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Android and Echo devices. Hey, smarty bands, I'm really cold. No, it's not my air conditioning.

Today, I'm at the southernmost continent on the planet, the one with the fewest human inhabitants.

It's the windiest, coldest, iciest place on Earth. Oh, and it's also a desert? Huh?

Any guesses where I am? Did you say Antarctica? That's right. And yes, Antarctica is a desert,

the largest in the world, in fact, covering 5.5 million square miles.

I'm going inside the tent. See, a desert is a land area that gets no more than 10 inches of

precipitation a year. And Antarctica's the driest continent on Earth. It rarely rains or snows,

and because it's so cold when it does snow, the snow doesn't melt. It builds up over time to create

massive ice sheets, 7 to 10,000 feet thick. Whoa. That's nearly three times taller than the tallest

skyscraper. It's not a very hospitable climate for people. Here on the coast, it's 14 degrees

Fahrenheit, 18 degrees below freezing. And the interior is more like 70 degrees below zero. Yikes,

and I keep the ice cream in my freezer at zero. Yikes is right, but as an Antarctic naturalist,

a scientist who studies living creatures in their habitats, I'm here to see what all the cold

weather critters who've adapted to this dry, chilly climate are up to. Like the albatross,

the penguin, and the seal. Sounds like everyone's going swimming. Yep, most Arctic animals spend a

significant amount of time in or around the ocean. In fact, just below the surface of the newly

recognized southern ocean is a wild world of chases, captures, and escapes. Dining,

playing, and mating, which also includes the largest animal on Earth.

...