Monday, December 30, 2013

A long-ago mysterious death at the South Pole

Over the break, I read this account of scientists at the South Pole and a mysterious death from methanol poisoning that happened in 2000. As someone who's not much of a drinker, South Pole scientists' reliance on alcohol is remarkable, in terms of volume. That said, it's certainly understandable.

Hard to say why Rodney Marks died; the article doesn't shed much light on it, other than a potential that Dr. Marks purchased a bottle of methanol-spiked alcohol from another country and brought it with him. An interesting story, for those who are looking for a longer article to read. 

1 comment:

  1. I actually have a bottle of alcohol with Portuguese writing on it and a picture of a shrimp. It was brought by a Brazilian during a party at my place a long time ago and used for some sort of cocktail. It's about a third full and I tried drinking it a year ago, but it was so horrible I kept having the taste in my mouth for one day after after only ten ml. Probably nobody died after the party since they all drank a little of it, and supplemented it with a lot of ethanol from other types of alcohol. I think next week I'm going to take a sample and run it through the GC/MS.

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