Things are different down here at the south pole. Temperatures well below freezing; sunlight 24 hours a day (this time of year at least); 10,000+ feet altitude; very dry air... hard work in these conditions compounds all that and the human body isn't used to all this kind of stress! So, what kinds of things happen? I don't know, I'm a physics teacher!
But, I can take some data and see if there are any noticeable changes in how my body works. So, I brought with me a few simple tools:
- a thermometer (that uses infrared radiation to tell temperatures) so I can measure my body temperature
- a blood pressure cuff and a stethoscope, so I can measure my blood pressure
- a watch, so I can calculate my heart rate I don't know how the extreme conditions here will affect these, but I took some data, before I left home to get a "baseline" for what my body does in "normal" conditions, and then down here to see what happens.
Here is that data. In general I tried to take the data early in the morning, shortly after I woke up. In some cases I didn't get to it until later in the day, so I included that in some of the comments. Sorry it's not in a nice table, I'm a little limited in formatting for this journal! The format is:
Date: Heart rate, Blood pressure, Temperature, Comments
- 11/11: 68, 125/84, 98.8, In California
- 11/13: 60, 120/83, 98.0, CA
- 11/14: 70, 118/78, 98.0, CA
- 11/15: 76, 117/79, 98.1, CA
- 11/22: 66, 130/88, 97.7, McMurdo
- 11/24: 66, 120/80, 96.1, South Pole
- 11/25: 78, 128/78, 98.1, SP (after dinner)
- 11/26: 74, 132/76, 97.9, SP (after lunch)
- 11/27: 66, 130/80, 97.3, SP (pre-lunch)
- 11/28: 66, 121/85, 97.8, SP
- 11/29: 60, 135/85, 98.1, SP
Bio classes - try to analyze the data and post your results on the "Ask the Team" forum! Is the extreme environment having any effect on the way my body is working? Back up your answers with evidence from the data, and from what you have learned in class. And, if you have any ideas for other simple experiments or measurements I could do, post those too!
In addition to just the physical stress, I also wanted to see if the extreme conditions would affect mental acuity, such as reaction time. I made a video of a simple test you can do to measure your own reaction time, using just a ruler. Try it out on your own!
http://
My reaction time when I did this test ended up being about .201 seconds. Note that this reaction time is for a very specific action - reacting to other circumstances (say a car accident) might be quicker or slower. But to compare how one person's reaction time might change under different conditions (or to compare reaction times between two people) this works great.