Kathy Goldhahn, age 10, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for her question:

Is there life on Antarctica?

Antarctica sleeps below a thick, massive sheet of ice and cold blustery winds blow over the surface. No trees grow there in the cruel weather, no grasses, no shrubs or flowery plants. Flocks of handsome penguins spend part of the year on the ice sheet. So do a few other sea birds. But for a long time scientists thought that Antarctica had no permanent residents, either plants or animals. Then they found that a certain insect is at home there. Later, teams of scientists set up stations on the continent. They take turns staying a year, two years or more. So Antarctica is now inhabited by humans.

The icy continent is almost deserted. But the waters around its shores teem with living things. Diatoms, algae and other microscopic plants teem in the chilly seas. Fishes, large and small, come there to feed an this floating plankton. So do the great blue whales. Seals and seabirds come to feed on the fishes, prowling sharks feed on the seals and on whatever other meat they can find. The ice bound land is almost deserted    but life throngs in the seas around it.