Partner Highlight

September 2007

Science on Top of the World

“It’s hugely exciting to have this opportunity both to go up to the top of the world’s highest mountain and to do science up there! And now that we’ve climbed the real mountain, we have a mountain of data. If you’re interested in science, you need to explore. Talk to people. Most scientists are really excited to be approached by people who are interested in what they are doing.” —Dr. Mike Grocott, Project Director, Caudwell Xtreme Everest

Written by Jennifer Boxer ~ Illustrated by Dennis Smith

The following story is contributed by The Saint Louis Science Center, one of Natural History magazine’s Museum Partners. Members of any of our partner organizations receive Natural History as a benefit of their museum membership. To see a list of the participating institutions and links to their Web sites, click here.

The Saint Louis Science Center is a three-building complex (the main building, the Montgomery Bank Exploradome, and the James S. McDonnell Planetarium) located in St. Louis, Missouri. It features more than 700 hands-on exhibits. In the Science Center galleries you can visit a life-sized animated Tyrannosaurus rex and Triceratops in the Ecology and Environment Galleries, unravel the mysteries of genetics in DNA Zone, climb in a giant kaleidoscope in the Human Adventure Galleries, play a laser harp or create a "virtual fish" in Cyberville, explore the science of engineering in Structures, cross over the interstate and watch the cars go by on the Bridge, visit the new Flight! Gallery in the tunnel between the main building and the Planetarium, and enjoy innovative live Amazing Science Demonstrations.

In addition, the 11,000-square-foot Science Park outside the McDonnell Planetarium includes not only seating areas but also outdoor exhibits that let you experiment with the properties of sound, motion, and light. These exhibits include the Roller Coaster Gravity Race, Friction Slide, Color Maze, Whisper Dishes, Gears, Echo Tube, Giant Kaleidoscope, and Prizms. For further information, visit the Center’s Web site, www.slsc.org.

King was inspired by Grocott and he shared his enthusiasm by:

• developing an international network of science centers to connect museum visitors with advancing frontiers of scientific research
• creating educational programming and exhibits relating to the Everest experiments to be shared among the network members, reaching millions of science center visitors throughout North America
• making the connection between Dr. Grocott and MacGillivray Freeman Films, resulting in a giant screen film, Return to Everest, to be released in 2009, and
• signing up to be a volunteer in the medical experiments so that he could go to Everest himself.

“At the Saint Louis Science Center, our core mission is to stimulate interest in and understanding of science and technology throughout the community,” explains King.

“These doctors are doing real science and they are role models—medical professionals that kids will want to emulate. They’re doing real jobs in an exciting, interesting place and their research is going to help other people. They are adventurers, mountaineers, athletes, singers and guitar players, and they’re not sitting in a lab. This work is going to have a real impact. About 40 percent of us will enter an emergency room at some point in our lives and a key issue will be whether doctors can get enough oxygen to the brain while they fix what’s wrong with us. If this work is successful, it’s going to save lives of people we know, or maybe even our own.”

The partnership between the Saint Louis Science Center and Caudwell Xtreme Everest offers science center visitors the unusual opportunity to find out about science going on today by talking with the scientists themselves. Questions can be submitted through slsc.org and xtreme-everest.co.uk. During the expedition, emails were sent back and forth directly to the lab at Everest Base Camp. In addition, through weekly satellite phone conversations, MacGillivray Freeman Films produced email dispatches following the scientists’ progress.

Dr. Denny Levett, Deputy Research Leader and Expedition Medical Officer, answered some of the questions. “As an intensive care doctor, every day of my working life, I struggle with patients who are exposed to low oxygen levels, some of whom, sadly, die. What we learn on Everest could help us to treat these patients more effectively. Our goal is to learn more about how the body copes with low oxygen levels. Intensive care patients have low oxygen levels for a number of different reasons; for example, with pneumonia, their lungs are not working properly. The healthy volunteers in our study—the trekkers on the expedition—were exposed to low oxygen levels. Some coped with this much better than others, as often happens with our patients in the hospital. My research in particular asks the questions: ‘Are the star performers using oxygen more efficiently than the poor performers? Like a fuel-efficient car, are they getting more energy from each molecule of oxygen (more miles to the gallon)?’ If we identify what it is that allows them to perform so well, we may, in the future, be able to use this knowledge to design drugs and treatments to help our patients.”

What was it like being a part of the Caudwell Xtreme Everest Expedition? An interview with Doug King The scope of the project really amazed me. There were four complete labs, very well equipped, at 5,000 feet, 12,000 feet, 15,000 feet, and at Base Camp. The doctors themselves took a lot of the equipment up to 27,000 feet including the exercise bike so that they could do some of their research at the top of the mountain. There were 35 people on the medical team, but with all the support people and the Sherpas, there were a lot more, not counting the 200 of us that were showing up to get tested. I was stunned by the scale, the logistics and the difficulty. Everything has to be brought in on someone’s back or on a yak. And everything humans leave at base camp has to come out when you go down, including the bathrooms. The tents, the lab equipment, the photocopy machine and everything used by the MacGillivray Freeman film crew all came on a yak or by a porter. It was a lot harder physically than I thought it would be. I have run a marathon before and it was harder than that. It helps to be in good shape, but one of the points that Dr. Grocott makes is that we don’t know how our bodies are going to react to oxygen deprivation. They’re doing this study so that they can predict that better, but at this point they can’t predict how well an individual is going to adjust. Some people who were very fit didn’t do well. The one who did the best on our trip was a 68-year-old grandmother of eight. When the altitude and low oxygen get you, they get you, no matter how fit you are. They had us doing these tests every morning. Blood oxygen at sea level reads 95–98 percent. That’s normal. By the time I got to base camp, mine was 77. My daughter is a doctor and she said that if you came in to her emergency room, if your level was even below 90 they would put you in the ICU. When your blood has 20 percent less oxygen, your heart starts beating faster. My resting heart rate was 55 at sea level. At base camp, it was 80. That was happening to everybody. Your blood pressure goes up. Then your body starts to shut down other systems. It knows that it needs oxygen for the brain, so it shuts down the digestive system and your appetite goes away. And you think, "I’ve got to eat." If you make yourself eat, though, you will throw up. That’s your body telling you that it’s trying not to use oxygen in that area, so quit eating. All these processes are happening automatically in each person in different ways at different rates. How does the body know to do that? Everest is a beautiful place. You don’t waste anything. You don’t use things you don’t need. It’s beautiful wherever you look, every direction. When you are on the trek, you can walk all day long and not hear anything except yak bells and children laughing. It’s peaceful. The world gets a whole lot clearer.

See also Racing to Survey Coral Reefs, provided by the Florida Museum of Natural History.

Copyright © Natural History Magazine, Inc., 2007