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UAF Research News
  • Sunlight touches a snowy city in this aerial view.

    Long-term views of a changed Alaska

    December 01, 2023

    As an instructor for Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, I have stood before a group of Alaskans every Tuesday night this November. During the most recent class session of Ned Rozell's Alaska, I asked 17 people what changes they have noticed in this giant peninsula during their time here.

  • A stalk of bull kelp grows in Kachemak Bay

    UAF-led project will look for rare-earth elements in Southeast Alaska seaweed

    November 28, 2023

    A University of Alaska Fairbanks-led research team has been awarded a $1.9 million federal grant to explore whether seaweed are absorbing rare-earth elements near a rich deposit in Southeast Alaska.

  • The legs, feet and skis of three cross-country skate skiers are visible in the photo as the skiers glide across a packed snow surface.

    Surfing in winter on cross-country skis

    November 28, 2023

    With mild temperatures and ample snow, much of Alaska is now primed for cross-country skiing. It's a sport for all ages, made possible by friction.

  • A group of young women traverse a snow field on a rope line at Gulkana Glacier. Photo by Hannah Mode.

    Inspiring Girls* Expeditions 2024 accepting applications

    November 28, 2023

    Inspiring Girls* Expeditions Alaska is accepting applications for a unique suite of tuition-free backcountry science and art education programs in summer 2024.

  • A person ice skates on a frozen street in downtown Anchorage.

    Climate hazards cost Fairbanks, Anchorage homeowners millions

    November 15, 2023

    A new survey found that Fairbanks and Anchorage homeowners are increasingly threatened by climate-related hazards like wildfire, permafrost thaw and winter rain, the latter costing homeowners $25 million in annual damages.

  • Two red foxes in a snowy landscape, one sitting in a hole with just its head showing

    Secret lives playing out all around us

    November 10, 2023

    While we were sleeping, they were out there. Two red foxes, a male and female, pawing into spring snow on a hillside. The foxes had found the entrance to a tunnel dug many years ago. It might have been the den in which one of them was born.

  • In a black and white photo, a man in a skin parka, smoking a pipe, pets two husky dogs while sitting on a step in front of a door

    Ernest Leffingwell, fan of the Far North

    November 02, 2023

    One hundred years ago, a group of men sailed to the northern coast of Alaska to find a land mass rumored to protrude from the Arctic Ocean. They did not find the land. After wintering in the North, everyone hurried back to warmer places. Except for Ernest Leffingwell.

  • A woman crouches by the shoreline on a pebble beach while working with scientific sampling equipment on a sunny summer day. Beyond an inlet of Auke Bay lies an evergreen-covered ridge, and, far across Lynn Canal, the snow-topped mountains of the Chilkat Range rise in the background.

    Plastic falls in Southeast Alaska's rain

    October 27, 2023

    "We found microplastics in every single rain sample (gathered in Juneau)," Sonia Nagorski told a group of people listening to her talk at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in New Orleans two winters ago.

  • Finned adventurers nosing into the Arctic

    October 20, 2023

    A few years ago, Randy Brown wondered if he might lose $50,000 he had just won as part of the Rachel Carson Award for Exemplary Scientific Accomplishment.

  • Pink salmon spawn in Gilmour Creek near where it enters Prince William Sound, Alaska, as a field technician works to collect carcasses of dead fish

    DNA analysis reveals pink salmon swim home with incredible accuracy

    October 13, 2023

    Analysis of a massive database of pink salmon DNA has revealed unexpected details about the abundant salmon species, including its ability to return to spawn at nearly the same spot within streams as their parents.

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