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 […]
On a clear day last spring, fire sizzled on water at Poker Flat Research Range in the Chatanika River valley. There, scientists were spilling crude oil in a manmade water basin and torching it from above. A series of similar test burns were part of a team effort between university scientists and researchers with the […]