PBS Terra

Title: Where Does the Poop in Antarctica Go? | Antarctic Extremes
Date posted: 6 years ago
Description: What happens to all the garbage—and human poop—in Antarctica?

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Antarctica is home to McMurdo Station, the U.S. Antarctic Program’s base of operations, and a handful of other research stations. These stations are occupied by scientists and other staffers, all of whom generate a whole lot of waste. And every scientist and staffer, like everybody else on Planet Earth, poops. (If you didn’t know this, maybe give “Everyone Poops” a read after you watch this episode.)

Under the Antarctic Treaty System, an international agreement to protect the continent, waste of any kind—garbage, human poop, you name it—can’t be left on the continent. So what happens to it? To find out, Caitlin and Arlo embark on their most peculiar Antarctic quest yet.

At McMurdo Station, as Caitl...

Title: Exploring Antarctica’s Glaciers (with a PlayStation Controller) | Antarctic Extremes
Date posted: 6 years ago
Description: Beneath Antarctica’s glaciers, a 12-foot-long robot named Icefin explores places neither boats nor divers can reach.
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Icefin is testing technologies designed for exploring Jupiter’s icy moon Europa. But before its successors go into space, this robot has a serious job on Earth: taking measurements from under a glacier so researchers like Georgia Tech astrobiologist Britney Schmidt can better understand how climate change is affecting Antarctica’s vulnerable ice. NOVA’s Caitlin Saks and Arlo Perez meet with Britney and her team of young scientists and engineers on the 8-mile-long Erebus Ice Tongue to discover how this robot is gathering data before its “grandkids” leave our planet.
Then, Britney, her team, and Icefin head to the Florida-sized Thwaites Glacier on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Thwaites is one of the most remote places on Earth, but this so-called “Doomsday Glacier” is on the front line ...

Title: What is it Like to Live in Antarctica? | Antarctic Extremes
Date posted: 6 years ago
Description: Antarctica is cold, windy, isolated, barren, and often downright dangerous. Yet somehow, people manage to live there. (Some even enjoy it!)
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People have been visiting Antarctica for over a century—and hosts Caitlin Saks and Arlo Pérez can actually see what living there used to be like, because some of the early explorers left all their stuff! Ernest Shackleton’s ill-fated ship Endurance was only recently rediscovered, but the 1910-1913 expedition led by Robert Falcon Scott (more commonly known as the Terra Nova Expedition) left its “home-base” hut still intact, and it’s now a museum. Inside one finds all the trappings of early Antarctic life: seal blubber, science experiments, and of course a desiccated penguin.

Today, living in Antarctica is a bit different. But still, an eclectic band of scientists and support personnel are drawn to the continent and, every year, a crew makes their home on �...

Title: Why is this Antarctic Glacier “Bleeding?” | Antarctic Extremes
Date posted: 6 years ago
Description: Did you know that Antarctica has a glacier that bleeds red? (At least, that’s what it looks like.)
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Five stories high and emerging from the Taylor Glacier in the Dry Valleys of Antarctica, Blood Falls seeps into an ice-covered body of water called Lake Bonney. It’s one of the continent’s most enigmatic natural features and has fascinated scientists for decades. What makes it red? Does it always flow? And can anything actually survive near it? To find out—and see just how bizarre Blood Falls is with their own eyes—Caitlin and Arlo travel to the Dry Valleys, about 60 miles from McMurdo Station. There, they meet with microbiologist Jill Mikucki and hydrogeologist Peter Doran to investigate why this glacier looks the way it does, what lives there (spoiler: CHARISMATIC MICROBES!), and what clues it holds for finding and understanding life on other planets and moons in our solar system, like Mars, Ju...

Title: How Antarctica’s Cutest Baby Seals Grow Up I Antarctic Extremes
Date posted: 6 years ago
Description: Penguin lovers, take note: Baby Weddell seals might actually be cutest animals in all of Antarctica (and we’re talking a continent the size of the United States and Mexico combined).
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And for more baby seals, check out NOVA's Polar Lab: https://to.pbs.org/3aLUMS1

Inhabiting the Ross Sea—as far south as McMurdo Sound—Weddell seals (Leptonychotes weddellii) have the most southerly distribution of any mammal on Earth. Scientists began studying a breeding population of Weddell seals in 1968 and quickly found out these pinnipeds don’t always have it easy. Giving birth and raising young is particularly challenging in Antarctica’s extreme conditions, forcing Weddell moms and pups to bear sub-zero temperatures and prevailing winds. How do they manage to do it so gracefully? (OK: they’re admittedly way more graceful in the water than on land.) To find out, NOVA hosts Caitlin and Arlo travel to...

Title: How We Got to Antarctica | Antarctic Extremes
Date posted: 6 years ago
Description: Antarctica: It’s the home of penguins, seals, and a weird, rusty-looking glacial waterfall called Blood Falls. It’s the most remote natural laboratory on Earth—which means getting there is no easy feat.

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In the premiere episode of Antarctic Extremes, join hosts Caitlin Saks and Arlo Pérez as they follow in the footsteps of the brave scientists that have made McMurdo Station, an otherworldly Antarctic outpost, their research base and their second home. Five days, 12,000 miles, and seven time zones with hundreds of pounds of camera gear in tow, Caitlin and Arlo temporarily leave their day jobs as NOVA producers and go on a mind-boggling journey to the bottom of the world. They fly halfway across the planet, pick up extreme cold-weather gear (and gloves made specially for wiping away snot), and learn...

Title: Antarctic Extremes I Trailer
Date posted: 6 years ago
Description: Journey to Antarctica in a new digital series from NOVA and PBS Digital Studios, and discover what it takes to do science in Earth’s remotest natural laboratory.
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Hosts Caitlin Saks and Arlo Pérez set up shop at McMurdo Station, the largest research base in Antarctica, and embed with scientists and support staff to find out what it’s like to live, work, and do science on our southernmost continent. Fun, quirky, and at times deeply personal, Caitlin and Arlo reveal the true Antarctica: a land where science and survival intersect. They join researchers to investigate the secret to seal pup survival, the mystery of a blood-red glacier, and "Icefin," an underwater robot that might offer clues to how fast Antarctica will contribute to sea level rise. As they explore magnificent locations—from the depths of an ice cave to the peak of Mount Erebus, an active Antarctic volcano—they reveal the trials and...