Fragle Rok
Join Fragle as he and his friends explore, learn, and laugh. We cover health, history, psychology, philosophy, and more! Fragle traveled with the Grateful Dead for 10 years before moving to Taiwan to teach English. Now in Asia, he is bringing the past to the present by discussing social issues such as addiction, trauma, and mental health. Get ready to Laugh and learn baby, Let's go!
Fragle Rok
Life and Research at an Antarctic Ukrainian Base
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From the frozen shores of Antarctica, entomologist Matan Shelomi takes us on an extraordinary journey into one of Earth's most extreme environments—and introduces us to its tiniest year-round inhabitant. Speaking from the Ukrainian research station on the Antarctic Peninsula, Shelomi shares his research on Belgica antarctica.
The conversation transforms into a virtual tour of Antarctic research life as Shalomi steps outside to reveal the stunning landscape and unexpected neighbors—approximately 6,000 gentoo penguins that build nests directly outside the research facility.
Ready to explore Antarctica through the eyes of a scientist? Join us for this fascinating expedition to Earth's southernmost continent, where cutting-edge research meets penguin highways and the secrets of survival are hidden in the gut bacteria of one tiny, remarkable fly.
Introduction to Antarctic Entomology
Speaker 1All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of Fraggle and Friends. Today I have a dear friend to join me, matan Shalomi. Did I say that right? Yeah, all right, Beautiful, beautiful, and, matan, you are an entomologist. Am I correct about that? Correct, awesome, what is an entomologist?
Speaker 2That would be a scientist who studies insects.
Speaker 1What the hell are you doing in Antarctica studying penguins?
Speaker 2There is one insect native and only found in Antarctica. There's two that are native. There's one that's only found here. That's what I came way, way down here to study Tiny fly with no wings how does it fly? It doesn't fly, it walks right on.
Speaker 1So what did you say? There's two insects that are native to antarctica, but only one that yeah, the other one.
Speaker 2So there's two little flies. Uh, there's another one that you can also find in the southern tip of Chile and Argentina, but that's less interesting to me. This is the one that I'm studying. It's called Belgica Antarctica. It's named after a ship from Belgium that came to Antarctica a long time ago and obviously named after Antarctica. That one you can only find in the western part of the little tail of Antarctica, on the peninsula and like some little nearby islands, but it doesn't exist outside of Antarctica proper.
Speaker 1Jesus, I don't know anything about Antarctica, except for I don't know. It's amazing and a dream place to go.
Speaker 2I'm learning a lot from being here. So I think legally anything south of 60 degrees south like the latitude is Antarctica. So there's the Antarctica Treaty that says anything below this area. It's sort of like the planet's stuff, like no country can lay claim to any of the land here. Everyone has to and essentially anyone can come antarctica and like do research as long as you're not there to like obviously damage the uh, the continent. You can't do anything military here. Um yeah, so essentially the continent's not protected and shared by all these different countries.
Speaker 1Different countries have different bases in antarctica I think I did excuse me an episode with patty on patty and the yank a long time ago about shackleton shackleton shipwreck, that was that in antarctica, that's the one. Okay, that was like, and I don't remember the story at all, but that's where you are. Um, how long have you been there? And I don't remember the story at all, but that's where you are.
Speaker 2How long have you been there? I got here. End of. I think I've been here two weeks yeah. I think we've had two or three Saturdays. Yeah, I guess.
Speaker 1I've been here two weeks so far and I've got another like three weeks to go. Wow, three weeks to go. Hell, yeah, hell, yeah. God, you travel more than anybody, I know, you know that I try but usually it's just for fun, am I right? This is more of a research adventure?
Speaker 2yeah, yeah, yeah. So people do come to antarctica for tourism if they have an incredible amount of money. It costs thousands of dollars to get down here, but I can come here for research, which means I'm not paying a penny are you coming here through your university that you teach for?
Speaker 2no, not really um I'm right now at the of all places, the ukrainian base uh, vernedsky station in the peninsula and um. The ukrainians have paid for me to come here, so they I had to fly down on my own pocket to chile, and from the tip of chile and punta arenas I boarded an ukrainian icebreaker that sailed for about four days to reach the base here in antarctica, and I'm living here four days on an icebreaker yeah, there was no ice but uh, but there was, but there was ocean as an icebreaker, a ship that can break through ice yeah, I mean right now it's summer in antarctica, so there's icebergs, but you don't need to break through any ice to get around wow, it's summer, what's?
Speaker 1what's the weather like wait. It's summer, right. What's the weather like Wait it's summer right now. There, the southern hemisphere has reverse seasons, so right now, it's Antarctic summer, so in South America would it also be summer.
Speaker 2Yep anywhere south of the equator.
Speaker 1Whoa right on, that's wild.
Speaker 2Yeah, which is why it's so sunny right now. I can take you outside and show you.
Speaker 1Yeah, let's go Okay later.
Speaker 2whatever, I'm actually in the middle of a little experiment, but yeah, I'll take you out there soon enough, so you're in the South. You're in the South Pole. I'm not at the South Pole. If you can picture Antarctica in your head, there's the little tail bit. That's the peninsula.
Speaker 1Okay.
Speaker 2So I peninsula okay. So like I'm around there, I'm at 65. It's not, when you think about it, it's kind of like through, like northern scandinavia if it was on the north, like it's not super far south, but antarctica is just really really really big, uh.
Speaker 1So I'm not at the south pole proper, but I'm still pretty damn south uh, wow, I I wonder if they have the extended days where it doesn't ever get dark.
Speaker 2Yeah, that goes down there I don't think we're that far south. The sun sets here around like 10 pm and rises at like 3 am. It never gets all that dark, there's always like a little bit of sun.
Speaker 1That's a lot of sun man, Wow. Well, that's in lot of sun man, Wow.
Speaker 2Well, that's I mean in summer. In winter it's reversed and it's going to be dark for like all that time and you get like five hours of sunlight.
Speaker 1OK, wow, like that movie 30 Days of Night. That's crazy I've heard of like white. I read a book, silke, the sequel, sequel to the tattooist of auschwitz, and she said there's something they call white knights, which is just like the sun never goes down that's crazy.
Life at Ukrainian Antarctic Research Base
Speaker 2Um yeah, so here or more south you would, and certainly the south pole, you'd have that same phenomenon. Uh issue here is that during winter it will fill up with ice, so even the icebreaker can't make it to the base itself, and so if you're they do have overwintering teams and you're just stuck. You have like eight months where nothing gets in or out so what, what?
Speaker 1what are the people like?
Speaker 2well, they're all ukrain, ukrainian I'm actually the only. I think I'm the. Well, I am the first foreign researcher here since the Russian invasion, but still they're cool, they're friendly. A few of them speak English, but it's great. So, like half of them are people who are already overwintered. They're going to leave on April. That's the end of their season season. The others are also like seasonal workers that came here for the summer, like me, um, but everyone works together. We all have to do our duties. We clean the, um, clean the base every week, uh, taking turns with uh various chores. You know especially, you're all kind of in this together, so everyone depends on everyone for their survival.
Speaker 1Sounds like a monastery.
Speaker 2Actually I need to check on. I got two minutes. I'm standing near a freezer. I've got some experiments running.
Speaker 1What are you?
Speaker 2doing All right. So my research, the project I came up with to justify coming down to Antarctica, is. I'm checking the gut bacteria in the insect to see if they change its freezing point. This thing can survive being frozen, but not too much, so I'm curious what are the factors that help it freeze?
Speaker 1wow. Are there other creatures like can an alligator freeze I?
Speaker 2don't know about an alligator, but there are quite a few animals that can completely freeze. A few frogs do it, I know.
Speaker 1They have their own form of defrost in their body, right, yeah, so they have various ways to preserve their body, even as they're freezing.
Speaker 2We can't do it, but these frogs can do it really well. They freeze, they're frozen solid. But the way it works is they have some chemicals that will ensure that the ice crystallizes outside of their cells, somewhere it won't do any harm, like in the blood or in the gut or just not in the tissue itself, and then they have antifreeze that will keep the crystals from growing too much. And then they need to find some way to generate energy without oxygen, because if you're frozen you're not breathing, your heart heart isn't pumping. So staying alive while frozen is really tricky. But it is amazing, you have things like like vertebrates, like frogs, that can do it well, how do they stay alive?
Speaker 2I mean, what do you mean?
Speaker 1I don't know like how can it? It can just freeze for like I wonder how long, like a whole winter, and then when it up it just comes back to life Almost like it was frozen dead.
Speaker 2Yeah, pretty much, so you can do like the whole cryo freezing thing for those guys pretty easily.
Speaker 1I was about to say, is that where, like writers and scientists got their idea of what's it called? What did you just say? Cryo freezing?
Speaker 2Cryo preservation. I don't know if we got it from the frogs, but the frogs are definitely doing it.
Speaker 1But if we could do the same thing the frogs? Do we could do that right.
Speaker 2So far we haven't succeeded with humans. Hold that thought I've got to check something in the fridge. You want to see what the outside is like?
Speaker 1Sure, yeah, it's definitely summer. Well, that's a blue sky man. We don't have any of those in taiwan right now. It's raining cold. Welcome that's. That's the water that's the water.
Speaker 2Have you thought about jumping in it? I did, briefly. There's a. There's a sauna on base, so after you warm up, you can jump in the water and cool off oh my god, that's awesome very cool. You cannot stay there for too long.
Speaker 1You can see there's a lot of construction going on.
Speaker 2It's summertime. It's the only time you can do any construction oh, that makes sense you see this weird blue thing with like a frame of a house. Yeah, so that's um sort of like a little art project or museum that the Ukrainians built. It's in the style of a traditional Ukrainian house, it has some information about Ukraine and things like that.
Speaker 1It's like a museum. Is that what you said?
Speaker 2Yeah, or like an art project. You can see all the fuel tanks that keep us alive Wow. This building has three different diesel generators, one running at any time. They provide heat and electricity and warm water.
Speaker 1Wow.
Speaker 2That's the base. That's where I've been living. That's home for the moment the Vernadsky Academia Base.
Speaker 1Wow, You've been there for two weeks and you've got three weeks to go.
Speaker 2Yep, assuming the weather doesn't keep me stranded for longer.
Speaker 1How do you feel? Is it mentally challenging, Do you feel claustrophobic or do you just love it?
Speaker 2I'm zooming in. Can you see the penguins? I'll get closer to a penguin later.
Speaker 1Do they.
Speaker 2I don't know if I can see them?
Speaker 1Are they like deer there, you know?
Speaker 2Deer pigeons, rats, whatever they are.
Speaker 1Back home. Deer just run around in the forest and shit Are penguins. The deer of Antarctica, they're always running around.
Speaker 2I mean there's a bunch of penguins here on this island. Yeah, they are kind of like deer. They're just. They shouldn't be this close to people, but they want to be here, so they're everywhere. They're right outside my window at night. It's terrible. Get the fuck, why are?
Speaker 1they loud. Yeah, they're loud all night long. What kind of sound do they make?
Speaker 2It's all sorts of like squawks. I got used to it, Like after like a few days I no longer needed earplugs to sleep.
Speaker 1I just like sleep through the penguin noise that sounds like crows in India. Man, that would drive. They just start at like five, five, 30 in the morning every morning.
Speaker 2I don't know what are they doing at this at that hour they seem to get into fights or they're really cute. The babies are pretty big. They haven't put on their adult fur feathers yet, but they're still by the nest.
Speaker 1Yeah, the babies are adorable really have you touched one not allowed to touch penguins? Are they protected? Yep, all the animals, all the penguins?
Speaker 2Are they protected? Yep, all the animals, all the penguins, are protected. Yeah, we shouldn't get. I don't know the distances, like 5 meters, 20 meters, something outrageous. Now, here at the base, the penguins don't know about the rule, so the penguins have built their nest right outside the doors of the building. So the penguins have built their nest right outside the doors of the building. I was trying yesterday, actually, yesterday I went to the sauna, like I mentioned, and a penguin was just on the path. So I'm like well, I need to get through you, but I can't get to.
Speaker 2There's like two penguins, it's like nine of them so um yeah, not much we can do when the penguins aren't, aren't um paying attention to the the distance rules, but uh, yeah, so no, no, but we don't, you don't touch the penguin, that's not allowed. Uh, also, they have razor sharp beaks, so that wouldn't end well for you either are they kind of violent? The penguins on the base. Here are gen 2 penguins which are pretty peaceful. Uh, other penguins can be really aggressive, I've been told, like adele penguins and chinstrap penguins are just vicious and mean really the gentoo penguins we have on base here are adorable.
Speaker 2They they'll get out of your way, but um, but yeah, now I'm not going to touch the penguin. I know the rules there's. If you're going to come to antarctica to do research, you have to be responsible is there anybody eating penguin?
Research on Freezing Point Bacteria
Speaker 2nobody's eaten a penguin for decades. Um, obviously, when the you know the first explorers, shackleton and the like, came here, they I'm guaranteed they ate a penguin or two. Um, nobody eats them anymore because they're all protected, so all the food has to come in from. Actually, that's where I am now. These giant freezers are full of food. Uh, you can see behind me. Here we have water and like juice everything is stored here like uh, remember during the winter. It's summer now, but during winter they are living off whatever they brought with them.
Speaker 2So right whatever all the food is brought in, like fresh food, runs out pretty quick, uh, during winter. So it's all preserved stuff and canned stuff and frozen stuff. So lots of meat, um, and frozen fruits, frozen veggies, whatever they can freeze, um. So right now it's summer, which means you saw the water. We do get ships here. We do get cruise boats. I mentioned the, the rich tourists. So cruise ships will come in and they'll send like tourists on a little zodiac, like a little inflatable boats, to the base, and we do so.
Speaker 2The ukrainian base gives a free tour. Uh, tourists are welcome to come to the ukrainian base through proper channels. Um, tourists are welcome to come to the Ukrainian base through proper channels. It's perfectly free. For two reasons. One, the Ukrainians want to show that they're still here, even with all that's going on. They still have a base, they're still doing important science and they want to show the world like we haven't left, we're not leaving where our base isn't going anywhere. But also, the tour boats come with fresh fruits and vegetables as a gift. Oh, nice, we still get fresh fruits. Now that it's summer, it's like, yes, the cruise captains all know the base people and bring us treats and things like that, but no, no, it's mostly to show people ukraine is still here and the tourists will actually donate money. They um some of the scientists who used to work here unfortunately had to go back to ukraine to fight in the military. Uh, so they do collect um donations here for the military penguins, as they're called um huh wow, yeah.
Speaker 2So everyone at least all the men that are on the base here, I think are either too old or too young to be to be serving right now so they're all scientists no, um, there's a couple of scientists not too many.
Speaker 2Um, there's right now, in the summer, a whole bunch of construction workers. Um, you have a diesel guy whose job is to just maintain the diesel engines, because we all freeze to death without them. Uh, you got the it guy who does the internet, the, the starlink that's connecting you and me right now that's what you're on.
Speaker 1You're on starlink I'm on starlink.
Speaker 2Yeah, wow, bringing, bringing continents together. There's like there's a doctor, there's a cook, the cook's awesome the food here is amazing. The cook does fantastic. He works really, really hard, but the food is so good and plentiful there's always snacks. I'm not starving here what are you eating?
Speaker 2Ukrainian food, so borscht occasionally. I don't know all the foods. We had one day where we all made like I'm not starving here, what are you eating? Ukrainian food, so borscht occasionally. See, I don't know all the foods. We had one day where we all made like, not pierogi baroniki, like the Ukrainian equivalent of a pierogi. But there's all sorts of stuff. There's chips and candies and snacks. All the time For birthdays the chef will make a cake, and then there's all these, all these. Yeah, yeah, he's probably the hardest working on the base I would say the chef he takes sundays off.
Speaker 2Uh, sundays, everyone else has to cook instead of him right on. Wow, ukrainian food borscht kind of thing I know. Yeah, that's like a spelling board. It's a soup with, like, cabbage, beets, beets, definitely beets. It's red.
Speaker 1Love beets, hell yeah.
Speaker 2The food here is great. The people are really friendly. You kind of have to be if you're going to be living together for months at a time with no chance of going anywhere. The base is small. The island is pretty small too. If you don't get along with someone too bad.
Speaker 1Are there any women on the base?
Speaker 2Yep, there are a few women on the base. I think there's like 7 or 10 women and maybe 20 men. It's like 7 women and 23 men at the moment. We just got a huge bunch of guys who are construction workers who build new stuff for the moment, and again, we just got a huge bunch of guys who are construction workers who build new stuff for the base. But no, the doctor, a bunch of the scientists are women here.
Speaker 1Wow, what's the temperature right now?
Speaker 2Temperature is it's summer, so it's nice and hot. One degree Celsius, wait, what would that be in fahrenheit um, I don't know, like 34 really yeah, 133, 34. If zero is 32, I'm guessing one is like 33, 34 yeah, 34 well let's call it 34 fahrenheit that's still colder than it ever gets in taiwan.
Speaker 2Yes, it snowed a few days ago. Yeah, that's amazing, yeah, but it's uh, because it is above zero. Um, like, during winter, it's covered in snow. The the water that you saw would have been solid frozen, like I don't know if you can walk across it, but you definitely can't sail a ship through it. Um, everything's covered. No, everything is beautiful. Um, right now it's all melted, so it's all just brown rocks and penguin shit everywhere. Penguin, this penguin shit, big penguin shit constantly. That's the problem. And they project out really they project.
Speaker 2It shoots out at like like two feet away from their buttholes, like even the little baby one it's actually. It was a scientific mystery how they get that much pressure from a little bird to shoot yeah, of poop. Uh, I can send you a video, I thought, of penguin pooping. It's remarkable. Um, yeah, maybe later, uh, we can go to another location. I'll take you closer to the penguins, we'll see if any of them poop.
Speaker 1Have you been shat upon?
Speaker 2No, no, no, I don't get that part.
Speaker 1Are there polar bears there?
Speaker 2Nope Polar bears are in the North Pole.
Speaker 1I thought so Right on.
Speaker 2There's seals here. There's the leopard seal which will eat the penguins um crab eaters weddell's. So they're not on the base at the moment, but I've been on like the boats out to other islands and I've seen seals, really seals and whales, whoa whoa which they're, they're all protected, am I right?
Speaker 2everything in antarctica is protected. You can't, um, well, not everything. Um, there's, there's fishing like krill. You know krill, the food of the whales, it is like little shrimpy things. Um, yeah, those are fish. Uh, you can probably find even in, like a health food store in taiwan, like Antarctic Krill, like fish oil from Antarctic Krill.
Speaker 1I've seen it, yeah.
Speaker 2Yeah, so I haven't seen a fishing boat, but that's something that's collected in parts of Antarctica.
Speaker 1Cod oil is a popular supplement. I was thinking, maybe I saw that in an organic store as well.
Speaker 2But I know they have cod in the north. I don't know if there's cod down here. There might be.
Speaker 1But I know they have cod in the north. I don't know if there's cod down here. There might be.
Speaker 2So are you eating fresh local seafood or all imported frozen stuff? So fish are caught. They do collect fish at the base for science purposes. They're checking for parasites and stuff. After you do the research, you're not supposed to eat them that's all I'm gonna say but no, almost everything here is uh imported, so wow frozen fish, canned fish, canned fish, eggs and seafood like that. Yeah, life here is mostly on preserved food.
Speaker 1Wow, Far out, man. That's crazy. What are? So you're studying gut bacteria in the wingless fly.
Speaker 2Yep, little Belgica, antarctica.
Speaker 1So you can find that fly.
Summer in Antarctica: First Penguin Sighting
Speaker 2Yep, you can find right now. The larvae are available. They're little purple worms like I don't know, half a centimeter long. Technically they are the biggest terrestrial animal in Antarctica because the penguins can swim, so they don't count. Penguins are aquatic.
Speaker 2So out of all the things that live on the land that can't swim or fly, this tiny insect is the biggest. Wow, it's wild. There are other things on the land. You got little mit little springtails. All of them teeny tiny, um, but I've been going out. You find them in, like under the moss or under rocks, um, uh, bird nests and penguin nests. You can find them, yeah. So I've been collecting those, taking them to the lab, dissecting them, culturing the microbes. And experiment I'm doing right here is checking what temperature they will make water freeze. Have you had success?
Speaker 1No, so far none of them seem to be.
Speaker 2I expected most of them would not have an effect on. Most of them would not be ice nucleating. But the important thing is I'm collecting them. We're going to get permits to send the bacteria to Ukraine and to Taiwan, if possible. Put them in collections so we can analyze the bacteria later. Either way, we're going to learn a lot about the bacteria of this little larva, so my work here will not be completely wasted, no matter what?
Speaker 1Right on, totally so you.
Speaker 2So you sent like a proposal to the ukrainian government I sent it to the ukrainian researchers and I guess they worked for the government, yeah and um, they arranged, they invited me. They were I. I asked them like, hey, is there any kind of collaboration we can do? And in the first email back they were like, yeah, sure, why don't you come to antarctica? We host you on the base, we'll pay for your icebreaker.
Speaker 1I was like, oh, that's a generous offer yeah, you don't have to work right now.
Speaker 2I am working my day job as a professor. It's currently the if it's not winter break, then I am. I took a sabbatical for the semester because I knew I would be gone for part of it. So I am working, just not in the office.
Speaker 1Got you, yeah, so like some of this will go back to the university.
Speaker 2We're going to bring. There's only so much we can do on this base. So this base was actually built by the British. It's a meteorological station. Mostly they check the weather, they're measuring the magnetic field of the Earth, which is pretty cool, but they didn't originally do any biology work here. So there's a lot of bio equipment but not everything. So if we want to do any sequencing to identify species genetically, that has to be done in a country. We're going to send the samples back to Ukraine. My collaborator there is gonna identify the bacteria. Uh, I'll do some stuff in taiwan too, if possible wow.
Speaker 1So you're taking these tiny, tiny larvae and dissecting them like under a microscope?
Speaker 2uh, I'm squishing them. They're so small there's no point dissecting, so I'm just like sterilize it and then crush it and then plate the goo on like a petri dish. Uh, it's growing like I'm seeing the microbes. But well, you're having trouble freezing them no, it's just um. I'm not seeing the ice nucleating microbe yet.
Speaker 2Hey, maybe I'll find one, but um you're not saying the what so I'm looking for a specific bacteria that will increase the temperature where water freezes. You know how you have, like, indoor ski areas that like have artificial snow. So the way they make that is, there's a bacteria that will raise to a freezing point of water by like two or three degrees and they mass produce this bacteria. You add it to water and the water turns into snow. Wow. So I'm trying to find similar bacteria to that.
Speaker 1So that means it can get colder without freezing, is that right?
Speaker 2The other way, it'll freeze without getting colder it'll freeze without getting colder Right.
Speaker 1Why would I want to do?
Speaker 2that. So water you may. Have you ever heard of the of super cooling? I don't think so. Maybe heard of super heating, like if you like, try to microwave water? Have you heard that If you like microwave water in like a new container, it'll like raise above boiling points and then you'd like move it or something and they'll suddenly boil? No, that's crazy oh well, anyway, uh now I have, that's super heating.
Speaker 2Cooling is the opposite. So let's say you bring water down to like zero. Okay, that's supposed to be the freezing point of water, but it won't actually freeze unless the water molecules have something that they can attach to and start crystallizing. It's called like an ice nucleator. If you have like pure water, it actually won't properly freeze unless there's something for it to connect to so it can super cool. You can actually bring it down to like minus one, minus two, minus three, and it'll still be a liquid because it doesn't have something for it to freeze onto. These bacteria I'm looking at are ice nucleators. The water will freeze if it touches them. They have proteins that are really good for making water freeze. So if you add that to the water and the water is cold enough, it will freeze. It still has to be below zero, but it'll freeze, whereas otherwise water might super cool.
Speaker 1So you're saying just pure water won't freeze?
Speaker 2Most of the times it will, but it needs something to like. It needs some point where it can form the crystal like a bit of dirt or like something Dirt, something in the air, yeah.
Speaker 2But you have these. You know you don't want to ski on dirty snow, so you have these other um, these little microbes that help water crystallize, and they're everywhere. Like these microbes are on plants. During the, during the clouds, they help, like water, turn into ice, so they're not rare. Um, I'm just curious to see if I can find them in the, in the insects here wow, did you know that, if?
Speaker 1I think? I was just talking to somebody in Dubai and they said if they fly up to the clouds and put salt in the clouds, some kind of salt and that will make the cloud rain.
Speaker 2Yeah, same kind of idea. Yeah, the water will bind to the salt and start to. Essentially it will go out of the liquid state or the gas state and turn to liquid.
Speaker 1Wow, according to according to Michio Kaku I think he's an astrophysicist Like that's when we level up in terms of getting closer to becoming a god, when we can control the weather, it's pretty crazy.
Speaker 2They're looking at this for also, like I mentioned, like the animals that survive by freezing.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Some other animals. They use a different strategy. They have, um, they get rid of all the ice nucleators in their body. So they like empty their gut of any like food, um, and try to purge this stuff so that they can.
Speaker 2Super cool, they will be below zero, but they won't be frozen oh, okay so that's like there are all these strategies to survive extreme cold, like if you're lucky, you know if you're lucky. One strategy is to freeze and just like wait out the winter as a popsicle, uh. Another is to super cool, so it's below freezing around you and you are below freezing but you're not frozen, you can still walk around um. And the other strategy is to just not be in that cold um where these larvae that I study live. It's like even if it's cold out here, it's never that cold. Where they are they're like in the moss, it's kind of warm under the snow, it's kind of like an igloo. So they might never actually experience freezing cold temperatures, even sometimes during winter.
Speaker 1So they find warmer areas.
Speaker 2Yeah, you know they're small, but they're in like little relatively warm pockets.
Speaker 1Wow. So the only other way for creatures to survive the cold is by removing the ice nucleators from their body?
Speaker 2No, there's two strategies you could remove them and then you won't freeze, or you could make them. Two strategies you could remove them and then you won't freeze, or you could make them. Like you, some animals or insects or bacteria, they make their own ice nucleating chemicals. The idea there is that you'll freeze sooner but you'll freeze slower. So you will freeze because you're making these ice nucleators, but you freeze at a rate that your body can deal with the the changes in the water level. The ice is going to pull water out of your cells so you're kind of dehydrating, which could kill you. But if it's done the right way, the body can recover. You can make these other chemicals, cryoprotectants that will keep the cell from being destroyed and dehydration there's. It's complicated to survive in cold weather, but there's many different strategies that different organisms use to do it All right. I promised you penguins. You want to see penguins?
Penguin Behavior and Family Structure
Speaker 1You're taking us on a penguin tour. Eh, waddle, that's so cute, that's so cute. These are nice penguins, huh.
Speaker 2Well, relatively.
Speaker 1They kind of jump and waddle.
Speaker 2Yeah, they can jump. They can climb rocks by jumping. I they kind of jump and waddle. Yeah, they can jump. They can climb rocks by jumping.
Speaker 1I think Gabby's hungry. Do they flap their wings?
Speaker 2Maybe, yep, he's going to get some food, lovely.
Speaker 1Can you zoom in on your camera?
Speaker 2I'll try. Let's see what I can do. There we go, fish vomit.
Speaker 1Fish vomit. Breakfast of champions deep throat in his baby's head gosh you haven't, do you? Do you know anything about penguins, like their life expectancy or how many babies they have?
Speaker 2per year or the population or any fun facts like that. Sure I can give you some. Uh, I learned a little bit. So these are gentoo's gentoo penguins. They have anywhere from one to three babies. It looks like two is pretty common. Um, mom and dad. You can't tell the sexes apart from looking. But one of them is going to stay behind, the other one's going to go to get food. Then they take places. So this could be a mom guarding her babies, or it could be dad guarding his babies and their partner is out in the ocean collecting fish. They're going to come back, do the uh, the pukey thing and then the other parent is going to switch those two, those two laying down.
Speaker 1They look like they're dead. I'm guessing they're not no, they're sleepy okay, um, so so they don't have ascribed gender roles, like it's not always the man that goes out and gets the food, or always the woman um, oh cute yeah yeah, no, um, it looks like boys and girls do the same thing here. And there we go. There's a.
Speaker 2Yeah, so you'll notice they have rocks on their nest. They will occasionally steal rocks from others. Wow, okay, Someone's hungry. They don't do much if someone steals their rock. They just kind of open their beak and yell at them. But uh, that's about it. Gosh, they're hungry.
Speaker 1He's like fuck you, I'm out. Oh man, that's the old wise penguin, huh.
Speaker 2Uh huh. But the little ones are getting big, so pretty soon they're going to switch from their fluffy gray feathers and they're going to look more like the adults, like black with the white patch on the top, and then they're going to go out to the sea.
Speaker 1It looks like a bird.
Speaker 2Oh, penguins? Yeah, no, they do look like little pigeons from the right angle. Wow they're birds.
Speaker 1I never pictured a penguin as a bird, but it moves its head like a bird. I mean technically it is a bird, right.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, yeah, the head is totally like a pigeon head to me, totally, 100%.
Speaker 1That's wild. Not the way that Disney portrays them. Wow, so bird-like, like that's crazy, yeah, that one's flapping away in the background oh yeah yeah he stopped.
Speaker 2Yeah, so that's the noise that keeps me up at night I can't.
Speaker 1I haven't really heard any noises. I think I just heard like a little like, but that's about it. Oh, look at that one when he opens it. It's so cute.
Speaker 2They walk, they hold their wings back like that, like they're Naruto running.
Speaker 1Dude, this is so cool man I'm done.
Speaker 2I'm going to get more food Go back to your brother.
Speaker 1How old do they live to be?
Speaker 2I'm afraid I don't know that.
Speaker 1I can look it up. That's a pretty interesting question. We've got the breach on its way. I'm kidding.
Speaker 2I guess he's taking his time. Yeah, you got more. Yeah, so they're probably coming back from the ocean with a belly full of fish to puke it out for their babies. That's how they feed the babies.
Speaker 1Yep through puke.
Speaker 2Sometimes they make like a sound before they throw up. It's like humans, really. Yeah, yeah, sometimes they do. Yeah, sometimes they do.
Speaker 1The average lifespan of a penguin is 15 to 20 years in the wild, but some can live longer. Penguins in captivity can live up to 30. Dude, this says lifespan by species Emperor penguin, king penguin and little penguin. But there's no gen. Did you say gen 2 penguin?
Speaker 2Oh, these are gen 2. I don't know.
Speaker 1I don't see a Gen 2 on here.
Speaker 2Oh well, it's out there somewhere.
Speaker 1Wow for the king penguins. 50% of chicks die from winter starvation.
Speaker 2Oh, the king penguin lives more south, I think where it's way colder, there's less food.
Speaker 1Young penguins have a high mortality rate. Wow, emperor penguin chicks oh, babies are called chicks. There's less food. Young penguins have a high mortality rate. Wow, emperor penguin chicks oh, babies are called chicks, emperor penguin. Chicks have a 90% mortality rate within their first year of life. That's harsh, and smaller chicks are more likely to die when mortality affects a species that produces two offspring. Pretty crazy. I don't know anything about penguins.
Speaker 2Yeah, occasionally you'll see one here that has three babies and the parents are super skinny because they've they're taking care of three instead of two.
Speaker 1Oh wow, when you call it gen two, I thought you meant like generation two. No, it's like.
Speaker 2G.
Speaker 1G E NN-T-O-O Gen 2. Yeah.
Speaker 2You're reading about penguins. I take it.
Speaker 1I was. I was trying to find the Gen 2 penguin. I did. Here we go. I've got a couple things about them. They're monogamous, yep, only during breeding season, though, yeah, and the females lay one egg and then return to the sea for up to two months. Oh, the male takes care of the egg. Okay, penguins lose all of their feathers at once, rather than gradually. Huh, penguins lose all of their feathers at once, rather than gradually. Huh, penguins can porpoise. Penguins can porpoise through water to increase their speed.
Speaker 2That makes sense. Yeah, they can like jet out of the water and jump. Yeah, yeah, like that's how they get out of the water. They just rock it out.
Speaker 1Oh shit, yeah, yeah, like that's how they ordered, they just rock it out. No shit, uh was penguins work together to create passageways through the ice called penguin highways to transport food.
Speaker 2Yeah, here they are really right there I'm showing you penguin highway. Oh, there's a human on it in these snow paths for like all winter. So penguins just sort of. Eventually just the path gets dug into the snow, oh yeah, I thought you meant those like.
Speaker 1I thought they were like tunnels at first no, just no.
Speaker 2I mean practically a tunnel. It's deep, yeah, just keep walking the same little path all the time, so gets worn down. There's no penguin on the path right now. I would. I would show you what happens if you get in his way what, what, uh.
Speaker 1What time is it there right now? It's almost 12 noon okay, man, the water looks beautiful, it's really beautiful and really cold. You've got to jump in. I'd be jumping in that every day.
Speaker 2Of course you would.
Speaker 1I'm sure it's hard man, I'm sure it's so cold.
Speaker 2Hey guys, I love walking, that walk.
Speaker 1They always put their arms back like that.
Speaker 2Yeah, it's adorable. They're taking the highway, see Friend following them, oh, they diverged. Different path, down it goes.
Speaker 1They are funny man. They got a lot of fat, but I'm guessing it's a lot of blubber. Uh-huh, I assume. Yeah, you gotta have blubber to survive in the Antarctic or the Arctic, right.
Speaker 2Yeah, especially in the water, Ugh.
Speaker 1Yeah, true that they're like out in the water. What did I just read? Something about them being in the water for two months.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1What if they can really yeah for months? Yeah, what if they can really yeah for two months?
Speaker 2I wonder if they can really stay in the water the whole time. Occasionally they'll hop onto an iceberg to rest huh.
Antarctic Facts and Scientific Research
Speaker 1So I wonder what keeps them from freezing huh blubber.
Speaker 2Well, they're warm.
Speaker 1Well, they're warm-blooded like us, so they can raise their body temperature oh, okay, I'm gonna say sea ice is important for penguins, especially emperor penguins, for breeding and molting. I don't know what molting means.
Speaker 2Cutting their feathers. Molting is when they lose their feathers or change their feathers, okay.
Speaker 1Penguin colonies can contain thousands of individuals.
Speaker 2On the island there's like 6,000 penguins.
Speaker 1Whoa, where you are right now, there's about 6 000 penguins, uh, coming and going to the ocean and back. Yep, let me ask a great question what ocean is that?
Speaker 2and they're all sleeping, the babies. I think noon is when they take their nap no, that's about the right time, little siesta they look so adorable, little pancakes they eat krill, squid and fish.
Speaker 1Well, you can also legally eat all three of those things, right, sure, I just can't eat the thing.
Speaker 2Yeah, they're very, very bird-like.
Speaker 1That's surprising oh yeah, they're very, very bird, like that's surprising.
Speaker 2Well, yeah, they're a bird.
Speaker 1You're right, though they look like a pigeon.
Speaker 2They have that dumb pigeon face.
Speaker 1Oh, I heard it. Dude, you gotta try to get a microphone out there. You need a boomstick.
Speaker 2I don't know if we have one on base. It would take a long while to order one you gonna make me sound? No, I don't.
Speaker 1Is anybody there researching? Penguins or are they all researching? I don't know other stuff.
Speaker 2We don't have a dedicated penguin researcher, but I think every winter they count the penguins, so they go across the island and count all of them. They study other things Occasionally. I think they will get a bird person who does bird stuff, but there's there's other other research going on. They're looking at algae in the snow. They're looking at, like, the magnetic uh field of the earth.
Speaker 1Oh yeah, I wanted to ask you about that.
Speaker 2The magnetic field of the earth yeah, let me see if I can show you. Uh, it's pretty damn far out but I can't zoom in any further. But there's a white building way out in the distance that's measuring the magnetic field. We actually can't go near it with any metal or it'll be, uh, the sensors. But it tells you, like where the actual like magnetic south pole is. And that's critical because that's how, like a lot of like navigation and maps work. If the south pole is moving a little bit, which it it is the poles are always moving. You know, you got to know this, so you can like fix the maps the poles move the poles move.
Speaker 2The poles are not, uh, are not stable. Magnetic pole shift.
Speaker 1Really Yep, naturally, or does something affect or cause it?
Speaker 2Oh, naturally, it always does that.
Speaker 1Okay, so they're naturally just sort of like vibrating and shifting around.
Speaker 2Yeah, so the poles of the Earth shift. They'll even switch over millions of years, but we've got to keep an eye on it so we know how to get the ships to navigate properly.
Speaker 1I learned recently that the equator of the sun rotates faster than the poles. Did you know that? Huh, cool, yeah, that is cool, right. Yeah, also, that the sun and all stars are made of the exact same two things. Do you know what they are? Hydrogen and helium. Bam, baby, baby. I didn't know that six months ago. Yeah, the babies look a little different.
Speaker 2Huh, they're a little bit more gray yeah, and they don't have the uh, the white patch on their head, but it's coming. Uh, I see some that are not here right now, but there's some that are older and they're starting to get like the little white bit and the the black feathers underneath are showing. So once they lose all that gray fluff and they start to look like they're adults, they're going to be ready to swim. Oh, good morning.
Speaker 1Wow, and they live 15 to 20 years, is that right?
Speaker 2I guess so. So yeah, this is right outside of work. We have no control over where they build their nests. They put it where they please.
Speaker 1That's where you live and work.
Speaker 2Yeah, part of the building straight ahead that's the dorm area and the rest is all labs.
Speaker 1And everybody there, the 27 people. They all live in the same dorm.
Speaker 2Yeah, there's like 30 people here now. Yeah, it's a little overcrowded. We got people in sleeping bags in the attic.
Speaker 1Wow. Yeah, but you gotta do what you gotta do. Do you have heating indoor like yeah, no it's, it's fantastic in there. I don't need to wear a jacket indoors okay, so not like a space heater, like actual, like uh, like heat.
Speaker 2Okay, wow you know it's a. It's a. It's a modern facility. We've got heating, we've got toilets that flush, we've got desalinated water Everything you need to live, as long as the generator keeps running.
Speaker 1Well, it sounds like the complete opposite of the aboriginal mountains. I just stayed in.
Speaker 2Mm definitely.
Speaker 1Little chicks.
Speaker 2They're dirty.
Speaker 1No, they don't Are they dirty or is that just their color? No, they're dirty. Oh, they don't know. Are they dirty or is that just their color?
Speaker 2no, they're dirty, they're covered in mud and poop. These two are just like dirty kids yeah, they've been out playing all day.
Speaker 1They're nasty. They can't be that smart, can they? They don't look that brilliant, no I just mean like birds in general. Aren't that smart right?
Speaker 2but they're cool, like once the kids get old enough, they stop hanging out with mom and dad and they go play with each other. They play, they just like hang out in these like kindergartens, like a group with just a bunch of the babies. They'll sit supervised and take care of them look at the arm back waddle you can't hear it, but every time they walk it's like flip-flops on the page.
Speaker 1Is it really?
Speaker 2You're close enough to hear it.
Speaker 1What are the other scientists researching?
Speaker 2Sure, let's see. Have you heard of an atmospheric river? I think it's like a current of I don't know cold air in this atmosphere that affects the weather. I think that was discovered here. Okay, what else they're looking at? There's a lot of physics that I don't understand. So they do check the weather, like I think every three hours they have to report on the weather to I don't know the government of the world or something. Somehow they report the weather Because the weather here will affect the weather everywhere else. Oh wow.
Speaker 1The weather there is indicative of the entire global weather.
Speaker 2More, just that it'll spread up. So if there's a storm here, it probably will go up. We have people looking at the fish. We have people looking at plankton, at krill uh, there's just all sorts of stuff.
Speaker 2So you know this isn't a holiday, you know you don't just come here to like, look at the penguins, as fun as they are, uh, the people here are are hard at work but they got good sense of humor and they're pretty happy generally oh yeah, I think, um, for the ukrainians, they had to go through like like a psych eval before coming out here and health evaluation, because you know when you're, when you're months away from like any chance of like medevac, like you need to be healthy right, right, I would get worried about the well, I don't know, I guess the lack of sun, but it looks like you got plenty of sun right now.
Speaker 2I don't know, yeah, but in lack of sun. But it looks like you got plenty of sun right now. I don't know, yeah, but in, uh, when it's winter here, yeah, lack of sun for sure, at least they, you know. Here at least you get like a couple of hours, like in the south pole. They are there. It's like minus 40, minus 60 celsius and they are stuck inside with no light, no penguins, like just surrounded by ice. They must go crazy. I think you really have to be special to walk on the pole here. This is the peninsula. It's like a tropical island compared to the pole.
Speaker 1Wow, do the people there exercise? Is there a gym or anything like that?
Speaker 2There's a gym. Yep, nice, nice, and you can go for walks.
Speaker 1So what do you think the likelihood of success is with your personal research?
Strategies for Surviving Extreme Cold
Speaker 2Well, I'll find something. I just don't know how much I will find, but it'll be something. So you're taking the larva, smashing them in your finger, putting them on a petri dish looking at it and then like trying to freeze it, to see at what temperature it freezes yeah, like if I mix the bacteria with water, will the water freeze at a higher temperature? So far nothing. But you know that's a result. No result, still a result.
Speaker 1So I can't complain and tie that back up. You said there was like two ways to survive the freezing cold, one was I forgot the word.
Speaker 2now, the things that so there's super cooling where you go below zero but you're not frozen.
Speaker 1Right.
Speaker 2There's, you know, freezing where like, but you try to freeze, maybe at a Freeze sooner, freeze slower, so the body has a chance to adapt to it. And the third option is just don't freeze, go south or north.
Speaker 1And that all comes down to what was the name of that bacteria, or the gut bacteria.
Speaker 2It doesn't all come down to that, but one option is different isonucleating gut bacterias. There's so many different strategies. Even animals in the same part of there's so many different strategies. Even like animals in the same part of the world will have different strategies. Like some of them will freeze, some of them will not. It's not predictable at all.
Speaker 2You just have to check each one wow, that's definitely something worth studying, huh there's just a lot to see yeah you know, the hope is to figure out like because, like I said, we're interested in like cryopreserving, like I don't know if it's ever going to be like in the sci-fi, where we can freeze a whole human and then wake them up years later. But they're already kind of doing that with actually with um, with sperm and eggs like you can freeze sperm in like a freezer and then use them years later to like make kids so we can freeze some human cells.
Speaker 1We're just not at the point where we can freeze a whole human yet yeah, but I mean, um, when the dinosaurs went extinct during the ice age, I mean, the only ones that served, the only species that survived, were the ones that could survive the severe cold right yeah, but you know there's.
Speaker 2it depends what their strategy is. Do they move south to like, where it's warmer, or do they? I don't know what do they do? Like the insect that I study the belgian antarctica it's been on the antarctic continent for like millions of years, like at least 30 million million years, and back then Antarctica was a bit more North, so we think it's just the only thing that didn't die Like. Whatever else used to live on the Antarctic continent has gone extinct, but this little insect just adapted and is still there millions of years later.
Speaker 1Wow, and cockroaches? They were around before the dinosaurs, right.
Speaker 2They have been around for a long time. Thankfully, we don't have any on the base. That's the fun thing about a place like this is that you don't have to worry about pests. There's no cockroaches, there's no rats, there's no flies they all freeze to death.
Speaker 1Dude. That's why I like the winter in Taiwan. I can leave my front door open. There's not really any mosquitoes, I can not do my dishes right away and I don't have to worry about cockroaches.
Speaker 2The winter's kind of like a break. Yeah, it's kind of like that here too, except you definitely do not keep the door open.
Speaker 1Because penguins would come inside.
Speaker 2I was thinking about the cold air, but you're right. The penguins would totally go inside, they're just having a nap. They don't care about us.
Speaker 1All right, wow, they look comfy somehow.
Speaker 2Yeah, they got the sun on them. They're sunbathing.
Speaker 1Right on man. Do you know, can cockroaches survive severe cold?
Speaker 2Huh, I have no idea. Not sure I don't think cockroaches can freeze, but you never know.
Speaker 1What do you got planned now?
Speaker 2Let's see. In an hour there's lunch. Everyone eats at the same time and then I'm just gonna get back to work. Nice, wow, that's amazing. You're loving it, huh? I mean, look at this place, like you know it's ugly in the summer, but like I'll quickly pan around like with the icebergs and the water, it's, it's beautiful in antarctica. There's like no pollution other than penguin shit, that's amazing.
Speaker 1Wow, the water's so blue can you see the mountains?
Speaker 2yeah, dude, it looks like clouds well, there's clouds too, but above them is mountains yeah, but the mountains look like clouds.
Speaker 1It's crazy.
Speaker 2I see them though yeah, so that's the Antarctic continent itself, like I'm on an island off the peninsula, but there's the continent and it's just. It's so cool seeing like it's a. You know, the continent is gigantic. I was seeing a tiny, tiny part of it, but it's so far away, it's so remote. It's always been that thing on the map that you look at. You don't always think you're ever going to see it yourself. Yeah, here I am. That's very, very true.
Speaker 1I don't always think you're ever going to see it yourself. Here I am. That's very, very true. I don't know if I'll ever see it in my lifetime. Well, I guess I'm seeing it now. That's pretty amazing. I was saying I'm going to Mongolia. It gets pretty cold there, right?
Speaker 2Oh yeah, Mongolia should be. You should have awesome mountains over there too. Have you been there yet I?
Speaker 1have. Do you have any? By the way, I don't know if you can see this, but I'm wearing this. I got my bling bling on today. Is there anything? I know you went to Sri Lanka. Is there any fascinating? I'm sure everything was fascinating, to be honest, but what can you tell me about Sri Lanka?
Speaker 2so you're wearing the thing I got you from there yeah, I got it on. Right now it's like perfect time, perfect time, nice, yeah, man um, I can check my, my, my notes, my itinerary, and tell you where I went to. You'll you're. If you go to the center, you'll definitely see elephants.
Speaker 1They're like deer, they're everywhere and you said the elephants were kind of like pests there, right?
Speaker 2like deer. They're just like constantly elephants like getting into people's farms on the street, like if you're in a central part of sri lanka, you'll definitely see an elephant there's. Whether you want to or not, they're there.
Speaker 1They're awesome, yeah you like them, but, like I mean, do the locals get annoyed by them?
Speaker 2I'm sure they like them, but I think the farmers don't. I don't care for them too much.
Speaker 1Hmm.
Speaker 2There's a penguin eating snow. So cute Wow.
Speaker 1That's a beautiful, beautiful image, man. Right now, that mountain is fucking crazy. We're about out of time, so I guess I'll let you get ready for lunch. That's exciting, man.
Speaker 2Plus, my hands are getting cold, all right. Well, I'm glad I shared the penguins with you.
Departure and Final Penguin Viewing
Speaker 1Dude, thank you so much. That's awesome. Good luck to your work. Whether you succeed or not, it really doesn't matter, because you got to go to Antarctica. That's dope. I feel the same way. Well, you'll be back in Taiwan in three weeks. Yep, I'll see you soon. Excellent, I'll see you when you get back, brother. Bye-bye, all right, peace. I'm going to go to the bathroom Woohoo.