gridlore: Doug looking off camera with a grin (Penguin - Antarctica)
Douglas Berry ([personal profile] gridlore) wrote2008-06-10 12:21 pm
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The real reason penguins learned to toboggan*

Antarctic base gets condom haul before winter

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - One of the last shipments to a U.S. research base in Antarctica before the onset of winter darkness was a year's supply of condoms, a New Zealand newspaper reported Monday.

Bill Henriksen, the manager of the McMurdo base station, said nearly 16,500 condoms were delivered last month and would be made available, free of charge, to staff throughout the year to avoid the potential embarrassment of having to buy them.

The base only has a skeleton staff through the long winter.


16,500 condoms for roughly 125 scientists and support staff, and they have to last roughly 100 days. That's about 130 condoms per person. 1.3 condoms per person, per day.

What precisely are they researching down there?

*"Tobogganing" is how a penguin moves quickly on land. The flop on their bellies and use their flippers to glide along.