The end of winter may be in sight at the South Pole, but the photo above of the IceCube Lab still presents a very wintry scene, all frosted over under a starry sky. The IceCube detector was rather quiet last week, but there was plenty going on at the station. Last week’s firefighting training involved an obstacle course in the station’s subfloors. Trainees had to navigate and squeeze through tight spaces blindfolded, a scenario that mimicked a collapsed structure in a room filled with smoke. Also last week, five teams participated in an Iron Chef competition, in which they had to prepare at least two courses featuring a randomly selected secret ingredient. The judging panel is shown below, followed by a nice lineup of the three-course meal prepared by IceCube winterover Marc’s team. Chocolate was the secret ingredient, which made it into all courses, even the two savory ones. Hope they got some bonus points for nice plating!
