Okay, so my dad does research for one of the universities near where I live – he’s a physicist, but he ends up doing more engineering than physics. But every once in a while he goes somewhere insane for work. He’s been to Chicago, and boring places like that, but he’s also been to Japan, and most notably, Antarctica. Now I won’t go into all the hassle that comes with that because, frankly, I didn’t have to deal with it. But I will show you some kick-ass pictures he took while there. Oh yeah, my dad’s kind of a photo freak, so he took like 2000 pictures, literally. But don’t worry, I’m only posting seven. By the way, all photos displayed on my blog will be hosted on Zooomr, a sleek alternative to Flickr. Click on the pictures to go to my Zooomr site, where you can see these pictures in all their 1024×682 (or bigger, depending on the picture) glory.
Skua Headshot
Hosted on Zooomr
This is a picture of the local bird. It’s called a “Skua”, and it’s basically a seagull on steriods. Of course, one of the things about going to Antarctica is not antagonizing (read: going near) any of the wildlife, so most of these pictures are taken from a healthy distance with a sexy zoom – my dad has a ridiculously good camera; like I said, he’s a photo freak.
Baby Weddell Seal Headshot
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Okay, this is a baby Wedell Seal, named after some guy named Wedell, I guess. It’s kinda hard to see the cool thing about Wedell Seals in this pic, so I’ll talk about them later on. But isn’t it cute? You can also kinda see that its saliva is freezing on the outside of its mouth there. That’s Antarctica for you. ‘Course, my dad went in the winter here which means it was summer there. I don’t know that they let people travel to and from in the winter.
Adelie Penguin Diving
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An Adelie Penguin, presumably named after Adelie someone or other. It’s about to dive into the water and do that penguin thing that other birds can’t do. You know, swim.
Sun in the Clouds
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Awesome pic of the sun in the clouds reflected on the water/ice. Not much else to say.
Curious Adelie Penguin on Ice Shelf
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Another Adelie Penguin. And damn if this one isn’t the most curious one you’ve ever seen.
Skua with Weddell Seal in Background
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Another Skua, in flight this time. And that blob in the background is another Wedell Seal. My dad is a fiend at getting awesome pictures of birds in flight.
Sleeping Weddell Seal
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Okay, here’s the picture of a Wedell Seal I was talking about before. Besides looking like it’s in a camo body bag, you can see the frozen spit a lot more clearly, and there’s also something odd about its nostrils. They’re closed. That’s right, closed. Wedell Seals can seal (haha) or open their nostrils voluntarily, and independently. So they can swim underwater for hours with closed nostrils, come up with only their left nostril poking out of the water, open it and take a breath, close it and go back underwater for some more hours.
And that’s about all I have for you today, so enjoy. 
