The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration, who produced the first ever image of a black hole, has today revealed a new view of the massive object at the centre of the Messier 87 (M87) galaxy: how it looks in polarised light. This is the first time astronomers have been able to measure polarisation, a signature […]
Volcanologists do what they can to provide the public enough warning about impending eruptions, but volcanoes are notoriously unpredictable. Alerts are sometimes given with little time for people to react. That may soon change. Work led by research assistant professor Társilo Girona, with the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute, has revealed a method by […]
NASA’s Perseverance probe landed safely and on time on Mars, at 3:55 p.m. EST, Thursday, marking another success for the U.S. space agency. The nuclear-powered probe made its way through a harrowing landing process, deemed by some engineers as “seven minutes of terror” because it involves parachutes, powered descent and a “sky crane” that […]
On these quiet, still days, as winter plods on, Alaskans tend to notice any movement outside their windows, such as dancing power wires strung between poles. The answer as to why the wires bounce is in Neil Davis’s “Alaska Science Nuggets.” First, though, a refresher on that book — a compilation of 400 of these […]
Bowhead whales are true northern creatures, swimming only in cold oceans off Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Svalbard and Russia. These bus-size whales have the largest mouths in the animal kingdom, can live for 200 years and can go without eating for more than a year due to their remarkable fat reserves. Bowheads are also a rare […]
Here’s the COVID-19 ECHO schedule for the reminder of this week, Dec.13-15, 2021 WEDNESDAY • COVID-19 Science ECHO – for the general public, 12-1 pm. You can also tune in via Facebook Live, @alaskachdCOVID-1 THURSDAY • Healthcare Situational Awareness ECHO – for healthcare providers, 12-1 pm • Media ECHO, 1-1:45 pm. • Vaccine ECHO […]
Alaska Sea Grant is soliciting applications for the 2021 Alaska Sea Grant State Fellowship Program. This program offers a unique professional opportunity for graduate students interested in applied marine science and policy. Highly motivated graduate students are matched with host agencies for a 12-month paid fellowship. Fellows will acquire on-the-job experience in the planning and implementation of […]
This may be the first time data collected using uncrewed surface vehicles were used to help produce an annual estimate of abundance for a commercial fish stock. Every other year, NOAA Fisheries conducts an acoustic-trawl survey from crewed research vessels to measure pollock abundance in Alaska’s eastern Bering Sea. As a result of COVID-19, many […]
The bizarre features of this mammal have scientists perplexed as to how it could have evolved; “it bends and even breaks a lot of rules” New research published today in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology describes a bizarre 66 million-year-old mammal that provides profound new insights into the evolutionary history of mammals from the southern supercontinent Gondwana […]