive your plan" also works for setting up an art installation

Final touchup...

A view of the opening reception

"a place to rest the eye"

Wendy caught the light to transform graphite into ice

Thank you Wendella!

InterfaCE was supported in part by NSF grant ANT0440769 awarded to S.S. Bowser. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the The National Science Foundation. Nor any other life form/entity.

Concept of Scale

2009-03-30T17:00:00.003-04:00

Collaborations between artists and scientists have yielded many intriguing projects over the past 20-plus years, as documented on the ASCI website. Having engaged in a fruitful art/science collaboration with Claire Beynon from 2005-8, the next step for our outreach program was to share this experience with elementary, middle, and high-school students. Enter the Capital Region Center for Arts in Education (CRCAE).

Based on our collaboration, artists Chris Moran and Pavlos Mayakis, together with poet Cara Benson, ran a CRCAE-sponsored art/science workshop for teachers last summer. This outreach project was recently put to the test: a classroom of bubbly bright 7th- and 8th-grade students in Holly May's English class at New Lebanon Junior/Senior High School were engaged in an art/science experience that explored the concept of scale. Expository writing was an essential ingredient of the program, providing another link between diverse curricula. Details will follow at the artscience alliance website; below are a few images to set the stage:

Thinking about Claire Beynon's interpretive artwork

Writing observations

Dr. B, artist Chris Moran, and writing instructor Holly May

Earth Hour, from one home in New York

2009-03-28T21:30:00.025-04:00

Today marks Earth Hour, and I'll watch evening fall with a swarm of ants that emerge from our walkway each year.

Faithful as the equinox, these ants help mark springtime. Their emergence is, of course, a manifestation of their life cycle. Courtship, mating, new life, all timed to the start of this season.

I try to step over them while walking, working, and wondering.

In six hours our lights will extinguish; together with many other New Yorkers we add our voices (er, our absence of photons) in making a statement to world leaders about curbing climate change.

The ants are unaware of this, though. They are busy moving about, wandering between the pavers. Watching their bustle makes me itch. Or perhaps some of them have made their way up my pants.

It's 8:30, and the house is dark. The ants are barely moving, and I lay down next to the swarm. The night air is crisp and refreshing, but only a few stars poke through the clouds to light the sky.

Speaking of stars, I'll never forget my first evening wearing glasses: I was five years old, and couldn't wait to look at the Milky Way wearing them. (Being a product of the Space Age, I was a HUGE fan of astronomy.) But that first glimpse of the night sky with corrected vision remains one of the darkest moments of my life. Those warm fuzzy balls that painted nighttime since birth were really cold, lonely pinpricks of light.

The universe still seems much friendlier without glasses, so I take them off and share the night sky with the ants. Their eyes lack visual acuity as well - one of the many things we have in common.

It is now 9:30, and Earth Hour passes West to the next time zone. The ants are motionless. I think I'll leave the lights off, and join them in sleep.

___________

P.S. Earth Hour +12

As predicted by meteorologists, rain has come. The swarm of ants is now a dispersion of corpses. I don't think the rain killed them; more likely, their life cycle was complete as nighttime fell.

Nevertheless, one takes pause.

InterfaCE IV(a)

2009-03-23T00:13:00.011-04:00

Next week, InterfaCE IV will be installed in the Mildred I. Washington art gallery at Dutchess Community College, Poughkeepsie, New York. This version of InterfaCE will be placed on a 4x8-ft piece of canvas. I've been prepping the canvas these last few nights, enjoying the feel of gesso slipping off of a brush.

I ran down the canvas applying gesso, like wind skirts along the ice surface carrying streams of snow. The gesso texture will be barely perceptible when it dries, and will be further obscured by beakers and disks of photographs, micrographs, and paintings. Nevertheless, memories of wind-blown snow are at the forefront of this man's mind.

Tonight I made long, wispy strokes while applying the final layer, thinking about how the wind blows snow across the ice. It's so beautiful to watch, and to sit in. I've spent hours relishing its impact, and sometimes felt guilty about being in its way. But then I realize that millions of snowflakes were rescued by letting them coalesce into shapes on my parka and wind pants.

One day those shapes might reappear as InterfaCE V -- or perhaps they already have in the countless dreams that I don't remember.

Immersion in the Sublime

2009-03-18T19:11:00.016-04:00

Work often takes me to extreme places, such as the outer space-like vacuum of an electron microscope or the frozen seascape of McMurdo Sound. Such places harbor limitless riches in sight, sound, and experience. They should be the domains of dreamers, poets, and artists.

When slipping through the thick sea ice and descending to its underside, a profound loneliness always chills my heart. The thought that there is no other person in the entire Southern Ocean at that moment, compounded by the indescribable beauty of the icy aquatic space, defines the sublime to this man. Life sustained by a thin tube delivering air on demand. Life enabled by sophisticated under- and outerwear. Life viewed by a privileged scientist - a linear, analytical thinker, seeking a way to express this moment to others. A faithful rationalist who, for two decades, has extended his cold, wet hand toward the warmth of artists.

The Underside of Sea Ice

still frame of a Shawn Harper video

Glimpses of such underwater moments are portrayed in Werner Herzog's recent documentary, brilliantly captured by Henry Kaiser's lens. But the feeling I am trying to describe here is much more haunting. It is an isolation and a beauty like no other. I know intuitively that it is profound, even though I don't know what it is.

One day I hope to find an artist who understands this feeling and will help me express it. An artist who will help me share it with the world.

A Still Point in Cell Motility Research

2009-02-16T07:00:00.013-05:00

I study a group of single-cell organisms - the Foraminifera - that are incessantly busy. Within "foram" pseudopodia, which are the spiderweb-like projections seen in the photo below, one can watch (with a microscope) zillions of granules zipping to-and-fro; likewise, tiny particles picked up from the environment move back and forth along the pseudopodial surfaces. The rapid, bidirectional motion of these intracellular granules and surface-bound particles is a fascinating biological phenomenon I've been studying for a couple of decades now.

Watching this cellular hustle and bustle can make you feel frazzled and fried, particularly if you empathize with the foram. It has no still point in life as it prods and probes the environment for food and a mate. That is, no still point until a cell biologist enters its realm...

Phase contrast light micrograph of Allogromia with extended pseudopodia

I recall here a critical experiment performed as part of my dissertation research back in the early 80's. The question being asked was whether or not membrane surface motility, revealed by the movement of surface-bound latex spheres, was linked to a system of cytoskeletal elements called microtubules. (I'll blog about these miniscule protein tubes at a later time.) To find out, I was treating forams with various drugs that disassemble microtubules. The logic was simple: destroy microtubules and you stop cell processes that depend on them. My colleague Jeff Travis had already shown that these anti-microtubule drugs shut down intracellular transport in forams. Would they likewise stop the motion surface-bound particles? Late one night, alone in the lab, I was ready to find out.

Foram pseudopodia are a blur of activity. Seen here is a one-second exposure of pseudopodia imaged at high magnification. Because of the non-stop motion of intracellular granules, the 'pods appear smeared and uniformly dark; surface-bound latex spheres (1-micrometer in diameter) are seen as white streaks due to their movement along the 'pod surfaces.

It takes several hours to set up these experiments and, quite frankly, they're dangerous because they involve handling tiny amounts of some very potent compounds. It is not simple work, either: nimble hands, like those of an artist, are needed to seal perfusion chambers and assemble the intricate apparatus. Also like artists, an eye for the aesthetic is needed in order to record observations in ways that colleagues will appreciate. I remember my mentor Sam McGee-Russell saying "If it looks good, mate, the results will be more convincing." My other mentor, Conly Rieder, always said "Bowser, if you want to get a job in science, you better take pretty pictures!" We'll call it effective visual communication.

The stillness following drug treatment is manifest as sharp images. In this two-second exposure, the motionless granules inside the pseudopods are clearly seen. So, too, are the static, white latex spheres.

The result of this experiment was yes: take away microtubules and you stop membrane surface motility. Not to be too melodramatic, but the thrill of this discovery screamed in the silence of that evening, and I'll never forget its impact on my psyche. It was a still point for me (and literally for the foram) -- an "ah-hah!" moment shared with no one until the video recordings were shown to lab mates the following morning. The question I was addressing was based on the collective wisdom of hundreds of scientists over many decades, but this experiment was mine alone. Conducted alone, at night, just the way that science was "supposed" to be done. A still point indeed.

Few things are more beautiful than gleaning basic knowledge about the workings of the natural world. To me, it defines the sublime. And revealing that truth is art.

Compare and Contrast Art and Science

2009-02-14T06:30:00.003-05:00

While we are off the ice, I'd like this blog to serve as a vehicle to comment on art/science collaboration. I'll begin with some of my (mis)perceptions:

My childhood impression was that scientists toil alone in a lab until the wee hours of night, striving for "ah hah!" moments. Solitude is something I've always been drawn toward, and a career in science seemed like my calling. But reality turned out to be far different. After 25 years as a biologist, I've learned that collaboration is the rule. I've now worked elbow-to-elbow with over 97 different scientists, and have published only two solo-authored papers; the others reflect joint efforts with these colleagues. I'm not complaining: the frantic exchange of ideas (and occasional cusses) inherent to healthy collaborative work is invigorating. And I've had enough moments of solitude doing experiments in the wee hours of night to touch my still point.

Until recently, I've harbored the impression that artists do indeed work alone in the studio, often 'till late at night, to ultimately produce a solo exhibition. (The exhibition being the art equivalent of science publications.) But is this really true? If so, it would clearly set art apart from science.

Since 2005, I've been collaborating with Claire Beynon on various art/science projects - mostly based on our joint work in Antarctica. In Albany, I've collaborated with artists Chris Moran and Elinor Mossop on related art/science ventures. This work has brought us in contact with Cynthia Pannucci and ASCI (Art & Science Collaborations, Inc.), and from these associations it has become clear that collaboration can be a powerful approach in art, just as it is in science. The Sound Still exhibition that Claire participated in a number of years ago is a good example.

An early Beynon-Bowser collaboration: DNA sequence of

Gromia and scanning electron micrograph of its gametes

Another childhood myth busted? I'd like to hear from other artists (and writers and poets...)

Tribute to a Friend

2009-02-02T12:19:00.007-05:00

Today I lost another friend.

Karolyn Buttle was a microscopist with the High Voltage Electron Microscope facility at the Wadsworth Center. She always had a bright smile and was eager to assist with research challenges. I learned of the severity of her illness after seeking help with an art/science project. Despite the pain she was enduring, Karolyn immersed herself in the work and within a few days we had 3-D reconstructions of silver grains; with further refinement by her colleagues, these became the basis for a stunning art installation now on display at Mass MoCA.

Karolyn was a gifted, compassionate, and courageous woman. She will be greatly missed...

_____________
Karolyn's obituary can be found here. She also developed a web site where friends can visit and share memories.

Farewell to an Ice Colleague

2009-01-23T18:52:00.008-05:00

This week I lost a dear friend and colleague, Dr. Matt Florczyk, to a long illness. I first knew Matt as a graduate student in our Biomedical Sciences program, and later as an ice hockey teammate with the Albany Lab Rats. He was an incredibly gifted young man, both athletically and intellectually, with a warm, compassionate personality.

I shed blood with him during hockey games; tonight I shed tears, missing him on the ice.

______________

Matt's obituary and information on a memorial fund can be found here.

YES WE CAN

2009-01-20T07:01:00.007-05:00

Today we celebrate the inauguration of our new President. It is a time of hope, and an opportunity for change. I will work comfortably with that thought.

There is much to do ...

Curiosity

2009-01-18T10:30:00.020-05:00

One theme of this blog, and of my website, is the intersection of art and science. I delight in conversation with artists, scientists, and educators who share this interest.

As you might gather from previous posts, Claire Beynon has been a constant source of inspiration in exploring the art/science interface. Our projects leave me puzzled at times, but they always foster playful curiosity. We are now collaborating with Schenectady artist/educator Chris Moran to help promote art, science, and their common element of curiosity through an upcoming workshop sponsored by the Capital Region Center for Arts in Education.

A puzzling moment (for me; Claire is amused) in the studio

Curiosity is a powerful driving force. In an evolutionary context, the adaptive significance of curiosity seems quite obvious: It prompts an individual to discover new resources (food, shelter, material goods), to find solutions to problems (e.g., cure an ailment), to select a compatible mate, and to occupy a comfortable social setting. At a personal or psychological level, however, curiosity presents many challenges. The risks and rewards of acting on our curiosity must be weighed carefully in order to optimize the outcome, which is the measure of success (and a definition of wisdom).

Modern science employs a well-scripted process - the scientific method - to act on curiosity. Adhering to this approach provides us with verifiable (more accurately, falsifiable) information which, in sum, has freed humanity from reliance on chance or superstition. Metaphorically, the scientific method provides us with the factual tools needed to navigate successfully the labyrinth of nature.

I wonder if the scientific method can help us explore imagined worlds, where outcomes are not necessarily the product of natural law? This question must have been asked a thousand times already. I'd love to hear from an artist who has formalized hypotheses, conducted controlled experiments, and analyzed the results with some measure of statistical significance.

More importantly, I'd love to know how they measure success. And I wonder if that success defines artistic wisdom...

Cellular masonry (and intelligence?)

2009-01-07T21:26:00.034-05:00

In 1878, agglutinated foraminifera were dubbed "nature's little masons" by A.M. Norman, a prominent British reverend and naturalist. William B. Carpenter, arguably the 19th-century's premier cell biologist, also pointed to the "skill" displayed by foraminifera in selecting materials to build their shells -- a characteristic that got Edward Heron-Allen in heated debates with colleagues over the definition of intelligence. (See, for example, his paper entitled Purpose and intelligence in the Foraminifera published in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, 1914:1069-1070.) In future posts, I'll dedicate some space to Heron-Allen and examine the seemingly incongruous mix of science and mysticism that marked his career.

Four species of agglutinated foraminifera from the same handful of Antarctic sediment. Each species collects a characteristic range of grain sizes or type of mineral to build a shell.

Speaking of incongruous mixes, Claire Beynon's December 28th post juxtaposed a recipe for chicken kofta and my watercolor of Astrammina rara - one of the unicellular giants that we collect in Antarctica. About a decade ago, Joan Bernhard and I used straightforward statistical approaches to show that Astrammina "selects" sediment particles that range in size from 0.25 to 0.50 mm to use as the main non-compressible (read: hard) component of its shell. Since then, we and coworkers have noted that A. rara's shell usually contains a conspicuous, red-orange sand grain. This feature prompted ceramic artist Katherine Glenday to write a poem in which, to paraphrase, she describes A. rara as "the species that builds its heart on its house." I adore the beautiful aesthetic of that anthropomorphism! But it begs the question: does it really select one red grain, or is this simply a consequence of chance? If it is indeed displaying selectivity, what is the molecular basis of this cellular process?

As an expression of rote scientific curiosity, we'll do a bit of experimental work to explore this question and post some results here. In a sense, though, I almost don't want to know the answer. Why despoil a beautiful poem with a rational whitewash?

Foram food

2008-12-31T12:01:00.010-05:00

A final thought for 2008 ... and a bold prediction: I'll think more about this topic in 2009!

A tasty foraminiferan protist?

I work with many clever people. One measure of "cleverness" is the capacity to make quick connections between disparate concepts. Check out Claire Beynon's post at Ice Lines for a good example.

(I wonder if I've been clever enough to figure out what Claire was thinking of ...)

Knew Year Wishes

2008-12-27T04:29:00.020-05:00

... as in, the year I knew. To acknowledge the New Year, I'll pictorially summarize some significant stuff 2008 brought (in no particular order).

HAPPY Y2K+9!

InterfaCE III viewed at home before installation at ISOP '08 in Halifax

On stage

InterfaCE I at the Tang (!!!)

Simon Starling's sculpture at Mass MoCA

The mother of all ice storms almost wrecks our house

Katherine Glenday shows me her vessels in NYC

I show Katherine her vessels in Antarctica

Claire and I find flat, easy-to-drill ice (finally!)

For the birds

2008-12-22T07:41:00.014-05:00

... as in, "This weather is for the birds!"

It's a good thing my "polar wings" were spread when I landed here. Between the big ice storm last week (no power for 6 days), the recent snow, and now the bitter cold, it's as though Explorers Cove doesn't want to release her grip.

Some musings today about birds and making images, just to warm the spine:

Finches at the bird feeder during a snowstorm

I've always held a fascination for birds. Winter brings out their best: when it's cold, they puff up their feathers and become animated fuzzballs. Many of their root behaviors - forage and battle for food / attract and battle for mates - become evident in footprints frozen in the snow. The sleuth in me tries to discern these behaviors from their tracks, much as a paleontologist tries to interpret the life of dinosaurs from their prints in fossil mud.

Chickadee tracks in the snow

Frozen footprints and fossil tracks represent hard evidence of reality in the natural world. I find it interesting that photographs were once analogous to these tracks. That's no longer true, thanks to digital imaging and software that allow us to merge images seamlessly. For example, I can show you compelling pictures of Chairman Mao wearing a New Jersey Devils uniform (I hear he was a big ice hockey fan!) or Caroline Kennedy pushing a broom at Wal-Mart (that's what every soccer-mom representative of middle-class America has done, right?). But do such images represent reality? No - they are manifestations of the imagination. What has unlocked our limitless creativity has also shattered our faith in photographic evidence. It's a New Age for creatives ... as well as charlatans and thieves.

There is considerable debate among scientists about how we should use images to report our findings, i.e., to depict the realities of nature. I have touched on this topic in my art/science blog, and it is something that Claire Beynon and I have incorporated in previous work.

Ah, look -- an Adelie penguin has been visiting my bird feeder! For the first time in evolutionary history, penguins have tasted sunflower seeds.

Out of the frying pan ...

2008-12-16T12:45:00.013-05:00

...and into the fire. In my case, however, the expression is "out of the freezer and onto the ice."

I left Explorers Cove because it became an icy, slushy mess. Look at the scene here in upstate New York!

Everything is coated with ice due to a freak storm. For the past four days, we've been without electricity ... and heat, and a washing machine, and a TV. It's like camping near the Herbertson Glacier!

Well, not exactly...

Sweet sorrow

2008-12-10T08:36:00.018-05:00

The sea ice is getting too sloppy to work on safely -- each step can drop you into a waist-deep pool of melt water. Time to make the last dive, pack camp, and head for home.

It's hard to say goodbye. We had a difficult, weather-abbreviated 2008 field season filled with logistical challenges due to the 10-yr-old ice. But the season was a success: sampling sites were surveyed, specimens were collected, experimental arrays deployed, and art was made. And -- most importantly -- no one was injured in the process.

I'm sure I speak for Molly and Sally when I say that five outstanding people made this season not only possible, but thoroughly enjoyable. Cecil Shin, Shawn Harper, Henry Kaiser, and Steve Clabuesch were an awesome team of divers.

G-093 divers: Cecil, Shawn, Henry, me, and Steve

In addition to dive tending, Claire Beynon worked within and behind the scenes to ensure that things got done and that our voices, visions, and music were heard worldwide.

Claire photographing ice lines

Eight souls aboard Explorers Cove field camp ... eight souls sad to leave it. I'm sure that we will cast long shadows together far into the future.

What we do to amuse

2008-12-09T06:43:00.011-05:00

We are often asked "what do you do for fun while in camp?"

The quick answer, at least for me, is "everything!" It seems like there isn't a moment that I'm not enjoying Antarctica, even when working on broken equipment in the freezing cold or toiling to batten down the hatches during a katabatic wind.

There are a few routine things we do as a group that are a lot of fun. Cooking comes to mind, with conversation around the dinner table focusing on animated story-telling. We also show a weekly movie (with popcorn, of course) inside the Jamesway, although it's sometimes difficult to find a film that matches our disparate tastes. This year, it looks like a new activity has been added to our repertoire: "Felting" hats.

Pat Clabuesch (Steve's mom) knitted a red hat for each of us to wear for our group picture. The plan was for us to felt the hats, so that they fit snugly. That turned out to be a problem -- no matter how much we boiled, stirred, and swirled the hats, we just couldn't get them to felt correctly. We still had a lot of fun felting ... and posing for pictures.

Shawn's hat is properly felted (I guess it's now a "cap"). Mine stayed rather floppy. Henry preferred to wear his like a French painter's cap ... or perhaps a Cardinal's headgear, given his prayer-like pose? I don't know for sure.

I do know that we had a lot of fun felting, thanks to Steve's mom.

Split rocks and long shadows

2008-12-07T22:40:00.008-05:00

Walks are an important part of field work. We take them often ... it affords an opportunity to ponder this place, collect data, and plan future work. Sometimes we walk to blow off steam.

Claire and I took a final walk along the glacial moraines overlooking Explorers Cove. We were searching for rocks that had been split in half by the weather ... basically, moisture seeps into cracks during the summer, then freezes and expands during winter. Repeated freeze/thaw cycles like this turn rock into sand. We will make a story out of this process, and develop some K-12 education materials together with a dedicated team of teachers.

We cast some long shadows during that walk -- over broken ground and split rocks to reach the sea ice. Our thoughts extended across that frozen ocean...

Water water everywhere and lots of drops to drink

2008-11-30T03:13:00.005-05:00

As a biologist, I spend a lot of time studying life in a drop of water ... or sometimes I drop myself into water to study life. On rare occasions I depict life with paint, brush, and watercolor.

People often ask where we get our water at the field camp. We wash dishes, clothes, and (not often enough) our bodies using melted sea ice. When sea water freezes, most of the salt is "squeezed out" in the form of brine as water crystals form. As seen above, these brine channels form "crater star" patterns that are visible on the ice surface. Underwater, they form the ice stalactites that we ponder while doing a safety stop at the end of scuba dives.

Not all the brine drains from sea ice, however, and this brackish water is not suitable to drink. Instead, our potable water is brought in by helicopter from McMurdo Station. We use about 5 gallons a day when there are 7-8 people in camp, but lately we have been visited by many other scientists working in the area. As a result, our outhouse is getting a workout and our drinking water is gone.

Fortunately, there are many snow banks surrounding camp. Snow is, of course, essentially frozen rain. If you collect enough drops you can drink rainwater. Likewise, if you scoop up enough snow and melt it, you have "fresh" water to drink. We boil it first for proper hygiene: Skua Gulls fly overhead, and an occasional penguin waddles thru the snow.

To be honest, melted snow here doesn't taste very good. I hope it's because of all the sand mixed with the snow, and not because of the birds.

A view of above

2008-11-27T01:00:00.000-05:00

There are temperate places on Earth where, looking through the forest canopy toward the night sky, one would find in the shadows vines clinging to crenated bark, moss hanging limp from branches, and hints of the heavens piercing heavy, moist air. Tonight, however, an upward glance from our sleeping bags reveals green arches, Jamesway blankets flapping in the wind, and an upside-down wardrobe of layers. Moments ago we were onions of polypropylene leggings and undershirts, silk socks, wool socks, Thinsulate glove liners and Gore-Tex glove shells, wind pants, briefs (not boxers), knickers, hats, gaiters, goggles, a Big Red parka, and bunny boots. Unwashed and unkempt, the outerwear is sprayed with the ocean, their fringes crusted in white. The innerwear is likewise moist, although sweat - being more organic than seawater - thankfully fails to encrust. We inhale dry desert air laden with Taylor Valley dust, and exhale the taste of instant decaf mixed with cocoa. Geologists, biologists, artists, and divers - eight souls on board a tiny camp at the edge of the world.

The layers sway as the Jamesway tosses and turns in the wind. Overhead are the thrashing sounds of flags made by schoolchildren, mounted on bamboo poles now bent by the katabatic wind. Their thrumming warns of danger and spawns thoughts of home. Will cargo straps fail and launch barrels through the tent? Will loves fail and pierce our hearts? We share smiles as our insulation holds, our isolation fades, and our workday is closed by sleep.

We relish a nighttime of sunshine at Explorers Cove, Antarctica.

Mucking a dive hole

2008-11-25T07:07:00.011-05:00

Muck: v. to clean up; especially to clear of manure or filth ...

Merriam-Webster online search

Although there's a difference between ice crystals and manure, the process of slinging debris is the same: Scoop it up, and flick it aside. In these photos, Claire shows how it's done.

First, scoop out dislodged ice using a dip net.

Then drain water from the ice and give it a toss!

Alternatively, you can fling the ice into the air and pull away the dip net. Mucking gives your forearms and shoulders a good workout...

Bay of Wails

2008-11-23T05:22:00.007-05:00

How cold is -2C (28F) water? Ask Steve Clabuesch. He was tending the first dive at the Bay of Sails. While preparing to deploy the down line, he got a little too close to the edge of the hole, and "whoooops!" In the drink he went. "Yeeeouch!"

I was back at camp taking a nap, when a tap on my shoulder announced that a helo was returning one of the field members because they fell in the dive hole. That message sent a chill down my spine, too! Fortunately, Steve was fine and I took his place tending the dives.

(photos by Dr. Sally Walker)

Dirty Ice

2008-11-20T06:12:00.010-05:00

One goal of our project is to determine the impact of sedimentation on marine organisms along western McMurdo Sound. In a nutshell, large amounts of sediment are blown out of the Taylor Valley onto the sea ice at Explorers Cove; this sediment accumulates on the multi-year ice in the Cove, as seen in the aerial photo below. (Yes, that's what the ice at Explorers Cove looks like from 500 ft. up!)

This massive amount of sediment is ultimately deposited into the sea by various processes. Under certain conditions, we suspect that sediment is episodically dumped onto the seafloor, burying marine organisms in ways that may preserve them as fossils. The results of our studies should provide a better understanding of the fossil record in this region of Antarctica.

Wind-blown sediment accumulates around structures on the sea ice, particularly the various types of cracks that form. These cracks range in size from tiny thermal cracks (seen above) to more massive tide cracks. The sediment grains trapped by these cracks absorb sunlight and help melt the ice. Freeze/thaw cycles and solar radiation, compounded by the multi-year nature of the ice, lead to the beautiful, treacherous ice topologies that our shins, chins, and tailbones are now encountering.

Compare the smooth surface of first-year ice at our Bay-of-Sails camp site (above) to the ten-year-old ice at Explorers Cove.

A bit unstuck

2008-11-16T06:30:00.008-05:00

The Herbertson Glacier site is finally finished! The Hotsy melted a nice hole, and in the process the stuck drill bits dropped to the seafloor. Today we loaded our dive gear on the ATV and snowmobiles, and set out to collect specimens, map the undersea topology, catalog organisms living under the ice, deploy sediment traps and experimental arrays, and add a new layer to our art/science project. Oh, and to recover those pesky drill bits.

The "down line" that we lower into the dive hole is decorated with flags and flashers; these help the divers find the hole while underwater. The down line has a basket on its end for lowering equipment and raising samples. A small bottle of emergency air rounds out the string of things lowered with the divers. Also seen here is a small hand winch we could use to help haul a diver out of the hole.

While the divers are underwater, the tenders must be prepared to help in any way. We carry first aid kits, hot water, and an emergency supply of oxygen (inside the grey box that Claire is holding). Not to mention radios with spare batteries to call for help, if needed.

"Prepare for the worst; expect the best" is our motto ...

Wet ones

2008-11-13T05:16:00.012-05:00

I've had the privilege of working with some awesome scientific divers over the years, and I'd like to introduce a few of them here. The first is Dr. Joan Bernhard. I met "Joanie" during my first season in Antarctica, and we've remained close friends ever since. She is, in a sense, the sister I never had. (I haven't had the courage to pull her pigtails, though!) We collaborate on various projects, and often bounce ideas back and forth that ultimately lead to new adventures. We also spend a lot of time arguing about how to write our science papers. In fact, I owe Joan comments on a manuscript right now, so I better quickly introduce two other divers and get right back to work on it.

The other two are Dr. Karen Sterling (above, and below right) and Mr. Doug Coons (below, left). To be honest, I don't remember how we got to know each other. I think that Karen wrote to me out of the blue, and Doug was recommended by someone from a local dive shop. (Maybe they will post comments to this blog to tell their story.) Both are tough as nails and have an incredible work ethic. In addition to working as a commercial diver, Doug was a medic in the New York National Guard; he is now completing a nursing degree. Karen lives in Manhattan and mixes her knowledge of finance and biology in the investment industry.

People from all walks of life have brought their extraordinary skills to our research program. I'd be nowhere without them, and this is true of modern science: it takes a strong team of passionate people to make progress. The notion that a scientist is the oddball sitting in a corner peering into a microscope (or telescope or mass spectrometer, or some other gizmo) is only a tiny part of the big picture.

Oh, by the way: My sister Joan is an oddball sitting in a corner peering into her laser confocal microscope at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute! (huh HUH, Joanie!)

A bit stuck

2008-11-10T05:56:00.006-05:00

I've been away from blogging for a few days, and here's the culprit: a stuck drill bit, as shown underfoot by Steve Clabuesch. Unexpected problems like this are expected to happen in Antarctica.

Over the past few days, we have been trying to establish a dive hole near the Herbertson Glacier. Although still within the New Harbor area, this site is very different from Explorers Cove in terms of the amount of sediment deposited from the Taylor Dry Valley; this makes it an important comparative sampling station.

It's about an hour away by snowmobile, and we must travel across some fairly bumpy sea ice to get there. We blazed a trail, set up a small shore camp, and moved the "Hotsy" hole melter to the site. As with blasting a dive hole, the first step is to drill a 5-inch (12.7-centimeter) diameter pilot hole through the sea ice. The next step is to insert a "hot finger" (a cylinder of tightly-wound metal tubing) which is heated by a diesel-fueled burner; this device melts the ice and creates a dive hole within a day or two.

We only got to step one. About 15-feet (3 meters) down, the drill bit hit water and instantly froze solid. This never happens in Explorers Cove, but it has happened to us several times over the past few seasons working in the Ferrar Glacier fjord. I'm not sure why ... perhaps there is super-cooled glacier water just under the ice? One thing is for sure: it will take a bit more skill to make this hole. I'll let you know how it goes...

Three of a kind

2008-11-04T06:17:00.007-05:00

Introducing the other two people who put G-093 together: Sally Walker (above, sporting her first dribble from the New Harbor coffee pot) and Molly Miller. Sally is posting updates on her Antarctic experiences as "Postcards from the Poles" at the Windows to the Universe site. Molly's website has links to her Antarctic experiences, too.

Sally studies modern ecosystems and their transformation into fossilized remains -- a science called taphonomy, which is crucial for interpreting past conditions on earth (and for predicting its future). Molly is a geologist/paleontologist who has studied fossils in Antarctica for many years. Together, we hope to arrive at a better understanding of the fossilization of Antarctic marine critters by comparing and contrasting different settings nearshore environments along western McMurdo sound.

Above, the three of us pose for a photo at Explorers Cove field camp.

Coring never boring

2008-11-03T15:50:00.010-05:00

One of our many science objectives is to examine the diversity (in other words, the number of different types) of small organisms on the sea floor in Explorers Cove, and to monitor changes in diversity over time. One way to accomplish this goal is for scuba divers to take sediment cores and bring these small samples to the surface for analysis. It is important that the divers take the cores haphazardly so that sampling bias is reduced -- in other words, sampling should be as random as possible so that the results are statistically sound. You can see a video of a diver taking sediment cores here; please also see the "skittle core" activity for K-12 students, developed in conjunction with a highly dedicated group of teachers that we work with.

Once the core reaches the surface, a scientist will slice it into sections that are one centimeter in thickness. Each section is then sieved, and the organisms within each slice are poured into storage bottles, which are refrigerated to keep the critters inside healthy. Back in the lab shack, the organisms in each sample are identified and counted. Simple statistical methods allow us to estimate the total population of a given organism at each dive site (we call these sites "sampling stations").

Doing this year-after-year allows us to plot changes in population over time. Shown here is Claire selecting a "good" core for analysis. (The best cores have perfectly clear water above the sediment, which indicates that minimal disturbance was caused by the coring process.) She is then seen cutting the core into 1-cm slices using a thin piece of metal, and then placing each slice into a sieve (in this case, she uses a 1-mm mesh size), and anything smaller than 1-mm diameter is washed away. The "sieve residue" is then seen being transferred to a storage bottle. Coring is one of my favorite things to do in Antarctica...

New Harbor Flag Day

2008-10-31T05:21:00.003-04:00

Camp does not feel settled until we fly flags on the roof. Since 1990, flags designed by school children have accompanied the camp's American flag. Boy Scouts visiting the camp have also flown their troop flags. I flew the New York State flag for about a decade (it eventually deteriorated), and once even flew the flag of Texas in honor of an exceptional man.

This year we introduce the flag of Macandrew Bay school in Dunedin, New Zealand. I have visited the students there to discuss our Antarctic research and to tell a few tales, and hope to see them again on my way home to the U.S. in December. Dunedin is Claire's home town, so she talks to the students about art in Antarctica.

Speaking of Claire, she recently had a flag returned to her that she made 22 years ago to mark an art exhibition held in Johannesburg, South Africa. It now flies on the West end of the Jamesway. See her blog entry for details.

We also sport flags made by Ms. Tina King's class in Tennessee (the orange flag), and Ms. Danielle Colletta's class in Yorktown Heights, New York (the blue flag with student's hand prints). They are sooooo beautiful! I'll have to show you more details in future posts.

The flags are not just for decoration, though. The helicopter pilots love them because they show wind direction, which is an essential piece of information for safe take-offs and landings. The flags let us know how hard the wind is blowing when we are working or sleeping inside. Thrumming flags can signal the beginning of dangerous catabatic winds. If we are awakened by the flags flapping wildly at night, we rush outside and make sure the snowmobiles are covered and everything is tied down.

But most of the time the flags are warm reminders of home. They make camp a little brighter and a whole lot warmer.

Art/Science on Ice

2008-10-29T22:50:00.001-04:00

Last night, Claire and I presented a talk about our art/science collaboration to the McMurdo Station community. It was the third time we've spoken together and, to be honest, the first time I've felt completely at ease.

In these talks, Claire and I set out to convey the genuine nature of our collaboration. Claire has worked in the lab and in the field "doing science" with me and, likewise, I have worked in her studio "doing art." As a result of this cross-pollination, we are adequately versed in each other's scientific and artistic processes. I think that this is why we can spawn new ideas, provide each other with helpful critiques, and jointly apply our technical skills. In a nutshell, we bounce seamlessly between each other's worlds.

The evening began with an introduction by the McMurdo Station manager, Terry Melton. The story of how Claire and I met at the Devon B&B in Christchurch followed (an interesting tale of serendipity), and then we launched into examples of Claire's art followed by some biological facts about foraminifera. The heart of the talk was a discussion of our InterfaCE project, which involves a process that Claire and I developed to study pseudopod ("false foot") structure and motile behavior of Foraminifera on textured surfaces. Claire's art provides templates for microlithographic fabrication of the substrates that the forams move along. (More thorough descriptions are found on Claire's website or mine.) We finished by discussing the art/science work we're doing this season in collaboration with Katherine Glenday and Christina Bryer. This year's project involves the use of porcelain grains (derived from Katherine and Christina's pieces) as shell-building particles by the forams that we study. In a sense, it is a collaboration between me, Claire, Katherine, Christina, and Astrammina triangularis :-)

Our talk was structured to be a conversation, hoping to avoid too much didactic content. The approach apparently worked: The people we spoke with afterwards thought that the evening was unconventional, and opened their eyes to the commonalities of art and science rather than their differences.

How could it fail when I'm speaking with Claire about art, science, and Foraminifera?

Morning routine

2008-10-26T05:42:00.001-04:00

Sleep doesn't come easy at Camp New Harbor. We work well into the night, and then don earplugs and slip into our sleeping bags. I wake up at 6AM to take medication, then crawl into the kitchen and make strong coffee. The running joke is that my coffee will grow hair on everyone's uvula (the dangly thing in the back of your throat), but to date no one has had to shave in there.

With coffee comes the daily dribble from the infamous New Harbor coffee pot. It's "infamous" because it never fails to dribble coffee on the tabletop, floor, or clothing. Sometimes all three, plus a bunny boot. This pot was purchased back in 1998 for use in the camp by my dear friend and colleague, Dr. Bill Stockton. He recently wrote to remind me that "the secret [to dribble-free pouring] was a medium rapid pour rate and a quick stop, but even that was tough. The shape of the lip of that thing is definitely bad." In 2005, Dr. Jack Harris joined our group and educated us about the Coanda effect, which explains our dribbler's bad habits.

After a pill and a dribble, it's time for morning check-in with McMurdo Station. Cecil has adopted this task and has multiple alarm systems in place to ensure that it happens on time. "Good morning MacOps, this is Cecil of project Golf 093 calling from New Harbor for our scheduled daily check-in. Five [or however many] souls are on board, and all is well. Have a nice day." Click.

Scratch eyes, and peek out into the world. I always look to the East at oft erupting Mount Erebus. If I want to fly to McMurdo that day, a clear view of Erebus usually means flights will happen.

I sincerely hope that Erebus is in full glory this morning...

Blasted dive holes

2008-10-26T02:25:00.000-04:00

We make dive holes two ways: blasting and melting. Blasting involves drilling a small hole through the ice using a "Jiffy Drill" and a carefully sharpened drill bit. Explosive experts ("blasters") then measure the ice thickness based on the length of the drill stem, and insert the appropriate amount of dynamite. They are meticulous in their work, and always ensure that everyone is a safe distance from the blast site. Some ejected ice chunks are the size of refrigerators -- you don't want one of those landing on your head! The countdown is given, and then the blaster shouts "fire in the hole, fire in the hole, fire in the hole!" Cameras click and the explosion is heard, followed by echoes and whoops of excitement from long-shadowed onlookers.

The holes are then cleared of slush and chunks of ice, a process called "mucking a hole." Mucking is hard work that is made a little more tolerable by singing songs, telling stories, or wearing silly clothing. The last step is for a diver to drop into the hole to figure out if it's wide enough for safety. We insist that holes are wide enough for at least two divers to fit through 14-18 ft (~5 meter) shafts. After all, that's how divers must ascend through the hole in case of an emergency.

Blasting dive holes sounds destructive, but one must remember some simple laws of physics. The vast majority of the blast energy is dissipated by fracturing ice and ejecting it into the atmosphere. (Water is an essentially non-compressible fluid, so most of that energy goes upwards.) The underwater shock wave that is created does not damage marine life in the vicinity -- in fact, we collect our specimens right under the holes.

Still, there is concern that the ears of nearby seals may be damaged by blasting, so one of the first things we do is to confirm that none are in the area (e.g., hauled out on the ice through tide cracks). If there are, we do not blast. A simple rule to minimize our impact on the environment as we conduct our studies.

A dusting of snow

2008-10-25T02:31:00.000-04:00

Today found a veil of snow on Hjorth Hill, which softened the appearance of the ice labyrinth. To the East, a blur of white obscured Mount Erebus.

Antarctic weather swings in extremes. The sun can beat down and warm your bones, while a sudden wind can sweep in to chill them. McMurdo has experienced high winds and blowing snow the past few days, keeping helicopters parked on their pads and holding our carpenter guests in camp for another two days.

Here, the only thing you can count on is unpredictability. And inevitability. The weather will change, and helicopters will come.

Home is where you hang your mask

2008-10-24T03:00:00.000-04:00

A team of seven carpenters arrived yesterday; today we have a beautiful dive shack on the ice. It is a seven-section Jamesway tent, manufactured during the Korean War era. These tents were once the workhorse shelters of the U.S. Antarctic Program, but they are now being replaced by more energy-efficient structures. We like "our" old Jamesway, though, because it has withstood the abuse of heavy equipment, sea water, and the weather.

We also like the "carps" who worked very hard for long hours in biting cold ... without them, there would be no comfy dive shack, and sampling here would be much more difficult. Lesson: modern science is all about teamwork, and it takes people from many trades to get the results that lead us forward.

The first task is, of course, to pick a good spot. Two days ago, Shawn and I found a clear patch of ice. We then mapped out where we should position the floor sections of the Jamesway. This involved some math. In the top picture, Shawn doesn't look too confident in my arithmetic. (It turns out I was only a few inches off.)

A Jamesway tent is constructed of 4 x 16-foot plywood floor sections, each assembled from two 4 x 8-foot boxes. (That doesn't make a lot of sense without a drawing; I'll make a schematic later.) The first step in assembly is to lay down the floor sections and pin them together. The carps then set up the wooden arches that support the canvas walls (middle picture). These walls are really canvas blankets insulated with horse hair. The blankets are pulled taught against the arches using ropes; where they join together the blankets are held by a special belt. Equipped with a diesel-burning "Preway" heater, the dive shack is toasty warm for drying our suits between dives (and for warming us up after getting out of the -2C/28F water!).

Our next job is to melt dive holes at either end of the dive shack, and to set up the air compressor used to fill scuba tanks. A few more days of work, and we can begin sampling.

I can't wait. We are now about 2 weeks behind schedule, with warm days looming ...

Introducing Cecil

2008-10-23T17:46:00.000-04:00

Cecilia Shin is one of our new divers. I'd describe her as a "compact ball of energy," eager to pitch in and help make things happen. Her family moved from Korea to the U.S. when she was four years old, and was raised in Los Angeles. She moved to Santa Cruz, where she met Steve Clabuesch. They've been happily married for two years now. Cecil and Steve are avid scuba divers, and I wouldn't be surprised if their wedding vows were voiced underwater.

The above photos show Cecil returning from her checkout dive at McMurdo Station, and blasting a dive hole at New Harbor. She's the third woman diver on my research program over the years ... I'm a very lucky scientist to be associated with such talented people!

Sunset in the Labyrinth

2008-10-22T22:28:00.000-04:00

Much of yesterday was spent navigating the ice labyrinth, trying to locate our dive sites and figuring out where to base dive operations. As the sun set behind the Kukri Hills, I spent a moment thinking about tomorrow -- both the real and metaphorical "tomorrows" -- and decided to focus on the tasks ahead. In the morning, carpenters and explosives experts arrive to blast dive holes and set up the dive shack. A total of 15 people, each with a job to do and a story to tell, will be in camp. It will be a busy day.

After aligning the solar panel to catch the last rays of light, it's time to say good night...

Explorers Cove Ice

2008-10-21T17:59:00.001-04:00

I mentioned that the ice is in very rough shape. This picture shows Mt. Coleman in the background, and the ice surface in the foreground. Traveling on this ice will be difficult. I doubt the snowmobiles can navigate between all the humps, bumps, and blocks.

The weekly dribble

2008-10-21T16:44:00.000-04:00

Greetings from the field camp at Explorers Cove, also known as "Camp New Harbor." Once again, the ice has lured me from home in Albany, NY ... and another research project begins.

Our science goal is to better understand how marine life becomes part of the fossil record in Antarctica. Three scientists have partnered to achieve this goal: Molly Miller (lead PI, Vanderbilt University), Sally Walker (co-PI, University of Georgia, Athens) and myself (co-PI, Wadsworth Center). Three expert divers are also key members of the team: Shawn Harper, Steve Clabuesch (dribbling coffee in the photo above), and Cecil Shin. Henry Kaiser - also a dive expert, as well as extraordinary musician and cinematographer - returns to help document our underwater study sites (and give me another guitar lesson). Claire Beynon - an artist and writer - also returns to help translate our science into formats that creative communities can enjoy. Together, I think we've assembled "The Research and Art/Science Dream Team."

One reason for this blog is to communicate weekly "happenings" from camp to K-12 teachers & students. A select group of teachers have collaborated with me over the years to engage students and develop curricula. I'm grateful to them for their hard work, and their profiles will appear here in future posts.

We are settling into camp life and there's tons of work to do, so I must be brief. Today we begin melting through the ice to make our first dive hole; others will be scoping out a site for our dive hut. The ice is in very bad shape, and working in the Cove will be extremely difficult. Everyone is up to the challenge, though!

And our infamous coffee pot has begun making dribbles...

Our best to you!

Dr.B