science

Plants march north

Posted 3 April 2013 by Liz O'Connell

Laura Nielsen for FrontierScientists The face of the Arctic is changing as plant growth flourishes further north than before. According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), "Temperature and vegetation growth at northern latitudes now resemble those found 4 degrees to 6 degrees of latitude farther south as recently as 1982." This change accompanies the ongoing anthropogenic climate change associated with our warming world. Satellite data from the past 30 years helped researchers understand the vegetative change, and the... Read more

Posted in AGU Fall Meeting, Climate Change Watch, Permafrost, Weather in Alaska |

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Arctic Volcanism Helps Date Ancient Archaeological Sites

Posted 13 March 2013 by Liz O'Connell

By Liz O'Connell for Frontier Scientists “By dating ash,” said Richard Vanderhoek, “an archaeological site in Alaska, can be placed on a chronostratographic timeline.” Or in other words: the chemical makeup of the ash, matched with a volcano eruption, will provide an approximate date of the site. Archaeologists worldwide have dated ancient sites for the last half century in this manner. Vanderhoek wants to consider not just the timing of the catastrophic event, but the ecological and cultural impacts on... Read more

Posted in Arctic Archaeology, Cook Inlet Volcanoes, General, Understanding Climate Change Through Archaeology |

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After a lifetime of study, aurora still a mystery

Posted 5 March 2013 by Liz O'Connell

by Ned Rozell Sometimes, after idling in the sky for hours as a greenish glow, the aurora catches fire, erupting toward the magnetic north pole in magnificent chaos that can last for three hours. “Substorms,” as space physicists call them, can happen two or three times each night. The man who came up with that name half a century ago has, with a former student he once mentored, come up with a new theory on the location of heavenly energy... Read more

Posted in AGU Fall Meeting, Weather in Alaska |

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Algae in the changing Arctic ecosystem

Posted 26 February 2013 by Liz O'Connell

Laura Nielsen for Frontier Scientists The Arctic hosts a complex ecosystem, sensitive to the alterations in our changing world. Algae is part of that biome, growing in strands which hang down from the edge of ice floes. New conditions have caused an explosion in the growth rate of the algae Melosira arctica, which will influence Arctic life in ways we can't predict with certainty. 2012's summer season saw the lowest Arctic ice extent on satellite record. Arctic sea ice volume... Read more

Posted in Arctic Winter Cruise, Climate Change Watch, Modeling Arctic Waters, Weather in Alaska |

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The oceans are our neighbors too

Posted 18 December 2012 by Liz O'Connell

Laura Nielsen for Frontier Scientists Deep sea oceans, once believed lifeless, teem with an astounding biodiversity. Where once we knew only speculation and fishermen's tales, we now have a body of knowledge increasing with data from remotely operated underwater vehicles (ROVs) and human-occupied submersibles like James Cameron's Vertical Torpedo. The deep ocean, the last unexplored terrestrial frontier, holds many surprises. Will those surprises survive human inputs? Lisa Levin, Director of the Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation and Distinguished Professor at... Read more

Posted in AGU Fall Meeting, Climate Change Watch, General, Modeling Arctic Waters |

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Science Kids at the Exploration Station

Posted 5 December 2012 by Liz O'Connell

Laura Nielsen for Frontier Scientists After snapping a few photos with the full-size inflatable model of the Curiosity rover, I went directly to the Discovery Dome, an inflatable planetarium. “We Choose Space!” was playing, a planetary show about human space exploration. A 360° panorama of the moon greeted me, an astronaut to one side, the moon buggy to another, and pristine moon dust under a black starry sky all around. The moon explorer talking about his experience spoke with the... Read more

Posted in AGU Fall Meeting, General |

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New UAF program draws young artists into science

Posted 27 November 2012 by Liz O'Connell

by Marie Thoms Artists and scientists often share a common goal: making the invisible visible. Yet artistically talented students, especially girls, often shy away from scientific careers. A new four-year program led by the University of Alaska Fairbanks blends the art, biology and physics of color into a series of summer academies, science cafes and activity kits designed to inspire art-interested students to enter careers in science. “Research suggests that girls who gravitate toward art often have strong visual-spatial abilities... Read more

Posted in General |

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Guillemots, and the Edge of the Ice

Posted 20 November 2012 by Liz O'Connell

Laura Nielsen for Frontier Scientists The Bering Sea region hosts over 90% of seabirds breeding in the continental United States. Most of those birds are hardy migrators, breeding on Alaska's coast in the warm season and then departing south, chased away by the cold weather. One group which remains is Guillemots, a type of seabird species which belongs to the auks -- the family includes murres, murrelets, auklets and puffins. Guillemots are special. They don't migrate to far southern latitudes... Read more

Posted in Arctic's Amazing Birds, Climate Change Watch |

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ARSC Fish: CRAY Supercomputer Enables Scientific Discovery

Posted 7 November 2012 by Liz O'Connell

Fairbanks, Alaska, November 6, 2012-- The Arctic Region Supercomputing Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks has a new CRAY Supercomputer Called FISH. As ARSC transitions from a centralized machine to a strategically upgradeable hybrid system, they advance scientific discovery. It is a large scale upgrade to benefit research. Scientists who use this up-to-date technology to drive their projects undertake space physics, aurora borealis, climate modeling, oceanographic circulation models, sea-ice models, ecological modeling, and hydrological modeling. The image shown above is a simulation of the... Read more

Posted in Computational Science |

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Scientists identify likely origins of vertebrate air breathing

Posted 30 October 2012 by Liz O'Connell

by Marie Thoms University of Alaska Fairbanks scientists have identified what they think is the ancestral trait that allowed for the evolution of air breathing in vertebrates. They presented their research at the 42nd annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience Oct. 17 in New Orleans. “To breathe air with a lung, you need more than a lung, you need neural circuitry that is sensitive to carbon dioxide,” said Michael Harris, a UAF neuroscientist and lead researcher on a project... Read more

Posted in General |

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