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UAF Research News
  • A person wearing a pink shirt holds a bone in their two hands. Behind and below is an area of dirt marked off with string and strewn with archaeology tools, including plastic collection bags and a tape measure, trowel and notebook.

    Signs of ancient man's best friend on hilltop?

    June 27, 2024

    On this rock outcrop 30 feet above the gray Tanana River and green hayfields cleared from the forest below, archaeologists have possibly found evidence of the canine companions of early Alaskans.

  • A bumblebee sits near the peak of a raceme of water-beaded pink flowers atop a fireweed plant.

    Insects of Alaska forest humming along

    June 21, 2024

    Recent long-term studies revealed a three-quarters reduction of insects in parts of Germany and an 80 percent decline of pollinating flies at a field site in Greenland. What's going on with numbers of Alaska insects?

  • On a sunny day with a few wispy clouds, two people hike on a trail over a tundra-covered ridge with rolling hills and mountains in the background.

    Journey through a sub-Arctic summer night

    June 14, 2024

    We three friends riding together in a pickup had committed to join together for the AlaskAcross, a 50-mile jaunt on foot from Eagle Summit to the Chena Hot Springs Resort.

  • Two snowmachines, one pulling a wooden box sledge, sit on an expanse of snow-covered sea ice, some of which is jumbled into pressure ridges.

    Did sea ice help populate the Americas?

    June 07, 2024

    A team of scientists has proposed winter sea ice as a possible ephemeral highway through and around Alaska and into the New World.

  • Farm buildings, many painted red, sit on a hillside surrounded by fenced pens, fields and forests of aspen, birch and balsam poplar turned golden by the fall season.

    The gardening potential of the Last Frontier

    May 30, 2024

    More than 100 years ago, a man traveled north on a mission most people thought was ridiculous -- to see if crops would grow in the frozen wasteland known as the Territory of Alaska.

  • A woman holding a child stands in a depression in a forest while another child sits on a log suspended above the hole.

    A backyard science expedition, in diapers

    May 23, 2024

    A fist-size opening in the forest floor exhausted so much air this spring that it built its own chimney of frost. A university researcher -- and her kids -- helped investigate.

  • a musk ox calf lying down and looking at the camera

    LARS to host annual Birthday Bash for new calves

    May 23, 2024

    The University of Alaska Fairbanks' Large Animal Research Station will introduce its new reindeer and muskox calves at its annual Birthday Bash from noon-4 p.m. on June 1.

  • adult male mountain goat standing on rocks in a winter landscape

    Mountain goats live and die on the edge

    May 09, 2024

    Kevin White has placed his hands on the long, white fur of more than 400 Alaska mountain goats during the past 20 years. His diligence in studying this Ice Age wanderer of high, steep, country has led to a new understanding -- a surprising number of the creatures die by snow avalanche.

  • Close-up shot of a mountain climber in a yellow jacket jacket and helmet reaching up towards the camera with another climber lower down the slope

    Searching for microplastics on Denali

    May 03, 2024

    Two college students will soon be stuffing snow from the slopes of Alaska's highest mountain into Nalgene bottles. Their goal is to see if that precipitation contains tiny plastic particles that are ubiquitous everywhere else on Earth.

  • Wooden paddles and shafts lie on lichen-covered rocks in a dim cave area.

    Treasures found within a volcanic cave

    April 26, 2024

    Ben Jones suspected he had found something special when he squeezed into a volcanic cave and saw pale wooden poles, some with ends shaped like a willow leaf.

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