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Researchers and crew members pose beside the University of Alaska Fairbanks research ship Sikuliaq in Dutch Harbor during a 2023 cruise to the Bering Sea to learn more about the Bering Land Bridge. (Photo by JR Ancheta)

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Alaska Science Forum: Bering Land Bridge wasn’t such a dry place

Poking holes in the sea floor that used to be part of the Bering Land Bridge, researchers have…

This painting, “Abandonment of the Whalers in The Arctic Ocean September 1871,” depicts the New England whaling ships trapped in pack ice off northern Alaska. Wainwright Inlet is in the background. (Photo courtesy Ted and Ellie Congdon, Huntington Library)

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Alaska Science Forum: When the Civil War came to Alaska

About 150 years ago, a few days after summer solstice, the gray skies above the Diomede Islands were…

Tim Ackerman begins the process of removing a dead seal’s pelt on Friday, Jan. 24, 2025, on the Letnikof Cove shoreline. (Rashah McChesney/Chilkat Valley News)

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Five headless seals have washed up on Chilkat Valley beaches in the last few months; here’s possibly why

Local marine mammal hunter says the carcasses offer a glimpse into Alaska’s marine ecosystem.

Jessica Larsen of the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute describes her research on Alaska’s Mount Churchill at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union on Dec. 9, 2024. (Photo by Ned Rozell)

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Alaska Science Forum: The threat within an Alaska mountain

Mount Churchill stands in a white corner of the Alaska map, deceptive in its cold, windblown silence. At…

Ned Rozell sits at the edge of the volcanic crater on Mount Katmai during a trip to the Valley of 10,000 Smokes in 2001. (Photo by John Eichelberger)

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Alaska Science Forum: Thirty years of writing about Alaska science

When I was drinking coffee with a cab-driving-author friend of the same vintage last week, he said of…

Sputnik 1 orbits Earth in this artist’s rendition by Gregory Todd. (Creative Commons)

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Alaska Science Forum: The first satellite’s Alaska connection

The first satellite’s Alaska connection

The Walter Washington Center in downtown Washington, D.C., hosted the 25,000 scientists who attended the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union from Dec. 9-13, 2024. (Photo by Ned Rozell)

Sports

Alaska Science Forum: More familiar news of the North

WASHINGTON, D.C. — I am once again elbow-to-elbow with thousands of scientists, at a meeting I first attended…

A butter clam. Butter clams are found from the Aleutian Islands to the California coast. They are known to retain algal toxins longer than other species of shellfish. (Photo provided by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife)

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Among butter clams, which pose toxin dangers to Alaska harvesters, size matters, study indicates

Higher concentrations found in bigger specimens, UAS researchers find of clams on beaches near Juneau.

Natural hydrogen gas may be trapped under the surface of Alaska in many areas, such as here in the Brooks Range. (Photo by Ned Rozell)

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Alaska Science Forum: Geologic hydrogen may be an answer

The internal combustion engine is less than 100 years old. Same for the technologies we have developed to…

The Tlingit and Haida Elder Dance Group performs during a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new Áakʼw Tá Hít building at the University of Alaska Southeast on Friday. (Mark Sabbatini / Juneau Empire)

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New Áakʼw Tá Hít building at UAS seeks state-of-the art science with traditional wisdom

Building that hosted ribbon-cutting Friday is first at Juneau campus with a primary name in Lingít.

Elizabeth Djajalie, a Juneau resident attending Harvard University, explains the science of DNA metabarcoding, in a video at the Mendenhall Glacier for the Khan Academy Breakthrough Junior Challenge. (Screenshot from video by Elizabeth Djajalie)

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TMHS grad Elizabeth Djajalie among 30 global contenders in $400,000 Khan Academy Challenge

Award includes $250K scholarship to winner, $50K for a teacher and $100K for high school STEM lab.

La Perouse Glacier in Southeast Alaska retreats from a campsite in summer 2021. (Photo by Ned Rozell)

Sports

Alaska Science Forum: Number of Alaska glaciers is everchanging

A glaciologist once wrote that the number of glaciers in Alaska “is estimated at (greater than) 100,000.” That…

Astrophysicists Lindsay Glesener, left, and Sabrina Savage enjoy the sunshine on an observation deck at the Neil Davis Science Center on a hilltop at Poker Flat Research Range north of Fairbanks. (Photo by Ned Rozell)

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Alaska Science Forum: Waiting for the sun at Poker Flat

POKER FLAT RESEARCH RANGE — Under a bluebird sky and perched above a resilient winter snowpack, two sounding…

UAF Ph.D. student Audrey Rowe trowels loess soil at an archeological site in the uplands of Interior Alaska. (Photo by Mat Wooller)

Sports

Alaska Science Forum: On the ancient trail of a woolly mammoth

The female woolly mammoth was 20 years old when she stumbled amid the grasslands. She fell in a…

A coyote pauses on its way through the Presidio of San Francisco, a two-square mile former military base that is now managed by workers for the National Park Service. (Photo by Heather Liston)

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Alaska Science Forum: The coyotes of San Francisco

A person is bound to notice changes if he bicycles the same pathways for 20 years. Such is…

Henry Fleener, hatchery manager at Ted Stevens Marine Research Institute Mariculture Wet Lab, talks about a NOAA Fisheries project that involves building a small hatchery to house, condition and spawn oyster broodstock in order to find ways to improve existing processes. (Meredith Jordan/ Juneau Empire)

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Pushing to expand mariculture in Alaska (Part 2): The pearl in mariculture, for now, are the oysters

Shellfish is still small business, but on the rise as Alaska works to diversity food sources.

This resting dog’s nose is at work all the time and is more than 1,000 times more sensitive than yours. (Photo of a tired-out Cora by Ned Rozell)

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Alaska Science Forum: The world according to a dog’s nose

A dog can tell you a lot about the outdoors. When a Lab vacuums the ground with her…

Gerry Hatcher, left, and Drake Singleton drag a deflated boat pontoon over wet vegetation to reach Allison Lake near Valdez. (Photo by Ned Rozell)

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Alaska Science Forum: Lakes hold signs of past earthquakes

ALLISON LAKE, ABOVE VALDEZ — Three men dressed in full raingear crept like ants across a bumpy green…

Fireweed rock glacier flows within the massif near McCarthy in 2023. (Photo by Ned Rozell)

Sports

Alaska Science Forum: Glaciers made of rock, ice and bear scat

The grizzly hadn’t seen my dog or me, so I yelled and waved my arms. The bear stood,…

Scientists Jake Shaffer and Jared Clance collect samples on the Juneau Icefield earlier this month as part of a collaborative project between NASA and the Juneau Icefield Research Program. Participants hope the data and techniques will aid an upcoming mission to study the Jupiter ice moon Europa. (Photo courtesy of Jacob Holmes)

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Juneau Icefield may be key to unlocking secrets of Jupiter ice moon

Researchers probe far beneath ice for clues to aid their search for extraterrestrial life