NEWS: 5th Sep 2006
 
The real science starts!

We have at last arrived, and are able to start testing our equipment and logistics. Arising at 06.30 (as is to be our norm), I complete my saturation measures and step tests with Sundeep, and wander to the power tent. It is still a remarkable site: we have a fully-equipped computer room! Outside, our solar panels are fizzing with power (why is this not standard in the UK?), with our Honda humming merrily to itself. Inside, remarkable little beasts called ?Panasonic Toughbooks? stand waiting- and boot up as if it is just a normal day at the office! I am resolved at once to obtain one: if they can handle 5000m in the Himalaya, they can handle cycling though London!

Victron provided us with some very sexy (to those here into power) power regulation technologies, which seem to work reliably and smoothly.

Mike Stroud is here: clinician and scientist, but also world-famous explorer. His interest here is in how we handle nutrients, so he is keen to measure our body composition. One by one, we lie outside on mats to be connected to a Bodystat Bioimpedence machine, which can tell how much of you is water (and where this is) as well as how much is fat and muscle. The VT?s get the callipers out, and pinch our fat and skin in all sorts of unusual places, whilst Nikki goes about measuring all the dimensions of our skulls: there is a theory that ?small heads? have ?less room inside for swelling?, and that high-altitude symptoms may be related to such measures.

Denny (despite a worsening viral illness), Kay and Helen are busy calibrating our Cortex systems, and are going well? and by day?s end, we are all well ahead of schedule! We finish with a meal and some cards, before bed.