Last Friday, an email popped up in all the mailboxes of people with the Geophysical Institute: Someone saw what might have been a wolf on the trails north of the UAF campus. “Please be cautious if skiing in the area.” A few people responded, saying they had seen one or two coyotes roaming the 1,000-plus […]
Recent research on the ice worm has shone some light on the tiny creature that appears when the sun sets on warmish glaciers. Few people have seen ice worms, but they are not mythical. Wispy and less than one inch long, ice worms live on glaciers, wriggling to the surface at night and sometimes lingering […]
ST. MATTHEW ISLAND —I’m resting on a mattress of tundra plants that are growing more than 200 miles from the nearest Alaska village. While I have snuck away here to my own private ridgetop, eight other people, all scientists, are somewhere on this 30-mile-long wedge of tundra, rocky beaches, lakes and bird cliffs in the […]
Aren Gunderson parks his truck, steps out and strips off his sweatshirt. “I always take off my outer clothing layer,” says the caretaker of the University of Alaska Museum’s colony of flesh-eating beetles. “The stink will stay with you.” Gunderson, mammal collection manager at the museum, approaches a weathered set of buildings. He swings open […]