Each fall, white-crowned sparrows hop off branches in Alaska and begin journeys toward California, Arizona, New Mexico and west Texas. On their trip of several weeks, flying mostly at night, the tiny songbirds may cut back on their sleep by two-thirds. Scientists in Wisconsin discovered the sparrow’s apparent ability to perform while cutting rest with […]
JUNEAU, Alaska — The crew of the Coast Guard Cutter Healy, a polar icebreaker, rescued a man aboard a sailboat trapped in Arctic ice approximately 40 miles northeast of Barrow, Saturday. The crew of the Healy broke a 12 mile path through the Arctic ice with the sailboat, Altan Girl, in tow and led it […]
Sea ice in summer looks dramatically different than sea ice in winter, even in the polar Arctic. Summer snowmelt, pools of water on thinning ice and exposed ocean replace vast winter expanses of white snow-covered ice – and this weekend NASA’s high-flying laser altimeter begins a campaign to investigate these features. Icy areas look […]
Alaska’s landscape has an unusual feature that allows us to enjoy cheap bananas in the Interior and other things that make life possible in the subarctic. The Nenana River, born on the south side of the Alaska Range, makes a u-turn and flows north through the mountains. With it comes a wide, low corridor that […]