Alaskan has close encounter with comet Hartley 2
An image of comet Hartley 2 from NASA’s EPOXI mission. The image was taken as the spacecraft flew by the comet on November 4, 2010. According to NASA, the Hartley 2 comet is 1.4-miles-long and is composed of water ice, carbon dioxide ice and silicate dust. The name “EPOXI” is a combination of the names Extrasolar Planet Observations and Characterization (EPOCh) and Deep Impact Extended Investigation (DIXI).
A few days ago, Don Hampton heard cheers when he walked back inside the Control Room at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Then the Alaska scientist saw the reason for celebration &m
Alaska dune yields oldest human remains of far north
Bone fragments from a three-year old who died 11,500 years ago in the Tanana Valley.
Photo by Maureen McCombs, University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Last summer, archaeologist Ben Potter was supervising a group of researchers digging on an ancient sand dune above the Tanana River. Potter, who had a field camp he needed to start at another site,
Diamond dust dazzles on dog days
Sundogs visible from Fairbanks in mid-November, 2010.
Here we go again. Early this week, a friend at the National Weather Service pointed to a swath of sub-zero temperatures across a map of northern Alaska. The low temperatures were anchored by minus
A shelter for sea ice in a warmer world
Sea ice north of Barrow.
Photo by Ned Rozell.
With the top of the world leaning back toward the sun, warmth is returning to the far north, where scientists observed in January and February 2011 new record lows in the extent of the giant jigsaw
From Alaska to the top of Africa
2039_1.jpg: 14-year-old Spencer Adams of Palmer on top of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.
Photos courtesy of Jenny Heckathorn.
An Alaska teacher and an eighth grade student are now seeing the world differently after a visit to the other side of the planet.
Jenny Heckathorn, a biology teacher from Valdez,
Women in science on being women in science
Joan Braddock
by Joan Braddock.
One woman listened as a male professor told her she should not go to graduate school because she would be depriving a man of an opportunity to support his family. Another had to nix her male collea
From Alaska to the top of Africa
2040_1.jpg: A European rabbit on Poa Island.
Photos by Steve Ebbert, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
In 1930, the Alaska Game Commission for some reason released marmots, furry creatures the size of under-exercised house cats, on a 275-acre island between Kodiak and the Kenai Peninsula. As the yea
Women in science on being women in science (Part 2)
Volcano Geologist Tina Neal began her career in the early 1980s at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.
Photo by Sunny Faith.
To mark Women’s History Month, I sent a questionnaire to a few Alaska women scientists who have excelled at their craft for a few decades. Last week I featured Nettie LaBelle-Hamer and Joan B
From Alaska to the top of Africa
A polar bear that pursued Stacey Fritz and Ryan Tinsley as they were on a canoe trip to research DEW Line sites.
Photo by Stacey Fritz.
On windy, cold nights a few decades ago, men in darkened rooms north of the Arctic Circle spent their evenings watching radar screens. They were looking for slashes of green light that represented
Women in science on being women in science (Part 3)
Patricia Reynolds with tranquilized musk ox.
Photo by Harry Reynolds.
To mark Women’s History Month, I sent a questionnaire to a few Alaska women scientists who have excelled at their craft for a few decades. Last week I featured Pat Holloway and Tina Neal.
