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UAF Research News
  • Three men and a woman stand in front of a building.

    Farewell to a funny, brilliant scientist

    March 08, 2025

    Glenn Shaw died on Feb. 28, 2025, in Tucson, Arizona. The atmospheric chemist was for years a scientist and professor at the ÀÖ»¢Ö±²¥ Geophysical Institute. He was funny and irreverent and brilliant.

  • An aerial view shows narrow boardwalks crossing a shallow pond with much vegetation growing it. A hillside in the background is covered with trees.

    Northern soil microbes staying up all winter

    February 28, 2025

    We can't see them, but there are more microbes -- tiny fungi, bacteria, worms and other living things -- in a teaspoon of soil than there are people on Earth.

  • Three people in hardhats, raingear and flotation vests work on a white vertical plastic pipe.

    Bering Land Bridge wasn't such a dry place

    February 21, 2025

    Poking holes in the sea floor that used to be part of the Bering Land Bridge, researchers have found that large swaths of it were floodplains pocked with bogs and ponds that may have restricted passage of animals like the woolly rhino and short-faced bear.

  • Poll finds ÀÖ»¢Ö±²¥ns trust their university for energy information

    February 17, 2025

    A recent poll of ÀÖ»¢Ö±²¥ns found that the University of ÀÖ»¢Ö±²¥ is the most trusted organization for the public on the topic of energy supply.

  • Rocket launches from Poker Flat Research Range

    First rocket campaign of 2025 concludes at Poker Flat range

    February 13, 2025

    Two NASA aurora research rockets launched from Poker Flat Research Range earlier this month provided good data for learning more about the fastest observable variations of the solar wind-driven light displays.

  • As viewed from an aircraft, a vast glacier winds through a mountainous valley, starting at high snow-covered peaks in the background and ending in a splayed terminus among snow-free peaks in the foreground.

    The threat within an ÀÖ»¢Ö±²¥ mountain

    February 07, 2025

    Mount Churchill stands in a white corner of the ÀÖ»¢Ö±²¥ map, deceptive in its cold, windblown silence. At least twice in the last few thousand years, the peak's ice-covered caldera has spewed ash that reached as far as Ireland and piled up to force northern animals out of the territory.

  • A man in a ballcap, shades, a blue shirt and khaki shorts sits on a rock high above a lake surface covered in broken sheets of ice.

    Thirty years of writing about ÀÖ»¢Ö±²¥ science

    January 30, 2025

    When I was drinking coffee with a cab-driving-author friend of the same vintage last week, he said of my occupation: "It's the best job in ÀÖ»¢Ö±²¥."

  • A road winds through a wide, sparsely wooded valley blanketed in snow. Mountains rise from forested foothills to snow domes in the background.

    Dangerous cold across the land

    January 23, 2025

    During this time when peak cold often arrives in the northern hemisphere, ÀÖ»¢Ö±²¥ today celebrates the king-of-the-cold's birthday.

  • A man in a suit sits at a wooden desk signing a document while surrounded by other men in suits applauding.

    The man who preserved ÀÖ»¢Ö±²¥

    January 10, 2025

    Today is the official national day of mourning for Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United States. He died Dec. 29, 2024, at age 100. Carter protected almost half of the land area (43 percent) of this giant state, with multiple new national conservation units, including parks, wildlife refuges and monuments.

  • A lightning bolt strikes a green forested hillside beyond a wide river in the foreground.

    Mystery of the dead caribou

    January 06, 2025

    Fifty-three years ago, an Army helicopter pilot flying over a tundra plateau saw a group of caribou. Thinking something looked weird, he circled for a closer look. The animals, dozens of them, were dead.

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