Antarctic Architecture

Alex

Buildings are buildings are buildings ... except when they're in Antarctica, where the extreme environment make them look like futuristic spaceships that land on a desolate, frozen landscape.

Oobject has a neat gallery of antarctic architecture:

Antarctic architecture provides imagery of the closest thing that people will be able see to a moon base, within their lifetimes. The extreme nature of the environment combined with its bizarre statelessness, provides the location for a freezing architectural expo, with each country having its own icy pavilion.

Since the early days of wooden huts, the architecture has converged on a style which consists of a pod on legs, somewhat reminiscent of Thunderbird II’s cargo bay or the Space 1999 freighter. In addition large scale experiments such as the south pole telescope or ice cube neutrino detector (which is technically a telescope at the north pole since it watch for particles which have traveled through the earth) provide equally interesting accidental architecture, in that their designs are purely functional.

This one above is the Halley VI Survey Station by Titan Hydraulics, who noted:

Work can only be carried out during this period when there is almost constant daylight and temperatures climb to -20° C and above. During the remaining months the environment is too inhospitable with little daylight and regular blizzards with temperatures dropping below -40°C.

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that would be an awesome house, even outside of antarctica. i would paint it to look like a bulldog. i find it ironic to see steven m johnson laughing at an actual functional invention that has an effective design, although blue would be much better suited for a tropic location. i would consider a green or even orange color, if i didn't paint it to look like a bulldog.
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Careful. Evolution occurs over generations, not a single lifetime.

Still, fascinating creatures. I wonder how the complexity of adult mayflies compares to their larva... I know the adults only live long enough to mate, and do not even have time or energy to eat.
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Beat me to it, TomWWW. Becoming a more simple organism is not evolving "in reverse."

Besides, the process in question here is not evolution in any case. It's a metamorphic change within one generation. It would be like referring to a caterpillar turning into a butterfly as evolution. It's just another stage of its life-cycle.
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Evolution has no direction or an end goal, it simply develops an organism best suited for a particular environmental niche. Clams for instance have no central nervous system even you their ancestors did because it was too cost inefficient for their lifestyle.

Having said that, it is an interesting metamorphic effect .
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Gotta love self proclaimed blog experts...

"Reverse evolution" is a reference to recapitulation theory, thought to have been outdated but a form of it is now making a comeback as we discover more fossils/evidence.

The evolution of certain organisms and their structures can sometimes be understood by observing the organisms devlopment. i.e. the growth of feathers on birds has shed light on how feathers evolved in dinosaurs.

This "reverse evolution" is a creature that for whatever reason found it advantageous to take on a simpler body structure in its adult life, the "blueprint" for which is found in a body form held by its ancestors. Technically there is no "reverse evolution", but its a suitable semantic tool to describe a real phenomenon.
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@Silly people: “Reverse evolution” is not an acceptable phrase for describing this, pouring scorn on people who actually DO seem to know what they're on about doesn't add any weight to your assertion to the contrary. As already mentioned, evolution does NOT occur in individuals, it occurs between generations. Reverse metamorphosis might be an acceptable phrase. "Reverse evolution" as an analogous phrase is used to describe when in an abnormally short space of time a species abruptly resembles an older form (presumably by activating dormant genes). This is still evolution because it occurs across generations, and is reverse to the degree that the resemblance is to an older form.

"Technically there is no “reverse evolution”, but its a suitable semantic tool to describe a real phenomenon." What you say is correct, but its not a suitable semantic tool to describe THIS phenomenon.
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