\n <\/p>\n
\u201cIn this image, I\u2019m collecting faecal samples from Ad\u00e9lie penguins (Pygoscelis adeliae) on Horseshoe Island, off the Antarctic Peninsula at about 68\u00b0 S. As an analytical chemist, my research focuses on detecting trace contaminants such as heavy metals, pesticides and microplastics.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s always been a dream of mine to travel to Antarctica, and I loved every minute. We follow strict rules to protect the wildlife, including wearing a protective suit. We also try to keep a distance from penguins and any other wildlife, such as the Weddell seal (Leptonychotes weddellii) that I\u2019m pictured with, but some animals are naturally curious and difficult to avoid.<\/p>\n
My university in Istanbul runs research trips to this site every year, coordinated by the Turkish government and Marmara Research Center in Gebze, Turkey. It\u2019s a long journey from Istanbul \u2014 around 16,000 kilometres and ten days of travel. We first fly to Brazil, then to northern Chile, then down to Patagonia; finally we take a flight to South Georgia, from where we travel by boat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cIn this image, I\u2019m collecting faecal samples from Ad\u00e9lie penguins (Pygoscelis adeliae) on Horseshoe Island, off the Antarctic Peninsula at about 68\u00b0 S. As an analytical chemist, my research focuses on detecting trace contaminants such as heavy metals, pesticides and microplastics. It\u2019s always been a dream of mine to travel to Antarctica, and I loved<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39492,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[14582,21408,21407,4965,13094],"class_list":{"0":"post-39491","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-antarctica","9":"tag-contaminants","10":"tag-faeces","11":"tag-measure","12":"tag-penguin"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/39492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}