Drunken Nudity, Boozy Brawls: Government Wants to Chill Out Antarctic Scientists
Published at | Updated at
iStock/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — Alcohol-fueled public indecency and booze-fueled brawls are par for the course at your average party school, but Wired reports the government is getting concerned about such behavior at the hands of scientists stationed in Antarctica.
The magazine reports that after an audit of the McMurdo Station and the Scott-Admundsen South Pole Station by the Office of the Inspector General, the National Science Foundation considered installing breathalizers at the bases.
However, experts insist enforcing — and even calibrating — the devices in Antarctica would be difficult in the extreme, seeing as the remote continent isn’t U.S. territory.
Wired reports NSF officials complained drinking at the isolated bases was creating, “unpredictable behavior that has led to fights, indecent exposure, and employees arriving to work under the influence,” with static routinely erupting between the scientists — called “beakers,” and the cooks, security personnel, and other contract workers who make the facility run.
One former bartender who worked at the South Pole station told Wired that there’s a “cultural split” between the two groups, and the scientists suffer “little consequence for what they do down there.
Copyright © 2015, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.