[dropcap]F[/dropcap]ifteen miles inland from the frozen coast of the Arctic Ocean, Teshekpuk Lake is one of the largest freshwater bodies in Alaska. On its northern shoreline are sandy bluffs that hold fossils of walrus, ringed seals and beluga. Thousands of years ago, this shore was an ocean beach. Digging into that beach in the middle […]
[dropcap]I[/dropcap]n 1908, a colossal blast incinerated a swath of wilderness deep in Siberia, at about the same latitude as Anchorage. The explosion that July day registered on seismic recorders all over the world. Within minutes, 80 million trees lay flat and scorched in a circle 60 miles wide. Scientists calculated the shock was more than […]
Alaska chickadees have proven themselves brainier than Colorado chickadees. A researcher at the University of California Davis once compared black-capped chickadees from Anchorage to chickadees from Windsor, Colorado, and found that the Alaska birds cached more sunflower seeds and found the seeds quicker when they later searched for them. The Alaska chickadees also had brains […]
Uma Bhatt remembers summers in Fairbanks when she could open a package of crackers, leave it unsealed, and find them in a near-identical state a few weeks later. Those crackers now seem to lose their snap in just a few days. An atmospheric scientist at UAF, Bhatt gave a recent talk on a rainy October […]