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UAF Research News
  • Aerial view of a wide, flat landscape covered in snow, shot from the window of an airplane.

    The great hollow of Minto Flats

    April 04, 2025

    Within a vast bowl bordered by blue hills, I rolled along on a trail scratched into ice by snowmachines. That deceptive basin -- Minto Flats -- is big enough to swallow Denali, if the big mountain happened to stumble in here and fall.

  • A dirt trail passes between spruce trees in the mountains under a clear, sunny sky.

    Snow's absence and welcome presence

    March 28, 2025

    Rick Thoman noted in a recent report that the paucity of 2024-2025 snowfall in Anchorage and other Southcentral Alaska locations may be unprecedented in the era of modern records.

  • People visit RCA Day presentations.

    Invitation: 2025 Research and Creative Activity Day

    March 26, 2025

    URSA invites you to attend the 2025 Research and Creative Activity Day on Tuesday, April 1, from noon to 3 p.m. in the Great Hall of the UAF Fine Art Complex.

  • Does a project need IBC review?

    March 26, 2025

    The Institutional Biosafety Committee is responsible for biological safety review and approval of projects at UAF. Projects requiring IBC review include those utilizing the following: recombinant DNA, synthetic nucleic acid molecules, infectious agents, biological toxins, federally-regulated select agents, and other potentially harmful biological agents.

  • Limited submission funding opportunity for DoD MSI instrumentation grants

    March 26, 2025

    The Vice Chancellor for Research is soliciting white papers for the DoD MSI instrumentation call for proposals. UAF can submit three proposals of $200,000-$1,000,000. White papers are due March 28.

  • Rocket launches from Poker Flat

    Two NASA rockets launch from Poker Flat, third rocket expected

    March 26, 2025

    Two NASA sounding rockets launched from Poker Flat Research Range north of Fairbanks early Tuesday morning in a mission aimed at learning more about how the aurora affects the upper atmosphere.

  • A layer of snow that slowly slid from the roof of a shed loops as it reaches the ground.

    Leaning towers of snow explained

    March 21, 2025

    Pete Wilda, a Fairbanks reader of this column, wanted to know how the snow here can bend off railings and loop from power lines without breaking. He grew up in eastern Wisconsin and doesn't remember the snow defying gravity there.

  • With the aurora borealis shining overhead in a starry night sky, light shines from windows in a long, single-story log building onto a well-packed snowy yard.

    Traveling through time in the Alaska bush

    March 13, 2025

    On the dark, frozen white plain of the Tanana River, a white dot appeared in the night. It was the headlamp of Ryan Redington, a dog musher in the 2025 Iditarod race.

  • 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 University of Alaska Fairbanks 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.

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