Talk about Big Science. A team of London researchers are hoping to turn Mount Everest into a giant outdoor laboratory. And they’re looking for over 200 volunteers to help with their work.
The ‘Xtreme Everest team’, headed by Dr Mike Grocott, of UCL's Institute of Human Health, want to measure how the human body copes with high altitude, low-oxygen conditions at Everest Base Camp. It’s a bit like being in hospital, apparently.
By observing healthy individuals at high altitude where oxygen is scarce, we can learn about physiological changes that can improve critical care at the hospital bedside because low oxygen levels are an almost universal problem in critical care.
According to the BBC, the team describe their new workplace as ‘the world's highest laboratory’. (Not quite true - that accolade belongs to the US-built Destiny Laboratory up in space.) If you’d like to join them, you need to be reasonably fit, be free for 3 weeks between March to May next year, and have £2395 to spare, to cover costs.
