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BBC: Why dying is forbidden in the Arctic


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I came upon this great little artile about Svalbard, an archipelago in the Arctic which is controlled by Norway.

 

BBC NEWS | Programmes | From Our Own Correspondent | Why dying is forbidden in the Arctic

 

Interesting article!

 

I can't imagine my first day of kindergarden and being told:

 

From Article:

"If you are unarmed when you encounter a bear, toss your mittens on the snow in the hope of distracting it.

 

But if you see it snap its teeth with a smacking sound, it is readying for a kill."

 

I would have begged my parents to home school me!!! :(

 

The only thing I worried about my first day of school was did I get the best Trapper Keeper! :hyper::hyper::hyper:

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oh boy, polar bears and university newbies? :)

that sounds like a hazing waiting to happen.

 

 

 

from article:

"The town's small graveyard stopped accepting newcomers 70 years ago, after it was discovered that the bodies were failing to decompose."

:) wow!

 

while i found that clip of text to be rather morbid, i can't help but wonder if it's just as morbid for me to wonder if they can do anything with that bit of influenza, or any other viruses (or bacteria) that might be recovered from the tissue samples.

 

 

ok i admit it, maybe i -should- get out more. :fire:

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Maybe I missed something, but can't they just ship out their dead? Is that too much bother? Seems like there should be some option other than buying a plane ticket for the ill and burying the dead where they drop.

 

~modest

 

I think it is assumed that they are shipped out when dead because you can't bury bodies there. That said, they should just dig a temporary holding facility for the dead and ship them out all at one time.

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  • 3 months later...
oh boy, polar bears and university newbies? :phones:

that sounds like a hazing waiting to happen.

 

 

 

from article:

:hihi: wow!

 

while i found that clip of text to be rather morbid, i can't help but wonder if it's just as morbid for me to wonder if they can do anything with that bit of influenza, or any other viruses (or bacteria) that might be recovered from the tissue samples.

 

 

ok i admit it, maybe i -should- get out more. :)

That flu virus, lethal as it was then, is not very different from the everyday flu we get every year - but now our immune systems have adapted.

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  • 5 months later...

This thread is quite old, but since I have just been there last February I thought I post you a photo of a polar bear I saw when I was there. Just the thing with polar bears is that if you can take a nice photo you actually have a problem :-) So you have to believe me, with binoculars the grey dot is a polar bear in liberty ...polar bear

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