The Arctic Report Card, a compilation of northern science by researchers from all over the planet — most of them doing work in Alaska — came out in mid-December at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in Chicago. In summary, what smart people predicted in 2006, during the first report card press conference, […]
The common murre is a self-sufficient, resilient bird. Though the seabird must eat about half of its body weight in prey each day, common murres are experts at catching the small “forage fish” they need to survive. Herring, sardines, anchovies and even juvenile salmon are no match for a hungry murre. So when nearly […]
Several times in the distant past, our home planet has been cleansed of its residents, with the exception of a few plucky survivors. Perhaps the best known and most spectacular extinction was that of the dinosaurs, caused when a meteorite six miles in diameter crashed into Earth about 65 million years ago. There was another […]
This week NOAA Fisheries scientists hope to witness the changing colors of the Bering Sea as they investigate why it happens and what it means for the ecosystem that supports the Nation’s biggest fisheries. In the summer of 1997, for the first time anyone could remember, a vast swath of the deep blue Bering Sea […]