As most people on Earth celebrate the Summer Solstice yesterday by enjoying a few extra minutes of sunlight, our fellow global brethren in the South celebrated their shortest day of the year. Typically the solstice is on June 21st, but 2012 was a leap year so it is one day before. For those poor unfortunate souls studying the ice in Antarctica, June 20th was the absolute darkest day of the year. However, if you were to ask the team of British researchers working for the British Antarctic Survey, it was not such a gloomy day. For them and other nationalities at the south pole, it was holiday, started a hundred years ago by Captain Robert Falcon Scott. It was Midwinter’s Day, and revelers celebrated the fact that from this point on, the nights will only be getting shorter.