The air is so dry in Antarctica that chips and popcorn never go stale. It also wrecks your skin, according to someone working there
- During the polar winter, the remote Amundsen-Scott station is the driest place on Earth.
- Over winter, people living there battle flaky skin and "bloody boogers", he said.
- But there are some perks: chips and popcorn never go stale.
The air in Antarctica's remote Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station is so dry that chips and popcorn never go stale, according to a worker that is currently living there
That is because the station is not only one of the coldest places on Earth. The air there is also incredibly dry.
"It's the driest place on earth," Josiah "Joe" Horneman, a physician assistant working at the station over winter, told Insider.
Horneman uses TikTok to show that day-to-day life at the station is far from bleak.
Because the air can often reach -70 degrees Fahrenheit, it can't retain as much moisture. Any that is introduced instantly freezes, a fact demonstrated by Horneman by tossing boiling water into the air:
"This means flaky skin, constantly hydrating, bloody boogers, getting zapped whenever you touch metal," Horneman said.
But there are some unexpected perks to the air being that dry.
"Your bath towel and hair (for those that have it) dry very fast," Horneman said, adding: "Mildew and mold are non-existent."
Another upside is that chips and popcorn never go stale, Horneman said. That's useful as the staff have a popcorn machine that they use for every movie night and TV night, Horneman says in a TikTok post.
"I eat so much freaking popcorn here," he said.
