Even penguins marched (well, waddled) for science

The love of facts and reason transcends species.
 By 
Maria Gallucci
 on 
Original image replaced with Mashable logo
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

What's better than clever protest signs? Protest penguins.

On Saturday, as thousands of people joined the March for Science worldwide, a group of penguins waddled in solidarity at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California.

The aquarium shared the "March of the Penguins for Science" via Facebook Live. The post had nearly 1.7 million views by mid-afternoon on Sunday.

The March for Science movement was born in response to President Donald Trump's "clear anti-science actions," organizers said in January.

The Trump administration has vowed to slash funding and staffing for federal scientific agencies. Top officials have repeatedly expressed hostility and skepticism toward robust, peer-reviewed, widely accepted research -- including the scientific consensus on human-driven climate change.

But the fear that science and reason are under attack isn't confined to the United States.

On April 22 -- Earth Day -- scientists and their supporters showed up at more than 500 events around the world, from the North Pole all the way down to the real land of the penguins: Antarctica.

A team of German researchers with the Alfred Wegener Institute braved below-freezing temperatures to carry pro-science signs and bang drums across the icy Antarctic landscape.

In one photo, they held a sign with a quote from Marie Curie, the Nobel Prize-winning chemist. It read, "Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more so that we may fear less."

Mashable Image
Maria Gallucci

Maria Gallucci was a Science Reporter at Mashable. She was previously the energy and environment reporter at International Business Times; features editor of Makeshift magazine; clean economy reporter for InsideClimate News; and a correspondent in Mexico City until 2011. Maria holds degrees in journalism and Spanish from Ohio University's Honors Tutorial College.

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