Exploring Your Bodily Fauna

Ever since I was young, the idea of discovering a new species has, for me, been steeped in age-of-steam mysticism. I'd arrive on a ship in some inadequately explored country in some inadequately explored continent, its air fresh with the scent of otherness. I'd awake in my state cabin, have the boy shave me before being led to the club. My baggage, in trunks of course, would follow, perched precariously on the back of a local. I would pay him extravagantly later, all the while knowing that the only thanks he truly needed was the reassuring colonial presence of my three-piece-suited self. Later in the club, slumped into a green leather chair beneath the revolving ceiling fans, I would sit and avoid discussing the business of a visiting Swiss banker. We would, instead, discuss the "Africa Situation." Then the door would burst open and a well dressed man would stagger in, clutching his stomach. "Doctor James?" he would say, his voice weak and quavering, "There's something you need to see," he would continue before keeling over. He would be dead, and thus would begin my journey of biological discovery. In the jungle. Or, as the locals call it, Green Hell!
These days, it's easier, and only slightly less romantic. All you need is a powerful microscope, many years of highly specialised biological training, and a scraping from someone's forearm. Researchers at the New York Medical School have discovered more than 200 different types of bacteria in samples from the forearms of volunteers, 8% of which were previously undescribed by science. Human skin, according to the report, is a "virtual zoo" of bacteria. Even better is that everyone's zoo is different, so your personal bacterial retinue is as unique as you are. Think about that next time you take a shower. My advice is don't do it; explain away your eye-watering odour with these words: I have devoted myself to the noble pursuit of knowledge.
Source: BBC

Journey to the Pole Of Inaccessibility

The Guardian has an article about a jaunt to the "Pole of Inaccessibility" being mounted by a British and Canadian team of 4. This pole is defined as the point furthest from the coasts of the continent, which is quite distinct from the geographic or magnetic poles (More about poles). When they get there, they expect to find a hut, built by a previous Russian expedition, replete with a bust of Lenin on the roof. This is only the first of the interesting points; it transpires that for "general kiting incompetence and muppetry"- kites being the de rigeur power option for the Antarctic professional on the go- team members are given the "Ovary Award". It's still a man's world out on the new frontier, apparently.
As well as raising money for charity, the team also has a serious scientific mission: counting penguin colonies. Apparently somehow counting penguin colonies will somehow help decide if there's enough food in the Antarctic to transplant a few polar bears (whose northern habitat is rapidly shrinking). Presumably the idea that we're supposed to get is that if there's enough fish for penguins, there's enough for polar bears. However, polar bears can charge on land at 25mph, while any nature documentary I've seen has penguins waddling along at a comically slow, grandma-like pace. Makes you wonder if fish-sharing is exactly what the scientific community has in mind.