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Casting a Short Shadow

An Adélie penguin ponders the long shadows of tall visitors to its colony on Ross Island in the Antarctic. The picture was taken by Chris Linder, a research associate in physical oceanography at WHOI, during a Polar Discovery expedition in November-December 2007. During the expedition, one group of scientists studied how much food the parent penguins deliver to their chicks, how long it took them to collect it, and how fast the chicks grow. Another group, including geologists Adam Soule and Mark Kurz and Joint Program student Andrea Burke, hiked inland to examine how fast lava rock breaks down in the frigid, dry Antarctic climate. (Photo by Chris Linder, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)