UAF in the news: Week of May 8, 2006

Submitted by Marmian Grimes
Phone: (907) 474-7902
05/12/06

New monkey genus is first in 83 years
Scientific American
More than 100 hits in national and international media outlets in 24 hours, including all three major wire services
In 1923 explorers in what is now known as the Democratic Republic of Congo brought out a specimen of a monkey with grayish-green fur, a red face and webbed digits. Dubbed Allen’s swamp monkey, or Allenopithecus nigroviridis, the primate was the most recent new genus of primate discovered--until now. Scientists have determined that a monkey previously identified as a new species from photographs deserves its own genus name. Read more ...

Mammoth extinction caused by trees, study suggests
National Geographic News
More than 50 hits in national and international media outlets in 24 hours.
The plot thickens.
New findings suggest that an ongoing, epic whodunit may actually be a whatdunit. That is, climate change, not humans, may be what killed off Ice Age mammoths, horses, and other large animals in North America. Read more ...

Crab ’enhancement’ gets a tryout off Kodiak
Anchorage Daily News and SITNews
KODIAK -- Batches of baby king crabs could soon be growing in Kodiak Island waters, and scientists will be carefully nurturing their growth and progress. Read more ...

More tobacco funds earmarked for Interior
Fairbanks Daily News-Miner and KTVA
JUNEAU--The Senate Finance Committee added $30 million to the tobacco bond bill on Saturday morning. A good chunk of the new money would go to Fairbanks-area roads and the Tanana Valley Campus of the University of Alaska. Read more ...

Local gardeners hope Web site cultivates interest
Peninsula Clarion
Two local green thumbs are hoping to cultivate a new Web site as a forum for sharing information on gardening in the central Kenai Peninsula. Read more ...

UA museum nears completion with opening of art gallery
Associated Press, Anchorage Daily News, KTVA, Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
FAIRBANKS, Alaska (AP) - Joe Usibelli imagines his late mother could have wandered around the expanded University of Alaska Museum of the North for months, admiring the exhibits. Seeing the museum’s spectacular new art gallery named for her, he says, would have embarrassed Rose Jane Usibelli Berry. Read more ...

Rockets over Alaska for more than three decades
SITNews
"ÂOn a midwinter night almost 40 years ago, an American B-52 bomber carrying four hydrogen bombs crashed into a bay near Thule, Greenland. From that event came an opportunity for a would-be rocket range in Alaska. Read more ...

UAF names Usibelli award recipients
Fairbanks Daily News-Miner and KTVA
The University of Alaska Fairbanks named professors of chemistry, fisheries and English as this year’s Emil Usibelli Distinguished Teaching, Research and Public Service award recipients. Read more ...

Alaska’s Geriatric Education Center provides needed resources
Juneau Empire
This year 78 million baby boomers will start to turn 60 years old. Alaska ranks No. 1 in the nation in the percentage of the statewide population who are baby boomers. "The whole country, especially Alaska, needs to figure out how we are going to have a trained workforce to care for all those seniors," says Pat Luby, Advocacy Director for the AARP Alaska. Read more ...

Auckland Adventure
University of Arkanses Daily Headlines
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - For two weeks, a University of Arkansas researcher and his colleagues braved rough seas, ran from aggressive seals and visited some of the most pristine and isolated islands on Earth, all in the name of science. They returned from the islands with more than 1,600 specimens of beetles, fungi and slime molds and have begun the painstaking process of characterizing their finds and determining whether or not they have found new species. Read more ...

Arctic stations need human touch
Nature
Arctic climate research is suffering as manned weather stations are being closed in Canada, Russia and the United States, some meteorologists complain. Read more ...

Historians treasure state’s sunken ships
Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
FAIRBANKS -- More than 4,000 sunken ships are recorded in the coastal regions of Alaska. Those historical sites, though shrouded under chilly waters, hold a trove of historical value to the state. Read more ...

Snow squirrel: All-white squirrel shows up in Goldstream Valley
Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
Jamie Melotte wasn’t shocked to see an all-white squirrel pop up on the edge of a roadside near his Goldstream Valley home a couple weeks ago. Read more ...