While driving Alaska’s graveled highways, people sometimes wonder how an unpaved road can turn into a bed of corduroy. Keith Mather had the same question about roads in his home country of Australia and then later in his adopted home of Alaska. He wrote a paper about washboard roads in 1963, the same year he […]
In mid-June, while standing deep within the northern boreal forest, it’s possible to feel a sensation similar to one felt in mid-December at the same spot. It’s a sting to exposed skin, delivered in December by bitter air and in June by the stab of the mosquito. The mosquito has buzzed its way into most […]
Hazel Sutton was eating lunch on an island at Tanana Lakes Recreation Area in Fairbanks with her family recently when a bird caught her eye. At first, she figured it was a semipalmated sandpiper, an ocean bird that migrates to Interior Alaska each spring to create more sandpipers. Then she squinted and figured that the […]
In a recent paper, scientists wrote that a small population of polar bears living off Greenland and Arctic Canada increased by 1.6 times when they compared the numbers from the 1990s to 2013 and 2014. They concluded that lighter sea ice might have benefitted the animals. That’s because sunshine penetrates thinner ice better, which stimulates […]