No one knows how this lake stays liquid in a region where the temperature recently fell to minus 132 degrees Fahrenheit, the lowest ever recorded on Earth. The temperature has not risen above freezing for millions of years. A scientist traverses the ice miles above the freshwater Lake Vostok in Antarctica. Penguins and seals dawdle on the sea ice. Mirages dance on the horizon.
Volcanoes fume under the ice.
Lake water fizzles with laughing gas. Despite herculean efforts by the U.S. National Science Foundation to minimize the impact of human activities in recent decades, people can hardly help but jeopardize the study areas that draw them here. Indeed, this is a land where biologists gingerly walk from rock to rock, lest they unintentionally trample rare soil colonies of microbes or sparse lichen. Drums of human waste routinely are shipped thousands of miles to California. No one dares touch the birds or marine mammals because, under the terms of an international treaty, they could be fined or even deported.