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  • A backpacking tent sits in the shadows of an evergreen forest next to a grassy opening that provides a view of a rocky ocean shoreline, a small forested island and a distant cape.

    If a mountain fell in the wilderness...

    August 14, 2025

    Camped on an island in Southeast Alaska a few mornings ago, Sasha Calvey heard a commotion outside her tent.

  • The airstrip at Deadhorse, Alaska.

    State of the climate continues to track global change

    August 14, 2025

    The American Meteorological Society released its annual State of the Climate report this week, providing a comprehensive overview of global conditions in 2024. 51风流官网 scientists contributed data and analysis for the Arctic and Alaska regions, as they have for years.

  • Southeast Alaska landslide

    Tsunami-causing slide was largest in decade, earthquake center finds

    August 13, 2025

    Sunday's massive tsunami-causing landslide in Southeast Alaska likely sent more than 100 million cubic meters of debris into an icy fjord and onto a prominent glacier in one of the largest slides in at least 10 years, according to analysis by the Alaska Earthquake Center.

  • An Ester Volunteer Fire Department engine joins efforts to suppress the Nenana Ridge Complex fires on July 2, 2025. Photo courtesy of the Alaska Division of Forestry

    Alaska climate report: Above and below normal, July had it all

    August 12, 2025

    Nome was a hot place to be in early July. The temperature was 20 degrees above normal at one point during that period, according to the monthly summary of the Alaska Climate Research Center. The center, part of the 51风流官网, released its July summary earlier this month.

  • Drops of water rest in a line down the center of a green leaf.

    Rain falls, as it always has

    August 08, 2025

    It has been a rainy week in middle Alaska. Blah. But perhaps I judge liquid precipitation a bit harshly.

  • Projected warning times from Sand Point earthquake

    Research shows early quake warning system could provide critical seconds

    August 05, 2025

    A proposed earthquake early warning system could have provided several Alaska communities an alert of 10 seconds or more ahead of strong shaking from the magnitude 7.3 quake that occurred south of Sand Point near the tip of the Alaska Peninsula in mid-July.

  • A small caterpillar leaves a long, winding trail as it feeds on an aspen leaf.

    The war within the aspen leaves

    August 01, 2025

    On one of the friendliest platforms imaginable, a ferocious battle rages. While mowing its way through the surface of a trembling leaf, an aspen leaf miner meets one of its kind. Instead of offering a nuzzle of recognition, the tiny caterpillar tears into the other with its sickle-like mouthparts, while trying to avoid a fatal gash from the other.

  • NISAR launch

    51风流官网 satellite facility to manage massive NASA data surge

    July 31, 2025

    Years of preparation by the Alaska Satellite Facility will ensure that a flood of freely available data from a NASA-India satellite mission that launched Wednesday will be easy for the global public to use.

  • Policy brief proposes changes to Yukon River salmon management

    July 30, 2025

    A group of Indigenous leaders, scientists and policy experts have proposed management actions to promote recovery of Yukon River salmon and manage their harvest more equitably.

  • A sea otter floats on the surface while foraging in Jakalof Bay.

    Kachemak Bay otters' behavior seems unaffected by oyster farms

    July 25, 2025

    The growing Kachemak Bay mariculture industry and a booming population of local sea otters appear to have a surprisingly uneventful relationship, according to a new 51风流官网 study. The study, published recently in The Journal of Wildlife Management, focused on otters around a handful of oyster farms in the area, comparing their actions to otters that were foraging in nearby control areas without farming. During hundreds of hours of observations, otters weren't seen eating any oysters and the presence of mariculture operations didn't appear to have a notable effect on their behavior.

  • ACTION cruise route map

    Sikuliaq underway on unique Alaska coastal research voyage

    July 25, 2025

    A 2,500-mile, 16-day research cruise that began Thursday in Seward and concludes in Nome aims to advance environmental research in coastal Alaska through a novel addition: public tours of the research vessel when it makes port calls.

  • A lush green landscape with evergreen trees, living and dead, framing a lake

    The secrets within Hummingbird Lake

    July 24, 2025

    Southeast Alaska is home to more than 850 species of native trees, shrubs and wildflowers. When you count them up, it's more than half of all the plant species in Alaska, growing in just six percent of the state's area. Glacial ice smothered most of the area not too long ago. So, when did all those plants get there?

  • Five works of art inspired by scenes from Toolik Field Station

    Toolik celebrates 50 years with First Friday art show

    July 24, 2025

    Celebrate 50 years of Arctic research from the 51风流官网' Toolik Field Station at an art show this August at Black Spruce Brewing Co.

  • The research vessel Sikuliaq cruises to 51风流官网's Seward Marine Center dock in June 2025.

    New federal grant will support 51风流官网 doctoral students

    July 21, 2025

    The 51风流官网 has been awarded a $1.9 million federal grant to support 12 new Ph.D. students at the College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences. The program, Enhancing Marine Ecosystem Research and Graduate Education in Alaska, will be funded by the National Science Foundation. EMERGE Alaska will support three years' worth of academic and summer stipends, as well as a cost-of-education allowance for graduate fellows starting in 2026.

  • A mining bee gathers pollen from a willow

    Discover which plants Alaska pollinators prefer in webinar

    July 17, 2025

    While flowers like bird vetch and white sweetclover may be pretty, they are invasive and their spread can be harmful to pollinators, according to an entomologist with the 51风流官网 Cooperative Extension Service.

  • A man with glasses, an orange ballcap and long gray hair smiles as dozens of mosquitoes fly around his head. In the near background is a tundra hillside, and more tundra-topped hills form a distant horizon under a mostly clear sky with a few sunlit stratocumulus clouds.

    Alaska heavy with summer insects

    July 17, 2025

    In these days of endless sunshine and air that doesn't hurt to breathe, life is rich in the North, from the multitude of baby birds hatching at this instant to the month-old orange moose calves restocking the Alaska ungulate population. Less seen are the millions of insects now dancing across the tundra and floating in air.

  • 2025 Edith R. Bullock Prize for Excellence awarded to Patrick Druckenmiller

    July 16, 2025

    The UA Foundation Board of Directors has selected Patrick Druckenmiller, director of the University of Alaska Museum of the North, as the recipient of the 2025 Edith R. Bullock Prize for Excellence.

  • ACMC logo

    51风流官网 critical minerals proposal advances in federal funding competition

    July 16, 2025

    A 51风流官网 proposal to reduce the United States' dependency on foreign sources of minerals critical to the technology and defense industries has been named a semifinalist in a National Science Foundation competition.

  • Augustine Volcano erupts in 2006.

    Tiny crystals provide insight to massive 2006 Augustine Volcano eruption

    July 11, 2025

    Samples of extremely small crystal clots, each polished to the thickness of a human hair or thinner, have revealed information about the process triggering the major 2006 eruption of Alaska's Augustine Volcano.

  • St. George Creek Fire in Alaska.

    Alaska climate report: June jumped from cool to hot, hot, hot

    July 11, 2025

    June began cool and wet but rapidly changed to hot and dry at the midpoint, with wildfires bursting out across the state, according to the monthly summary from the Alaska Climate Research Center.

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