WEST OF NUIQSUT — A sick snowmachine awaits rescue here on the snow-covered ice of this boot-shaped lake. After an 85-mile journey from our last stop at Umiat, one of the Ski Doo Skandics sputtered to a crawl a few miles from our intended campsite here. The loss of one of their essential research tools […]
Eyal Saiet’s job is looking for the sweet spot—that connection between machine and science that makes sense. For instance, Saiet is thinking of flying an unmanned aircraft through the blow of a surfacing bowhead whale to collect mucus samples. The samples will tell biologists the health, sex and fertility of the migrating behemoth returning to […]
TOOLIK FIELD STATION — Despite a wind that makes today’s minus 14 degrees Fahrenheit feel like minus 39, a worker at this research camp in blue-white hills north of the Brooks Range has proclaimed this the first day of summer. Today, the population of Toolik Field Station increases from nine — five people running the […]
Cold water the color of iced tea wets the boots of Chris Arp as he yanks a power auger from the hole he just drilled in this quiet lake, a few miles from his office at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. A whiff of sulfur, a sign there’s not much oxygen in this pond born […]