Removing the mystery from Alaska’s washboard roads

Removing the mystery from Alaska's washboard roads By Ned Rozell [fusion_dropcap]W[/fusion_dropcap]hile driving Alaska's graveled highways, countless people have no doubt wondered about how an unpaved road surface turns into a bouncing bed of corduroy. Keith Mather, who was studying nuclear physics in Australia in the early 1960s, had the same question. He wrote a paper [...]

Do Alaska’s melting glaciers make for bad oysters?

Do Alaska's melting glaciers make for bad oysters? By Ned Rozell [fusion_dropcap]T[/fusion_dropcap]he rate of melting of Alaska's glaciers into the Gulf of Alaska has nearly doubled since 1995. In July 2004, passengers on a small cruise ship in Prince William Sound came down with stomach flu after eating local oysters. Some scientists think there's a [...]

Methane gas escaping from ocean floor may be one cause of global warming

Methane gas escaping from ocean floor may be one cause of global warming By Ned Rozell [fusion_dropcap]I[/fusion_dropcap]f the world continues to get warmer, vast amounts of methane gas trapped under the sea could belch up and worsen climate change, according to a study. "We may have less time than we think to do something (about [...]

Alaska’s fish are very clean

Alaska's fish are very clean By Ned Rozell [fusion_dropcap]T[/fusion_dropcap]hough buffered by many hundreds of miles from the world's industrial centers, the far north is not as pristine as it seems. Scientists have found dioxins in the breast milk of Native women in Canada's Arctic and pesticide in the bark of Alaska trees, but a new [...]

The dominant predator of North America?

The dominant predator of North America? By Ned Rozell [fusion_dropcap]I[/fusion_dropcap]n the days when Alaska was a vast grassland, a massive bear hunted the treeless plains. Walking on four lean legs, the giant, short-faced bear loomed larger than the biggest brown bear today. A researcher once described the extinct bear as "the dominant predator of North [...]

Bowhead Whales

Bowhead Whales May Be the World's Oldest Mammals By Ned Rozell [fusion_dropcap]W[/fusion_dropcap]hile helping Alaska Native whale hunter Billy Adams cut sections of blubber from a bowhead whale, Biologist Craig George pressed his knife into a deep scar in the whale's skin. Bowhead whales were hunted by commercial whalers for over four centuries, beginning in the [...]

Humpback Whales Bubble Net Feeding in Alaska

Bubble Net Feeding by Humpback Whales in Alaska Bubble Net Feeding in Alaska Occasionally, humpback whales in Southeast Alaska will feed in coordinated groups using bubbles to trap fish at the water’s surface. This behavior is known as bubble net feeding. Bubble net feeding involves anywhere from 4-20 whales all working together to herd schooling [...]

What Causes the Aurora Borealis?

What Causes the Aurora Borealis? By Larry Gedney and Vladimir Degen During the early 19th century, some of the best scientific minds of the period believed that the aurora was caused by the reflection of sunlight from tiny ice crystals suspended high in the atmosphere. It remained for the Norwegian physicist Anders Angstrom (1814-1874) to [...]

Salmon nose deep into Alaska ecosystems

Salmon nose deep into Alaska ecosystems By Ned Rozell [fusion_dropcap]D[/fusion_dropcap]uring a good year in Bristol Bay, a surge of more than 100 million pounds of sockeye salmon fights its way upstream, spawns, and dies. In Bristol Bay and elsewhere in Alaska, this incredible pulse of salmon carcasses enriches streams and rivers and makes young fish [...]

Alaska Blackfish In A World Of Its Own

Alaska Blackfish In A World Of Its Own By Ned Rozell [fusion_dropcap]I[/fusion_dropcap]magine a shallow lake north of Hughes, in the cold heart of Alaska. In frigid, sluggish water, dim blue light penetrates two feet of ice. The ice has a quarter-size hole, maintained by a stream of methane bubbles. Every few minutes, a brutish little [...]