Sunday, October 13, 2013

Shutdown heads south; Antarctic stations shuttered : presented by Donny Gillson


Shutdown heads south; Antarctic stations shuttered

Caveat: Neumayer-Station III is not closed it is owned and operated by the Germans.

The federal government shutdown is reaching all the way down to the South Pole. The National Science Foundation announced Tuesday that it is putting its three Antarctic scientific stations in deep freeze just as scientists are starting to arrive for the start of a new research season.

The NSF runs three stations in Antarctica spending just under $400 million a year there. It often takes weeks for some 1200 researchers who spend Antarctic spring and summer there to get to the southern continent by boat or plane.

"This is absurd, just absurd," said Alan Leshner, chief executive officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the nation's largest science organization. "It's a very big logistical enterprise and this could jeopardize the entire research season for hundreds of important projects."
Researchers study astronomy, particle physics, climate change, and biology in the pristine continent, usually starting in October when the weather warms in the southern spring. The largest station is McMurdo but there are also stations at the South Pole and the Antarctic peninsula.
In a terse statement on its website, the NSF announced that "all field and research activities
not essential to human safety and preservation of property will be suspended" because the agency runs out of money to operate the stations as of Oct. 14. The agency told its logistics contractor, Lockheed Martin Corp., to move to "caretaker status" in which a skeletal crew will remain to protect property and safety.
If funding resumes, officials will try to resume some research. However, some studies cannot be restarted, the NSF said. NSF and Lockheed Martin officials did not respond to phone calls and email requests for comment.
A ship had been scheduled to arrive Wednesday with researchers, including those working on a long-term study that has tracked penguins and other creatures since 1990, said Brown University doctoral student Catherine Luria who was working with colleagues now there. That work, coordinated by Hugh Ducklow of Columbia University, relied on statistics and trend that need to be unbroken.
"If we miss a year, we'll never get it back again," said Ducklow, who has tracked a 95 percent drop in Adelie penguin population over the years. "It's pretty devastating for our project."
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute researcher Sarah Das was in Antarctica the last time the federal government shutdown in 1995 and 1996 and said it didn't stop work then. She said the announcement "saddens and angers me."
Luria, who has spent nine months in Antarctica, said she can't imagine what it will be like for the handful of staff who have to remain: "It sounds truly lonely to me."
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Online:
U.S. Antarctic program: http://usap.gov/
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Seth Borenstein can be followed at http://twitter.com/borenbears
Posted in  on Tuesday, October 8, 2013 3:38 pm. Updated: 6:20 pm.

ATTENTION EVERYONE: 


As an incentive  to participate in this SEMESTER LONG STUDY! I will give the Top 3 people who will help me recruit other participants to this study..


A FREE 32 DEGREES OF INSANITY

BASEBALL CAP!  

THAT'S RIGHT FREE!!! 


If you have not had a chance to see the new hat just scroll down back up the page and you will see a picture of me sporting one! 

But all kidding aside. I really want this experiment to go well and need about 150 people to participate. So the more you recruit the better chance your have of winning! The only rule is the person must stay with us the entire experiment and the results are published in early December. 


Again, if  they stay throughout the whole project I will be keeping score of the top 3 people a FREE  Official 32 Degree's of Insanity BASEBALL CAP; right before the Christmas Holidays!! 


Thanks so much for your help,


-Donny

Please click here to be transported to yesterday's blog



Tonight we discuss Nazism, Manipulative Extraterrestrials, and Alternative Realities. Gnostics sought to pursue critical personal introspection, which, in the process, elevated their consciousness about transcendental relationships regarding the human identity, in relationship with Nature, and the broader universe. In the process, Gnostics became aware of Manipulative Extraterrestrials. Please click on the radio button below to listen to last 9.22.2014 broadcast from www.truthfrequencyradio.com


“Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men's views confided to me privately.Some of the biggest men in the U.S., in the field of commerce and manufacturing, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something.They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful,so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive,that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it. " 
- Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) - 28th President of the United States







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