Helicopter Rescue For All Passengers Aboard Antarctic Research Ship 168
The BBC reports (with video) that all aboard the ice-trapped MV Akademik Shokalskiy have been rescued by helicopter, after more than one icebreaker attempt to reach the vessel directly proved too challenging. Also at the New York Times, which reports "The twin-rotored helicopter, based on a Chinese icebreaker, the Xue Long, or Snow Dragon, flew several sorties across miles of packed ice to pluck scientists, tourists and journalists from a makeshift landing zone next to the marooned MV Akademik Shokalskiy research vessel."
GJ (Score:4, Insightful)
I love good news, it's a shame there is not more of it.
LOL (Score:4, Insightful)
So I was watching this whole thing on the news and they never mentioned once that this expedition was meant to show the melting ice and such in hopes of showing the effects of global warming on the icepack. Now, I do believe Global warming is a thing... and we need to deal with it. But the clear bias by the media outlets isn't doing anyone any favors.
Re:LOL (Score:5, Informative)
So I was watching this whole thing on the news and they never mentioned once that this expedition was meant to show the melting ice and such in hopes of showing the effects of global warming on the icepack.
I'd suggest that you change the news outlets that you read/watch. Plenty of places reported the aim of the scientific experiments.
What the rescuees are paying with (Score:3)
The sub-tag "who-pays-for-all-that-rescuing?" has me wondering if they boat people are planning to pay with carbon credits. I have to say, though, that all climate science debating aside, it's pretty clever to turn one of the most abundant elements in the galaxy into a currency. It reminds me of a plot point in one of Neal Stephenson's books where a character stockpiles shells to use as currency only to find out that nobody else considers them valuable.
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Except that with Carbon Credits, carbon is a negative currency, sort of because it's abundant.
I doubt that this expedition was involved in any kind of Kyoto Protocol emission allowance trading.
However, it's not that unlikely that they'd have balanced the expedition's emissions with a voluntary offset scheme (a donation toward tree planting, renewable power source building, etc.)
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Glad I am not one of the crew on that ship... (Score:3)
Seeing as how the BBC article clearly mentions that the "Passengers" (aka Researchers) on the ship have been rescued, but that the crew members of the ship are staying on board and could be stuck for several weeks, I hope the attention span of the people keeping an eye on the ship is a bit better than that of the /. editors, who had apparently forgotten that the crew exists before they reached the bottom of the article...
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loosing the vessel
Well, if they could get it loose there wouldn't be a problem.
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Seeing as how the BBC article clearly mentions that the "Passengers" (aka Researchers) on the ship have been rescued.
Passengers is more accurate than researchers, because some of them were paying tourists. Given there were 52, quite probably the majority were tourists and guides.
Cheers for the crew! (Score:4, Interesting)
--Coder
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I just read the book about Ernest Shackleton's voyage [wikipedia.org], and their epic journey really puts this stuck vessel in perspective. Dudes were in a wooden ship that got stuck in that ice and the hull was crushe
The Chinese... (Score:5, Funny)
Research ship - Bah humbug! (Score:2, Informative)
There's about as much research in that ship as in the Japanese "whale research" fleet that for some mysterious reason needs to test and re-test the deliciousness of whale meat every year..
It's a damn 'eco tourist' (i.e. green-washed) cruise. Not to mention the fact that, being a Russian ship, they're probably dumping toilet water and bilge oil directly into the sea..
I bet the taxpayers are happy about their tax dollars going to rescue this group of clowns ;-)
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Possibly more going on those ships. Since, AFAIK, the Japanese have never used the oxymoron "settled science".
Choplifter (Score:3)
Makes me want to break out an emulator and play a few rounds of Choplifter. :-)
So what happens to the ship? (Score:2)
Is it stuck in the ice "forever"? Or will the Antarctic "summer" experience enough of a breakup in the ice pack to get an icebreaker in to free it?
If it is stuck for the long term, is it any environmental risk of a hull breech from the ice causing leaks, etc, or is the hull strong enough that it won't get crushed, it'll just sit there until the hull rusts out?
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Re:So what happens to the ship? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:So what happens to the ship? (Score:5, Informative)
It is summer down there now. The ice isn't freezing around the ship. Wind is blowing ice floes into a large pack which has trapped the ship.
Hopefully, as the seasons change, the winds will shift and loosen the ice before winter and an actual freeze.
Maybe off topic here, but... (Score:2)
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I'm going to take a guess that insurance company that insures vessel in trouble deals with these costs.
Re:Maybe off topic here, but... (Score:4, Interesting)
The rescuers pay for the cost of the rescues. Rescues at sea are a no-cost agreement under maritime conventions and traditions.
Some US politicians raised questions about this practice after costly rescue operations for Carnival cruise ships last year.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/carnival-u-s-won-reimbursed-triumph-costs-article-1.1315792
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Although under maritime conventions, the cost of rescuing people entails no obligation of reimbursement, freeing boat from ice might be considered a salvage operation. If so, the costs for freeing the boat from the ice may mean that the owners of the boat might be liable for the cost of any salvage operation (if successful) maybe even up to 50% of the value of the boat.
Ice, in summer? On a warming planet? (Score:3)
from the article:
The 233-foot Russian research ship had been lodged in the ice since Dec. 24, when powerful winds encircled it with pack ice near Cape de la Motte, about 1,700 miles south of Hobart, Tasmania.
Navigating pack ice is like wandering through a labyrinth where the walls periodically move.
MV Akademik Shokalskiy (Score:4, Informative)
Classification: Russian register KM ice class
Year built: 1984
Accommodation: 50 berths expedition, 30 crew
Shipyard: Finland
Main engines: power 2x1560 bhp (2x 1147 Kw) Register: Russia
Maximum speed: 12 knots (2 engines)
Cruising speed: 10 knots(one engine)
Bunker capacity: 320 tons
I'm curious (Score:2)
Who's paying for the rescue?
I mean, not that China's all capitalist or anything, but they should have their costs covered by someone responsible for this pack of morons.
(I'm one of those crazy people that believe that people who put themselves into extreme situations like mountain climbers (or their inheritors), etc should indeed pay for the extraordinary costs of their rescues or rescue-attempts.)
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A. These people aren't dead thanks to a 20th century technology available to bail them out. The only reason they went on a ship and not on a helicopter in the first place was because it would have been wastefully expensive to do so.
B. People sometimes die for much more mundane dreams.
Re:But don't worry (Score:5, Informative)
The only reason they went on a ship and not on a helicopter in the first place was because it would have been wastefully expensive to do so.
No currently existing helicopter has the range needed for a mission like that. Their position is not within reach by helicopters stationed on land, the helicopter that rescued them is stationed on an ice breaker.
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That's certainly believable. Call B in my reply overzealous then. But A stands just fine with that caveat.
Re:But don't worry (Score:5, Interesting)
Absolutely agreed. You could pretty much replace "helicopter" with "nuclear ice breaker capable of sailing in practically any ice" and there would have been nothing for me to gripe about. Although the existing nuclear ice breakers are all in the Arctic and allegedly cannot cross the tropics under their own steam due to insufficient cooling.
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Err? I feel a whoosh coming on here.
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I don't think we were planning on sailing a seagoing ship to Mars, no matter how often that has shown up in anime and Doctor Who (sort of), nor were we planning on doing much sailing on Martian seas, they've been at ultra low tide for quite a few millennia now.
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Sometimes I wonder how it is that so many people on a supposedly tech oriented site have apparently no understanding of how technology works.
Breaking through huge layers of ice is a totally different task than firing a rocket at another planet. We could be really good at one and really bad at another.
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If the ice was covering the globe, you'd have a point. But saying that my basement is cold doesn't prove that my whole house is.
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If the ice was covering the globe, you'd have a point. But saying that my basement is cold doesn't prove that my whole house is.
This is /. so I imagine you meant your parent's basement. And it being cold means you're not going to get a girl naked there. (Pray for a warming trend Grasshopper.)
Because it's obviously that simple (Score:2)
Yeah, right.
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Well, at least they were able to show the world conclusively that the antarctic ice is, in fact, disappearing.
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Care to cite this data? The OP is bringing a hell of a lot more evidence to the conversation than you are.
The fact that you think they had any evidence at all is far more a reflection on you than me.
Re:Global warming. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you can't recognize single incident evidence as more than just being a smart ass than you don't understand the idea of evidence. You flap your lips a lot but you never say much. Step up or shut up.
Doubling down. Okay. If bank of America's stock is down today against yesterday, what does that say about where the DJI will be next year?
Congratulations, if you said anything at all, you're an idiot who jumps to conclusions.
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The real questions would be the kind answered with study of climate data, you know, wide-scale, multi-measure temperature assessments. The fake question would be "how much does ice at one point near the Antarctic matter?"
Melodrama would be blowing up angrily when your idiotic point is compared against an obvious parallel.
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No, that's stupid, like really stupid. There's nothing about these models that should be anywhere near that temporally localized.
That isn't a question. (Score:2, Insightful)
Since it has a required predicate, to whit: "According to their models, there would be a sea of water there".
According to their models, there was nothing about an absence of sea ice.
Re:Global warming. (Score:5, Insightful)
you're being trolled.
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How do you tell the difference between someone who has taken to denying factually reality to antagonize others and one who does so out of self-delusion?
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I'm not a Bayesian model, but if I were I would score an AC or high user number very high when looking for trolls.
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So, since your whole argument depends on someone having said something they didn't say, it kinda makes you look both like a douche and a moron.
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Your search just yields evidence of really substantial diminishment in arctic sea ice over the course of the last half century, which leads me to believe that you've been training google to reinforce your biases.
That doesn't prove much of anything at all. Other than that you like to call people liars.
Re:Global warming. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know. When do economic models predict I'll win the lottery?
Re:Global warming. (Score:5, Insightful)
I gave my real answer, actually.
It was "I don't know." Which is appropriate because climate data has no relevant to day-to-day weather. And I illustrated that point with a similar question.
Rather than address the main point, you compared me to nazis(not wanting to damage the economic output of the world by excessive emissions is ethically identical to genocide), made up claims I've never made, and made yourself sound like a crazy person.
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This seems pretty darn specific [youtube.com]
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Oh, look, it's a non-scientist.
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Economic models have nothing to do with who wins the lottery. It's a false parallel
Nope. That's exactly why it's apt. Climate models have nothing to do with whether it's going to be icy today. You're intentionally conflating scales in order to be as wrong as you possibly can. I don't get it.
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According to Al Gore's models, within a year [youtube.com]. This speech from 2009
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You do not get to pick and choose your data. You will be able to support any conclusion you care to reach if you are allowed that.
Welcome to the new millenium and politicized science.
Re:Global warming. (Score:5, Insightful)
No, actually, it's called climate change, at least originally, because that was a euphemism developed by a conservative think tank to make the results sound more palatable. It's called climate change now, because not all parts of the globe would warm. Unpredictability is just weather being weather, and has very little to do with climate at all.
Re:Global warming. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Except that the data in question isn't of the whole environment, and all its components. Science doesn't have an everythingology to study that.
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Re:Global warming. (Score:4, Insightful)
polluting the air and water with hundreds of thousands of chemicals,
Credibility dropped here, as you fell off the deep end; your claims went from "sort of vague" to "downright hysterical". Every time I hear someone use the word "chemicals" in such a fear-mongering way, I wonder whether they are aware that water is a chemical too, or that its the worlds biggest fear-word. Oh no, chemicals, theyre so bad for you -- except for all of the ones necessary to support life.
Which specific extinction are you referring to, by the way? There are a number of species which are being removed from the endangered list as they are making a comeback (eagles for one), so that its pretty hard to swallow claim that we're in the middle of the biggest extinction event in the last epoch, especially given how vague and handwavy your whole post is.
Re:Global warming. (Score:4, Interesting)
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If you know of a better word than chemical to use,
Yes, you refer to specific things rather than waving your hands and saying "...and all of the bad stuff we're doing". Could you have been any MORE vague than you are?
I've previously read that there over 100,000 man-made chemicals released into the environment.
Great. Are they biodegradeable? Does refined sugar count? does salt count? What exactly counts? What quantity? Who's doing it, and on what scale? Is it environmentally relevant?
If you havent learned by now that figures like that tend to be worthless, nows a good time to start. Always demand specifics, or file the factoid under "suspect
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That sure is something actual climate scientists have said, and not some kind of elaborate strawman you set up for yourself to attack.
Yep.
Now, statistically There has been a small increase in drought severity and frequency [pnas.org] in the northern hemisphere as some oceanic changes occur, which has some limited, but measurable fallout. But that doesn't mean any given drought is climate change.
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That sure is something actual climate scientists have said
Not so fast there. You have to admit that the AGW camp is comprised on many different people. And many of those people are in positions that are influential...media, entertainment, etc. These non-scientists regularly equate weather events with AGW. They do so forcefully and very publicly with widespread exposure. All I've ever heard from the scientists are tepid and hard to find statements that, "no, you really can't say that".
Highly prominent scient
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It's not implausible to aggregate some cause there. "The dice are loaded" as claimed in your "damning" link doesn't mean we always roll sixes, just that they come up more often.
That is a reasonable interpretation.
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You should play doge ball.
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Wow. Much ball. Very dodge.
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I'd consult with a climate scientist, but apparently they are trapped in antarctic ice...
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He meant Anthropological.
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As global warming continues schools in Minnesota are preparing to close next week for more record low temperatures
Meanwhile, the British Midlands have barely seen a frost this year. Your anecdote about Minnesota is worth no more than mine about England.
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Meanwhile, the British Midlands have barely seen a frost this year. Your anecdote about Minnesota is worth no more than mine about England.
Everything important in the world happens in the US, didn't you know? That silly "rest of the world" thing is irrelevant.
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Meanwhile, the IPCC silently slashes its global warming predictions in the AR5 final draft.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/01/ipcc-silently-slashes-its-global-warming-predictions-in-the-ar5-final-draft/ [wattsupwiththat.com]
"Unnoticed, the IPCC has slashed its global-warming predictions, implicitly rejecting the models on which it once so heavily and imprudently relied. In the second draft of the Fifth Assessment Report it had broadly agreed with the models that the world will warm by 0.4 to 1.0 C from 2016-2035 against 1986-
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Saying that an isolated incident completely disproves global warming is like saying that my diet doesn't work because I gained a gained two pounds last week (ignoring the fact that I've lost an average of .5 lbs/wk over the last two years).
Disavow much? (Score:2)
This isolated incident is already morphing to fit your beliefs, isn't it? Scientists, tourists, and journalists? I thought it was some big mission led by a climate researcher [slashdot.org] to retrace the steps of some decades old mission. You know, to prove how much ice has disappeared over that time period and we can learn how CO2 is going to kill us all.
Soon it will no longer be serious climate scientists that marooned themselves in Antarctic ice such that icebreakers could not reach them in the middle of summer. No, i
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What, pray tell, are my beliefs? The only thing I said was that this incident (the boat being captured by ice) should be disregarded as proof in one direction or another. If it happens again next year and the year after, then it will be something to think about. But just happening one year is meaningless on its own.
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Hey, isn't it the middle of summer in the southern hemisphere?
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In the case of scientific theories so called "isolated incidents" can be all that is needed for "falsification".
Re:The Antarctic successfully defends itself (Score:4, Insightful)
The ice caps do not expand overnight. How is it an isolated event?
Instead, alarmists use isolated events as evidence for their position, and decry those who want the raw data and point out that the overall trend is a cooling, not warning - which goes against ALL theories (that we are coming out of an ice age, that man is causing global warming, that the sun is getting hotter)
Now, I can't deny the presence of people who went "Katrina was caused by global warming," but their being wrong doesn't excuse you ignoring incredibly reliable data from people who know what they're talking about. No more than idiots blathering about super-volcanoes "being due" excuse people who deny the existence of plate tectonics.
You can always find someone hyperbolic and wrong to disagree with, it doesn't make your position right.
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"Truth is in the middle" is an idea that assumes there's a fundamentally equal basis to "both sides." When it comes to science v. ignoramuses+shills, that's not really going to work.
Some points are wrong forever, and climate change denialism is one of them.
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Not for any meaningful definition of "both sides" you haven't. The vast majority of what's said in the denial side has 0% representation, and you'll find more published fringe views suggesting cataclysm than that.
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That's the thing. Overall statistically significant changes in weather patterns, like, say, overall drought occurrence, or net amount of flooding changing decade to decade can be attributed. Things are changing, just not in a localized predictable way. (Hurricanes in particular show no correlation, as far as I've read)
Re:The Antarctic successfully defends itself (Score:4, Interesting)
Look at me, I don't understand science, and I call people doing their jobs in dangerous environments a vacation.
From a person who has never seriously done any difficult labor in their life, so much you can smell it.
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Oh there eco tourism trip will be fairly rough so much that the leader took along his wife and young children 4 scientists 26 paid tourists it's PR trip not science to go redo a century old expedition Awareness/PR is not science (unless it's quantifying it or otherwise studying it) these guys were a bunch of prats taking a vacation under the guise of science. The expedition is lead by Chris Turney a UNSW prof who happens to also to be pimping a carbon reclamation start up he help found any science would b
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Oh there eco tourism trip will be fairly rough so much that the leader took along his wife and young children 4 scientists 26 paid tourists it's PR trip not science to go redo a century old expedition Awareness/PR is not science (unless it's quantifying it or otherwise studying it) these guys were a bunch of prats taking a vacation under the guise of science. The expedition is lead by Chris Turney a UNSW prof who happens to also to be pimping a carbon reclamation start up he help found any science would be tainted by his conflict of interest. Sure there were reporters paying to go along it should have had a lot of great photo's and heart and minds sort of fluff and drivel but little of that ya know hard science stuff.
Real scientists are pissed about this boondoggle, it pulled an icebreaker away from unloading supplies for the station only unloading about 1/3 of the supplies, some of the new research gear and all the people to go rescue these guys. Effectively cutting down the time they have to do there work that not photogenic science stuff.
Good grammar is a virtue.
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Glad everybody is safe. Cue the impending doom guys to work more ice into it's getting warmer paper WTB more grant and endowment funding for fun vacation trips.
Yeah, climate change is a load of crap! Why, I heard that just a couple months ago the whole state of Minnesota turned from lush greenery into an icy snow-covered wasteland! Entire lakes froze over, that didn't have any ice at all in the previous months. Surely the world climate can't be gradually warming over many decades if certain areas ever get any colder in the short term!
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It's raining where I live. I'll build an ark.
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PS I understand global warming, the amount of doom and gloom is excessive. The amount of bad science that gets funded is insane. At this point we really need to get past the it's going to happen bits and stop frothing at the mouth.
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TFS is, as usual, wrong. The passengers have been rescued, the crew remains aboard and decidedly not safe.
Eternal Father, strong to save,
Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,
Who bidd'st the mighty ocean deep
Its own appointed limits keep;
Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee,
For those in peril on the sea!
Creator, Father, who dost show
Thy splendor in the ice and snow,
Bless those who toil in summer light
And through the cold Antarctic night,
As they thy frozen wonders learn;
Bless those who wa
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But to be serious for a minute here, climate science really annoys me at times. Many times you e-mail authors, and I'm talking about both sides, to request more information about their datasets they eithe
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It's now political not scientific people buy the results they want, cheery pick for talking points, remove data that does not support there pet theory. It's more a a religious war that a scientific one at this point.
PS the scientists were on a vacation, retracing the steps of Douglas Mawson's trip 100ish years ago. It's a PR tour not a scientific endeavor.
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"Glad everybody is safe. Cue the impending doom guys ..."
Dude, those are the same people. Check the passenger manifest.
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Just my bent $0.02.
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