to the left of each question for the answer.
How is it that Desert Research Institute scientists are working in the ocean in Antarctica? Why do you need to travel all the way to Antarctica to study Archaeal gene expression? How do you get from Reno to Palmer Station? What are the best genetic tools to measure changes in gene expression? What can gene expression in archaea and bacteria teach us that can lead to great new discoveries? What is the Tree of Life? We welcome suggestions for questions to add to the FAQ list.
Send your queries to genmail@dri.edu.
How do you get from Reno to Palmer Station?
This is not rapid transport! We fly on commercial carriers to Punta
Arenas, Chile with boxes and boxes of science cargo and our personal
gear for the 1-3 months stay on the ice. Punta Arenas lies at the
southern end of Chile on the Straits of Magellan. In Punta Arenas
we are outfitted with cold weather gear issued by the Antarctic program,
then board a research vessel called the Laurence
M. Gould. The transit to Palmer Station takes about 4 days in
good weather, and entails sailing across the Drake Passage, a notoriously
rough body of ocean water where the waters of the Atlantic, Pacific
oceans mix with the Antarctic Circumpolar current. We hit land, the
islands of the Antarctic Peninsula after about 3 days. [note: On Alison
Murray's first trip to the Antarctic, it took 4 ½ weeks to get to
the station due to heavy sea ice!]
