Research news
Discover which plants Alaska pollinators prefer in webinar
July 17, 2025
While flowers like bird vetch and white sweetclover may be pretty, they are invasive and their spread can be harmful to pollinators, according to an entomologist with the 51ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Cooperative Extension Service.
Alaska heavy with summer insects
July 17, 2025
In these days of endless sunshine and air that doesn't hurt to breathe, life is rich in the North, from the multitude of baby birds hatching at this instant to the month-old orange moose calves restocking the Alaska ungulate population. Less seen are the millions of insects now dancing across the tundra and floating in air.
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2025 Edith R. Bullock Prize for Excellence awarded to Patrick Druckenmiller
July 16, 2025
The UA Foundation Board of Directors has selected Patrick Druckenmiller, director of the University of Alaska Museum of the North, as the recipient of the 2025 Edith R. Bullock Prize for Excellence.
51ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø critical minerals proposal advances in federal funding competition
July 16, 2025
A 51ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø proposal to reduce the United States' dependency on foreign sources of minerals critical to the technology and defense industries has been named a semifinalist in a National Science Foundation competition.
Tiny crystals provide insight to massive 2006 Augustine Volcano eruption
July 11, 2025
Samples of extremely small crystal clots, each polished to the thickness of a human hair or thinner, have revealed information about the process triggering the major 2006 eruption of Alaska's Augustine Volcano.
Alaska climate report: June jumped from cool to hot, hot, hot
July 11, 2025
June began cool and wet but rapidly changed to hot and dry at the midpoint, with wildfires bursting out across the state, according to the monthly summary from the Alaska Climate Research Center.
One big earthquake, two Alaska ghost towns
July 11, 2025
DOME CITY -- "I'm really happy to be out here," Carl Tape says as he stands on a pyramid of dry gravel, 20 feet high. "I've been thinking about this earthquake for 10 years."
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Call for Proposals: URSA Community-Engaged Learning Awards
July 11, 2025
Undergraduate students, graduate students, researcher staff, postdoctoral fellows and faculty from all 51ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø-affiliated campuses are invited to apply for an URSA Community-Engaged Learning Award of up to $5,000.
Alaska's state insect is not the mosquito
July 03, 2025
Thirty years ago, students from the Auntie Mary Nicoli Elementary School in Aniak were among those who held a statewide election to declare an insect that best represented Alaska. Their school's winner: The dragonfly.
Natural changes only part of the story
June 26, 2025
Last week, I sent out a story on changes in Alaska over the past few million years. The theme: Many of the transitions were drastic, and they all had nothing to do with the billions of us now walking the planet's surface.
June 20, 2025
With its melting glaciers, thawing permafrost, and floating sea ice that gets tougher to see from its northern shores each summer, Alaska is the poster state for global warming. Things are changing here, no doubt about it. But it's not the first time.
Career at rocket range energizing, fun
June 12, 2025
After 35 years of driving to work over a small mountain each day, Kathe Rich will soon make her last daily ascent of Cleary Summit.
Mastodons long gone from the far north
June 06, 2025
A long, long time ago, a hairy elephant stomped the northland, wrecking trees and shrubs as it swallowed twigs, leaves and bark.
4-H pH program gives Sitka youth a taste of ocean science
June 05, 2025
Youth in Sitka spent five months testing the water as part of an ocean acidification education program called 4-H pH. The project, funded by the NOAA Ocean Acidification Program, is part of a citizen science program called Global Learning & Observations to Benefit the Environment Program, or GLOBE.
Changing winds could amplify North Atlantic climate anomaly
June 04, 2025
As the planet's oceans are gradually warmed by the effects of climate change, a huge area in the North Atlantic stands out as an unusual zone of relative cooling. A region that stretches roughly from Greenland to Ireland, counterintuitively dubbed the North Atlantic warming hole, is a conspicuous patch of blue on global climate change maps. Researchers say its temperature contrast could intensify in the decades ahead as shifting climate-driven winds amplify the cooling process in the North Atlantic.
The greatest story of man and permafrost
May 29, 2025
In 1973, Elden Johnson was a young engineer 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. Decades later, Johnson looked back at what he called "the greatest story ever told of man's interaction with permafrost."
Study finds birds nested in Arctic alongside dinosaurs
May 29, 2025
Spring in the Arctic brings forth a plethora of peeps and downy hatchlings as millions of birds gather to raise their young. The same was true 73 million years ago, according to a new paper in the journal Science. The paper documents the earliest-known example of birds nesting in the polar regions.
The American robin returns on time
May 22, 2025
American robins have returned to northern Alaska.
An old friend returns to the far north
May 16, 2025
A Fairbanks biologist recently cupped in his hand a tiny bird whose arrival he had been rooting for. That bird -- a female Hammond's flycatcher -- now holds the title of the oldest known of its species.
51ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø to host free Arctic Research Open House
May 12, 2025
51ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø will host its annual Arctic Research Open House Thursday, May 15 from 4 - 7 p.m. on the West Ridge of the Troth Yeddha' Campus in Fairbanks.
