MOO

One of the easiest to grasp and most fun to watch scientific projects going on at McMurdo is MOO, the McMurdo Oceanographic Observatory. It's an underwater camera that lets us see what is happening beneath the sea ice right off the coast from the base. The best part is that they have the live feed streaming as one of our TV channels here (yes, McMurdo has TV--25 channels!--with news, movies, and other amazing things that would make you forget where we are). I've had to be careful with turning it on, though, because it's totally mesmerizing, like watching a campfire. More than once I've had it on the store and a growing crowd has gathered to just watch it with mouths hanging open, in an hypnotic stupor. You rarely see anything in the camera frame, but that's EXACTLY WHY YOU CAN'T LOOK AWAY. What if you take a break to pee and THAT'S the moment when a seal swims by?


This webpage lets you watch from wherever you are with an internet connection, but the image only updates every five minutes and is much granier than what we see on the TV feed here (plus now that it's pretty dark out you probably won't be able to see much), so you are less in danger of going into zombie mode like us, don't worry.


Also, here's an article with more info about the project.


Enjoy!