Cool Presentations

One of the highlights of life in Antarctica is the Sunday Night Science Lecture, or in the case of last week's lecture...the Sunday Night Not-So-Much-Science Lecture given by a BBC photographer and producer who are working on a 10-hour series, called "Life". "Life" is a follow- up to the wonderful "Planet Earth" series but this one will focus on critters rather than environments and eco-systems. It is due to air in the States in 2010 and in England (maybe the Netherlands, too???) in late 2009.

The presenters didn't talk much about the footage they are working on here except to say that they are using a very expensive camera called a Cineflex mounted under one of the helicopters. The Cineflex minimizes movement and provides excellent aerial footage of our vast landscape. They are also doing lots of underwater/under-ice, time-lapse photography of some of our large and weird sea creatures. Cold work, for sure.

The real highlight, though, was hearing the stories about how some of the amazing sequences in Planet Earth were filmed - such as the first images ever taken of snow leopards in Pakistan and the polar bear emerging from her snow den with 2 cubs. We really felt like we were in the midst of celebrities and the packed dining hall filled with "oohs" and "ahs" as we viewed the footage.

Science from the ice. AGAP

Here's a link to a yahoo website with info on one of the science projects:
AGAP