The Yukon Kuskokwum Delta, home to Yup’ik and Cup’ik people, provides a perfect location to study how social microbial communities and geese are influencing CO2 and Methane emissions from salt marshes. The YK Delta area is huge. It’s one of the largest wetlands in North America with over 20,000,000 acres. It’s where the Yukon River […]
Anna Across the Arctic has been awarded two First place awards for Children’s Fiction. One from Alaska Professional Communicators (APC) and the other from The National Federation of Press Women (NFPW.) We are delighted to receive these awards and would like to share with you some of the judges’ comments. Judge, Grace Cavalieri, Maryland Poet […]
A true story of the longest, fastest fox journey ever recorded Alaskan co-authors Liz O’Connell and Arin Underwood, illustrated by Arin Underwood, present an Arctic science story about a four-pound blue morph fox tracked by a satellite collar, in the longest, fastest fox journey ever recorded. The surprising distance and speed of the small fox […]
Remember the Exxon Valdez oil spill on March 24, 1989
The United States Geological Survey neatly summarized the spill: “On 24 March 1989, the oil tanker ‘Exxon Valdez’ spilled 260,000 barrels of crude oil in Prince William Sound, Alaska. Oil eventually drifted over [] coastal and offshore waters occupied by approximately one million marine birds.” One million marine birds relying on habitat in Prince William […]
Pristine Prince William Sound
Alaska oil development on the North Slope is caught up in an ironic conundrum. Alaska has permafrost, a permanently frozen layer at variable depth below the surface in frigid regions of a planet. As Earth warms permafrost thaws. The burning of fossil fuels (oil) is heating the planet and thawing the permafrost below oil wells […]
Sometimes large projects spawn new science research. For example, in 1958, when Edward Teller as director of the Atomic Energy Commission proposed to use nuclear bombs to landscape a harbor at Port Thompson on the west coast of Alaska, white man’s science data on the area did not exist. Nearby local residents, particularly the Inupiat […]
“The science is clear. Without rapid cuts in CO2 and other greenhouse gases, climate change will have increasingly destructive and irreversible impacts on life on Earth.”
She’s charismatic, blunt, and invigorating. And this sixteen-year-old climate activist has ignited a global movement. On Friday March 15, 2019, join her in asking for change.
Remember Prince William Sound in the headlines 3.23.1989
The Mastaba in London got me thinking about climate change.
Frontier Scientists examines the importance of Salmon.
King Salmon on the Kenai River from 1984-2018
Jeffrey T. Rasic, National Park Service, is finding hearths. Rasic spoke at the Alaska Anthropology Association Conference on March 24, 2018. Rasic’s talk was titled Great When You Can Find Them: Case Studies in Hearth Detection Using Magnetic Survey Methods. Rasic said, “Prehistoric hearth features can yield troves of information about past human behavior, archaeological […]
Alaska archaeology, going back at least 14,000 years, is highlighted by these April events in Alaska for the National Park Service archaeology month. IN CONTEXT: Community-Based Archaeology April 4, 10 a.m. to noon Anchorage Museum, Reynolds Room, 625 C Street, Anchorage, AK 10 to 11 a.m.: Hear from Rick Knecht, PhD, via WebEx, about the Nunalleq archaeological […]
Imagine you are watching an old B-movie with grand and frightening monsters attacking each other for the battle of the Pacific Ocean! It’s not what you would think of when you think about weather and climate is it? Fun Fiction and Real Facts Dr. Nicholas Bond a climatologist with the state of Washington has been […]
Patrick Saltonstall, curator Alutiiq Museum, describes community archaeology in his talk at the Alaska Anthropological Association March 23, 2018. Saltonstall’s talk titled Fish Traps, Fox Farms, and Petroglyphs: The Afognak Land Survey is archaeology with locals. Saltonstall says “Archaeology isn’t just for Archaeologists.” By Liz O’Connell, University of Alaska Anchorage
Kathryn E. Krasinski at the Alaska Anthropological Association Conference in Anchorage, Alaska. Krasinski is in front of a poster titled “Pleistocene Mammoth Ivory Use at the Holzman Site in Interior Alaska.” Photos below show the uncovering of the Mammoth Ivory in 2016. by Liz O’Connell, University of Alaska Anchorage
For a class in the journalism and communications department at the University of Alaska Anchorage, climatologist Nicholas (Nick) Bond gave a presentation on his work and, more specifically, his studies on a large mass of warm water in the Pacific Ocean, known as “The Blob.” Bond, with the University of Washington, first coined the unusual […]
Washington State climatologist, Nick Bond, cemented his legacy when he described the new persistent warm ocean water as the blob. The term, coined while Bond was participating in a weekly KUOW radio segment, has appeared in media organizations all over the nation, partly because it sounds cute, but also because of its climate implications. “I […]
Something unusual happened off the West Coast in the Pacific Ocean, a warm patch of water referred to as “the blob.” Nick Bond, state climatologist for Washington and researcher for the Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean, coined the term in 2014. He describes the blob as a circular area of […]
In the winter of 2014, a patch of ocean in the Gulf Alaska became much warmer than usual. This occurred due to a persistent area of higher than normal pressure. Over the next two years, the patch increased in size and affected the marine life around it. Nick Bond inadvertently coined the term “the blob” […]
“The Blob” is not a very scientific term. It sounds more like a child’s toy than anything. Recently, though, it has become both serious and scientific through the work of climate scientist Nick Bond. Bond, a research meteorologist at the University of Washington and that state’s official climatologist, first coined the term in 2014 while […]
Frontier Scientists won two First Place awards at the annual Alaska Press Club Conference 2017. www.FrontierScientists.com won “Best Website,” and Frontier Scientists’ 30 minute TV program “Portraits by Clark James Mishler” broadcast on Alaska Public Media won in the “Best Culture Reporting” category. The Alaska Press Club‘s conference brought national judges for the contest competition […]
Long before the creation of modern furnaces or microfibers, hardy and inventive people survived Northern cold. Native crafters created clothing that was beautiful, durable and functional. Museum exhibit: “Threads of Change: Arctic Clothing and Identity in the North” opens at The Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum and Arctic Studies Center at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, on […]
Arctic sea ice maximum hit a record low in March 2017. Arctic sea ice covered less area than it has any other year since satellite records began in 1979. This record low is the newest in a three-year string of record low Arctic sea ice maximums. Sea ice grows and dwindles with the polar seasons. […]
Sometimes, a great idea arrives ahead of its time. A person squints at a raw landscape, thinks about it in his bunk on a heaving ship, dreams of it. He scribbles a diagram. He remains quiet years later as others rediscover the same thing. Such was the case of a rugged geologist who island-hopped in […]
SAN FRANCISCO — On rare winter mornings here, a skim of ice forms on sidewalk puddles. But water’s solid form is mostly an abstraction in this land of blooming flowers and the hummingbirds that visit them. Except for the week of the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union. Dozens of the 22,000 scientists gathering […]
“We’ve seen a year in 2016 in the Arctic like we’ve never seen before,” reported Jeremy Mathis, Director of NOAA’s Arctic Research Program. Mathis presented the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Arctic Report Card for 2016, the newest installment of an annual peer-reviewed report summarizing changing conditions in the Arctic. Mathis: “The report card this […]
In Alaska’s Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge scattered ponds and twining rivers dot the landscape. Here in the remote Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta (Y-K Delta) researchers tackle five months in the field. New Frontier Scientists videos feature their work gathering information about our shifting climate, investigating the implications of mismatched natural events. See new videos at FrontierScientists.com […]
Last week, I wrote about a thought experiment proposed by Fairbanks scientist Jim Beget. He suggests raining down crystals of a compound that captures carbon dioxide onto a frigid plateau in Antarctica. There, the greenhouse gas might remain locked for a few hundred thousand years. Beget will present his idea at the fall meeting of […]
“The effects of climate change are are really complex,” and “There are a number of changes that are happening together that are going to ultimately affect how ecosystems operate,” Kathy Kelsey, postdoctoral researcher at the University of Alaska Anchorage, told Frontier Scientists. Kelsey and colleagues are studying changes in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta (YKD) of western […]
YUKON FLATS — Out here, in a smooth plain stretching over Alaska’s wrinkled face, water and tree and mud dissolve to fuzz at each horizon. No hills or bumps. An ocean of sky. An observer once said Yukon Flats looks like a place where God forgot to put something. Garrett Jones and I are camped […]
“It’s amazing that these little two-pound birds running around the Delta can have such a large impact,” Ryan Choi told Frontier Scientists. Pacific black brandt wing their way to western Alaska every year. There, these geese are influential players in their ecosystem, impacting vegetation, carbon cycling, and greenhouse gas emissions. Ryan Choi, PhD student at […]
UAF FARM FIELDS — Gliding in with their wings folded like paper airplanes, nine Canada geese drop their paddle feet and prepare to land in a corner of this cleared plain. On this early fall day, the birds could use an air traffic controller. Their landing zone of barley stalks is clogged with the rusty […]
“A lot of Arctic and sub-Arctic regions are experiencing the effects of climate change more than areas at lower latitudes. So that is an important thing to communicate to the public,” Kathy Kelsey said. Kelsey and colleagues are “On the ground watching some of the large changes as a result of climate change.” Kathy Kelsey […]
“Doing science in the Delta is more than just coming up with interesting questions and implementing them. It also requires a lot of on-the-ground work and pre-season preparation in order to be out here for as long as we are.” A five month field season in remote Alaska is no deterrent to Ryan Choi. “I […]
When Craig Ely thumbed through his collection of photos of Alaska Native kids and biologists gathered in front of an old church, he knew he had to make a yearbook. Not for himself, though he would savor the memories, but for all the kids who had helped him do science since the 1980s. The U.S. […]
Photographer Clark James Mishler worked to perfect his portraits in the colorful state of Alaska. “If you want to talk about diversity, Alaska is the best!” Mishler said, “It’s a fabulous mash of cultures and social backgrounds.” Mishler brings you his take on photography in new video ‘Alaska Portraits.’ “I feel very fortunate that my […]
22% of rural Alaska homes lack running water and a flush toilet, according to the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation – Division of Water. Photographer Clark James Mishler described the difference between living in an urban Anchorage residence and living in parts of rural Alaska as stark: “It’s like living in a third world country, […]
“I had no idea that people were doing these sort of things,” photographer Clark James Mishler said. He put his camera to use documenting the processing of fish and other subsistence activities in the rural Alaska village of Kwethluk over the course of six years. “These are techniques that are taught to the kids, taught […]
About 95% of the food people in Alaska purchase is imported. “That’s a problem,” photographer Clark James Mishler told Frontier Scientists. One of his dreams is to “Help build a sustainable food system for Alaska.” Subsistence activities are one puzzle piece of a sustainable food system. Subsistence harvests in Alaska contribute to food security and […]
Alaska became a state in 1959. Clark James Mishler, eleven years old and living in the Detroit area, decided right then he wanted to move to Alaska. He made the dream a reality after college and formed a career capturing images of Alaska through documentary film and photography. “The still image was my favorite by […]
Whale fin slices in the hands of Point Hope locals are evidence of ancient tradition. Subsistence hunting and gathering provide food and raw materials which support rural Alaskan communities. Subsistence activities make possible customs and traditions… they help define culture. A warming Arctic and associated environmental changes threaten these ways of life. Photographer Clark James […]
“The closer to the ocean, it seems like, the stronger the warming signal in the Arctic right now,” Vladimir Romanovsky told Frontier Scientists, and a warming Arctic leads to warming permafrost. Romanovsky, professor of Geophysics, heads the Permafrost Laboratory at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute. Alaska is edged by oceans on three sides. […]
Metal caps protect deep holes drilled in Alaskan permafrost ground from wanderers of the human and bear varieties. Permafrost, found across the Arctic, is subsurface soil which has remained frozen for two years or more. Permafrost temperatures in Alaska are rapidly changing. Vladimir Romanovsky, professor of Geophysics at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and head […]
Join Frontier Scientists at a free Special Event in Anchorage on Tuesday, August 9th. Cook Inlet volcanoes will astound, the future of polar bears will amaze and the boreal forest will surprise. Expand your Alaskan world with video and commentary by Frontier Scientists: volcanologist Game McGimsey, wildlife biologist Karyn Rode, and forest specialist Bjartmar Sveinbjörnsson. […]
Interior Alaska is a hungry place — lots of boreal forest and swampy wetlands with big, flat rivers winding through. Wildlife sightings, especially of big mammals, are rare. But a recent video posted by a seismologist makes the Tanana River flats look like the Serengeti. A motion-triggered game camera installed above buried instruments shows visits […]
Get your fingertips ready to navigate a flying quadcopter during stormy Alaska weather, catch the perfect aerial shot of rare wildlife, and uncover trails through rough Arctic sea ice. Play the Arctic UAVs game on your mobile device. The game is based on real UAV research missions executed by the Alaska Center for Unmanned Aircraft […]
“All you have to do is fly over the Arctic to see the tracks of vehicles. And it’s a long lasting effect: there’s tracks from vehicles that were driven out 50 years ago. It doesn’t recover very quickly. In that sense it’s pretty fragile.” Permafrost has been called permanently frozen soil. William Cable, research professional […]
The countryside around the excavation is “A lot of tundra and tussocks, it’s a lot of swampy material, a lot of inlets and outlets. I’ve actually walked all around the lake which was a day–long process.” Joe Keeney said “It’s just a grassy landscape with tall willows that come up to head level and a […]
When botanist Janet Jorgenson first visited a patch of tundra east of Kaktovik in 1988, it was flat, dry and thick with 29 species of lichens and mosses. Now, Tapkaurak is wet, gullied and fragrant with sedges and grasses. And, like other parts of Alaska’s North Slope, it is a few feet farther from the […]
“Up until the point that the Matcharak Peninsula Site was found, you could essentially fit all the identifiable materials from these Northern Archaic sites into a shoebox,” archaeologist Joe Keeney said. The Matcharak Peninsula site is “A very unique site that has such good preservation, and such high numbers” of bones. The site’s details shed […]
Enjoy FRONTIER SCIENTISTS: SEASON 2 on Alaska Public Media KAKM–TV. From polar bears to grayling, engage in the Artic’s newest discoveries with Frontier Scientists. The series airs Wednesdays at 8pm beginning June 15th. Alaska PBS Programming is available in the state of Alaska. Episodes are scheduled 8pm Alaska time on PBS KAKM Science Wednesday. The […]
FRONTIER SCIENTISTS: SEASON 2 on KAKM’s Science Wednesday Enjoy FRONTIER SCIENTISTS: SEASON 2 on Alaska Public Media KAKM–TV. From polar bears to grayling, engage in the Artic’s newest discoveries with Frontier Scientists.The series airs Wednesdays at 8pm beginning June 15th 2016. Alaska PBS Programming is available in the state of Alaska. Episodes are scheduled 8pm […]
If you’re in beautiful Anchorage, Alaska visit Frontier Scientists at the International Conference on Bear Research and Management. The International Association for Bear Research and Management promotes conservation of bear species based on science-based best practice. “Bears of the World” 2016 isn’t just for scientists; attend engaging public lectures and outreach events. Look for Frontier […]
Conditions at the northern end of the Rock Sandpiper’s range in upper Cook Inlet, Alaska, latitude 61°N, are the coldest experienced by any shorebird species. The Pribilof Rock Sandpiper survives there all winter long. “Rock Sandpipers, as far as shorebirds go, are fairly nondescript. They are about the size of a robin, they weight 80 […]
“This is when shorebirds are supposed to be in Mexico and Panama.” Dan Ruthrauff, wildlife biologist with USGS Alaska Science Center, researches Pribilof Rock Sandpipers (C. p. ptilocnemis). These amazing birds are unique; unlike other migratory shorebirds in the North Pacific they do not fly south for the winter. Instead they overwinter at high latitudes […]
“Alaska is home to many many millions of breeding shorebirds during the summertime.” Dan Ruthrauff, wildlife biologist with USGS, Alaska Science Center, said “They are all Alaska’s birds but they are shared with the world.” Video: International Bird Ambassadors Animal ambassador shorebirds travel worldwide Shorebirds perform astounding feats. The bar-tailed godwit migrates for ten days […]
In late July, more than 300 wildfires are burning in Alaska. With burned acreage totals one month ahead of the historic 2004 fire season, summer 2015 is again the year of the wildfire. Many scientists are not surprised. In papers written a few years ago, Alaska researchers and others suggested smoky years like this one […]
“Typically when a bird gets any ice on their body it’s game over.” But not for rock sandpipers overwintering on the mudflats of Cook Inlet, Alaska. Watch new videos about rock sandpipers on FrontierScientists.com featuring science about avian puffballs surviving and thriving despite enduring ice on feathers and feet. Rock sandpipers in Alaska In Cook […]
Benjamin Russell pointed out different years of growth on a white spruce tree, using bud scars found on the back of the branch to segment off different growing seasons’ needles. “This is the new growth, the growth from this season. And see how abnormally large this is compared to the rest of the tree? That […]
“We are just trying to get as much experience as we can with research, just delving into science.” Amanda Bonavia was a participant in the National Science Foundation’s program Research Experience for Undergraduates. She studied the boreal forest under the direction of Bjartmar Sveinbjornsson, professor of biological sciences and director of the Environment and Natural […]
“There are many many factors there. And we can only make rational policy decisions if we know how the system works.” Bjartmar Sveinbjornsson is a professor of biological sciences and the director of the Environment and Natural Resources Institute at the University of Alaska Anchorage. He’s hosted two student as part of the National Science […]
On FrontierScientists.com, watch new videos featuring Boreal Forest Research in Alaska: ‘Why So Small?‘, ‘How Tree Needles Age‘, and ‘What Are Stomata?‘. “It isn’t just the climate impacting the vegetation but the vegetation impacting the climate,” Bjartmar Sveinbjornsson explained. “As the globe warms up are the forests going to spread and are they going to […]
In almost every patch of boreal forest in Interior Alaska that Glenn Juday has studied since the 1980s, at least one quarter (and as many as one-half) of the aspen, white spruce and birch trees are dead. “These are mature forest stands that were established 120 to 200 years ago,” said Juday, a professor of […]
Up for a hands-on game challenge? Navigate a flying quadcopter during stormy Alaska weather, catch the perfect aerial shot of rare wildlife, and uncover trails through rough sea ice, all in the new mobile app game Arctic UAVs. Arctic UAVs is available for download now in the iTunes App Store and the Google Play Store. […]
Spying on sea otter activities lets biologists measure populations of other species in the otters’ habitat. “It’s just a lot of work to get densities of clams and marine species like that,” described wildlife biologist Daniel Monson. To get a better idea of ecosystem health, scientists can use Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) technology to take […]
When people first walked across the Bering Land Bridge thousands of years ago, dogs were by their sides, according to researchers who wrote a paper published in the journal Science. Scientists from Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles used dog DNA material — some of it unearthed by miners in interior Alaska — to conclude that […]
“Breaking ice: it’s a community effort where a large amount of ice is leveled by the use of only hand tools,” said Eyal Saiet. Trail building off Barrow’s shore happens every spring. “It can be more than a month’s effort of breaking trail, so anything that can help breaking trail is of value.” “Sea ice […]
Like flecks of pepper on chowder, all of the spectacled eiders on the planet are now gathered amid sea ice and steaming open leads in the Bering Sea. “It’s a mass of life in this desolate area,” said Matt Sexson, who once rode an icebreaker to see the winter gathering south of St. Lawrence Island. […]
Temperatures in the Arctic are warming twice as quickly as the global average. Globally, 2015 was the hottest year on record (reported by NOAA and NASA) and the month of January 2016 saw a new record low level for Arctic sea ice extent (reported by the NSIDC). Sea ice loss alters the solar radiation balance […]
For the past 20 years, Dr. Jeff Welker, a Fulbright Distinguished US Arctic Chair, has been investigating the water isotope cycle in the Arctic and across all of N America. His US Network for Isotopes in Precipitation (USNIP) and his Alaska Water Isotope Network (AKWIN) are multi-site programs that quantify the means by which the […]
“Do you want lots of kelp forests? Than you want sea otters in your system.” “A kelp forest is a forest; it’s like you’re flying through a redwood forest.” Brenda Konar, professor in marine biology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, both dives and teaches divers to handle cold […]
The fur trade halted abruptly with the International Fur Seal Treaty of 1911, which finally forbade commercial harvesting. Hunters and trappers had run rampant during the last two centuries. The species of sea life they harvested for pelts during the 18th and 19th century were decimated: Northern fur seal populations were incredibly rare, and Sea […]
The structure of an ice core tells a story about its life cycle; you can take a look and read it like a timeline. Geophysicist Andy Mahoney, assistant research professor in the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute, extracted a sea ice core offshore from Barrow, Alaska. He described how sea ice takes form. When […]
Scientists in Alaska are exploring new research approaches using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. Flying technological tools map sea ice terrain in the Chukchi Sea and spot sea otters’ prey in Kachemak Bay. Explore this groundbreaking science in new videos ‘Mapping Ice Trails By UAV’ and ‘UAV Over Otters’ at FrontierScientists.com. On #ArcticMatters Day, visitors to the […]
Are you attending #ArcticMatters Day? Frontier Scientists (@FrontierSi) will be. On January 14, 2016, visit our table and try your hand at Arctic UAVs– An Alaska Game App. The Unmanned Aerial Vehicle challenge mobile game app aims to inspire interest about real science and research opportunities in Alaska. Arctic UAVs is a series of missions […]
Permafrost, subsurface soil that remains frozen throughout the year, can be found on Alaska’s North Slope and in places across the Arctic. “The temperature of permafrost is rapidly changing,” said Vladimir Romanovsky, Geophysics professor and head of the Permafrost Laboratory at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute. In the very near past when Vladimir […]
El Nino is a natural phenomenon in which changing ocean temperatures occur alongside changes in atmospheric circulation and rainfall. It’s irregular; every 2-7 years ocean waters near the tropical Pacific cycle between warm El Nino or cold La Nina conditions. Though the tropical Pacific may seem far away, the resulting changes in ciruclation do impact […]
FrontierScientists @FrontierSi attended the annual American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting where Earth and Space scientists share their findings December 14-18, 2015. We were pleased to present about techniques for #sharingscience; science communication is a vital part of how science fits into and benefits society. During the presentation we were joined by Nagruk Harcharek, featured in […]
The scientists snapped small icicles off the underside of a chunk of sea ice that had broken away from its pack and rafted up onto the edge of another ice floe. Andrew Mahoney, geophysicist and assistant research professor in the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute, explained the icicles would taste incredibly salty. “It isn’t […]
Geophysicist Andy Mahoney balanced a cylinder of ice on the top of his boot for a moment as he extracted it from a drill barrel. The balancing act kept loose snow lying on top of the sea ice Mahoney stood on from attaching itself to the extracted ice’s surface. The ice core looked like art: […]
Whether from the perspective of a helicopter pilot, a research scientist, or a local whale hunter, sea ice is an impactful part of Arctic life. Visit Frontier Scientists to watch new videos: ‘Barrow Ready Waiting‘, ‘Buoys On Ice‘, ‘Standing on the Beaufort Sea‘, and ‘First Year Or Multi Year Ice‘. Geophysicist Andy Mahoney, assistant research […]
On a February day long ago, a family living in a sod hut near the Arctic Ocean saw blocks of sea ice bulldozing their way onto shore. Winds shoved more ice until the mass towered above them and started dripping water through a ventilation hole. The father urged his family outside just before a slab […]
In 1973, Elden Johnson was a young engineer with a job working on one of the most ambitious and uncertain projects in the world — an 800-mile steel pipeline that carried warm oil over frozen ground. Thirty-five years later, Johnson looked back at what he called “the greatest story ever told of man’s interaction with […]
“It was coming here to Barrow and going to the sea ice north of here that kept me focused on sea ice for the last 15 years,” Andy Mahoney told Frontier Scientists. Mahoney is a sea ice geophysicist and University of Alaska Fairbanks assistant research professor in geophysics. Thick sea ice Level sea ice might […]
“This is an extremely important technology. As more and more people start to work up in the Arctic, you get more shipping, you get more oil development, you get more chance of a spill. In order to be able to respond to it you have to have technologies like this,” Jeremy Kasper explained. The project […]
Beneath a sky of stars and hazy aurora, the heat of an October day shimmers upward. The next morning, leaves, moss and tundra plants are woven into a carpet of white frost; a skin of ice creeps over the surface of lakes. Alaska is freezing once again, responding to the planet’s nod away from the […]
“If you’re coming to the Arctic, bring a good book.” Andy Mahoney, sea ice geophysicist and assistant research professor in geophysics, University of Alaska Fairbanks, was waiting out bad weather so he and his team could travel by helicopter over sea ice. Barrow, Alaska, the northernmost city in the United States, is surrounded by the […]
Bone specimens at the University of Alaska Museum of the North once belonged to members of a newly defined dinosaur species: Ugrunaaluk kuukpikensis. So far nearly 6,000 individual bones have been cataloged from a group of mostly juvenile dinosaurs of U. kuukpikensis that died on the Arctic flood plain 69 million years ago in a place […]
October 6, 2015— Frontier Scientists presents field science in the Far North in two new videos: Mead Archaeological Site, Alaska, Part 1 and Part 2. The videos feature Dr. Ben A. Potter, University of Alaska Fairbanks Associate Professor, as well as graduate students participating in excavations. Together they’re refining what we know about human history […]
Bears have the right idea. Don’t fight the cold; just shut ‘er down for six months and emerge when it’s warmer. Why didn’t we think of that? For one thing, our bones would wither. We’d all get osteoporosis, a disease in which bones become more fragile. Bears don’t get osteoporosis, even though they hibernate for […]
Genetic studies show that polar bears have “A relatively naïve immune system,” according to research wildlife biologist Todd Atwood, who heads the U.S. Geological Survey – Alaska Science Center Polar Bear Research Program. When polar bears are forced ashore they face new threats from disease. Polar bears, marine predators known for traversing arctic sea ice […]
Instead of falling to the dozer blade, the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program has new life. In mid-August, U.S. Air Force General Tom Masiello shook hands with UAF’s Brian Rogers and Bob McCoy, transferring the powerful upper-atmosphere research facility from the military to the university. You may have heard of HAARP. Nick Begich wrote […]
September 8, 2015— Frontier Scientists presents new videos Polar bear swims 400 miles and What makes a polar bear? Also, explore our new site updated with a brand new look and better features: more mobile friendly, same url at FrontierScientists.com. Anthony Pagano, research zoologist with the U.S. Geological Survey – Alaska Science Center, talks about […]
It’s impressive when President Obama visits your home base— Anchorage. And you know something important is happening when two cabinet members, Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell, top level white house officials, foreign dignitaries, Alaskan Republican senators, and rural Alaskan officials all converge. It’s CLIMATE CHANGE. The Department of […]
FRONTIER SCIENTISTS is pleased to announce our new website: brand new website, same URL at FrontierScientists.com. Check it out! We’re providing a much more mobile-friendly site which will perform proper scaling on all computers, phones and tablets, with fresh layout and navigation developed in collaboration with Alpine Internet. We hope you will enjoy the new […]
“Here you are flying at about 20 knots or so; you are chasing a bear so you can get close enough to dart it. The wind is rushing in your face, and it’s 10 below zero or more.” George Durner, research zoologist with the United States Geological Survey, Alaska Science Center, told Frontier Scientists that […]
When he heard the news of a grizzly-polar bear hybrid shot in Canada’s Arctic last month, Tom Seaton thought back to an unusual polar bear hide he’d once seen at Nelson Walker’s home in Kotzebue. “He had two polar bear rugs in his house — one was a huge one, and the other was special; […]
Water is strangely warm in parts of the North Pacific: in the Gulf of Alaska, off Southern California, and stretching across the Bering Sea. A NOAA Northwest Fisheries Science Center press release reported: Not since records began has the region of the North Pacific Ocean been so warm for so long. That references over a […]
“It’s very difficult to observe polar bears directly in their environment.” “They travel widely,” George Durner, research zoologist with the United States Geological Survey Alaska Science Center, explained the bears travel “Hundreds of thousands of square kilometers in the course of the year across the sea ice environment.” To enter the polar bear world Durner […]
July 21, 2015— Listen: intense noises sound when Alaska’s polar bears gather to feed at a whale bone pile. At Frontier Scientists new discoveries in the Far North unfold on your screen. In new videos Hair Reveals Diet and In the Eyes of the Polar Bear, Frontier Scientists features current polar bear research. Scientists Todd […]