by Ned Rozell

The scar from the Anaktuvuk River fire of 2007, which scorched an area as large as Cape Cod: NASA MODIS image.

Four summers ago, Syndonia Bret-Harte stood outside at Toolik Lake, watching a wall of smoke creep toward the research station on Alaska’s North Slope. Soon after, smoke oozed over the cluster of buildings.

“It was a dense, choking fog,” Bret-Harte said.

The smoke looked, smelled and tasted like what Bret-Harte has experienced at her home in Fairbanks, but the far-north version was composed of vaporized tundra plants instead of black spruce and birch. The 2007 Anaktuvuk River fire, which burned an area the size of Cape Cod, is the largest fire ever recorded in tundra.

Play in the dirt with Dig Afognak
Laura Nielsen for FrontierScientists

If uncovering archaeological treasures and exploring local culture appeal to you more than simple sightseeing, you’ll want to check out the Kodiak Archipelago the next time you can make it to Alaska. The Afognak Native Corporation’s program Dig Afognak has visitors, archaeologists, and Native tribal members working side-by-side to find and preserve cultural artifacts and archaeological sites.

Additionally, Dig Afognak offers cultural activities with varying focuses all meant to teach and preserve Native Alutiiq ways.

by Ned Rozell

On a late summer evening a few years ago, a scrap of birch bark caught William Manley’s eye as he walked along the edge of an ice field in the Wrangell-St. Elias Mountains. The geologist yelled to nearby archaeologist Jim Dixon and Ruth Ann Warden of the Ahtna Heritage Foundation.

“When I pointed it out to Jim and Ruth Ann, they immediately saw that it was something special,” said Manley, who works for the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

The remains of a 650-year old birch bark basket complete with stitching holes, found at the base of an ice patch in the Wrangell-St. Elias Mountains. Photo by William Manley.

Fairbanks, Alaska, April 24, 2012—“The Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (MAE) and the Russian Ethnographic Museum in St. Petersburg Russia have the earliest collections of Kodiak baskets, grass and spruce root, in the world,” said Sven Haakanson, executive director of the Alutiiq Museum and Archaeological Repository.

Laura Nielsen for FrontierScientists

Attu Woman, John Malcolm Greany, 1941
Attu Woman, John Malcolm Greany, 1941

World War II brought conflict and trial to Alaska.

Unalaska, located in the Aleutian Islands, had served as a trading hub for local villages. Native people from Biorka, Kashega, and Makushin would bring goods like fox pelts and baskets via boat and hiking trail to Unalaska to trade.

In June 4, 1942, Unalaska was bombed.

Nearby residents from the smallest Aleutian villages were evacuated via steamship and resettled in internment camps in southeast Alaska.

by Ned Rozell

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, was anxious to get through the last day of work at the dune.

Two graduate students, Patrick Hall and Jill Baxter-McIntosh, were slowly moving earth with metal trowels in a layer of charcoal that suggested an ancient fire pit. Potter worked his way over to help and began exposing bone fragments that were different

by Liz O'Connell, Fairbanks, Alaska, April 3, 2012--- “An artist that discovers a new process or new material­-- the same thing is happening in computation. People are constantly embarking on new discoveries; that’s what gets people excited about science,” said Greg Newby, Arctic Region Supercomputing Center director at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy.

Stunning science models produced on supercomputers in the videos Modeling Climate and Designing Supercomputers: Cray & AMD Address Challenges

Bugs & Bones at the Burke Museum. At the University of Washington, Seattle

By Liz O’Connell for Frontier Scientists

Seattle, Washington. A sticky strip of fly paper lays along the floor at the door of a tiny room. “Step over,” says Jeff Bradley, collections Manager in mammalogy at the Burke Museum in Seattle. A group of visiting anthropologists and archaeologists step over the sticky strip and crowd together as Bradley opens a 2 X 5 foot metal container revealing his silent workers--bugs.

The first whiff emanating from the box hits the group. “Stinky,” says someone. “Disgusting,” says someone else. The bugs crawl over bones, hair, flesh, or cluster

by Ned Rozell

Alaska largest known yedoma, a permafrost feature that formed thousands of years ago and is now being cut by the Itkillik River on Alaska’s North Slope.: Photo by Eva Stephani.

In northern Alaska, an amphitheater of frozen ground is thawing where a northern river is cutting it, exposing walls of ice. The feature, known by scientists as “yedoma,” is the largest of its kind yet found in Alaska.

Laura Nielsen for Frontier Scientists

I met her in space.

Ok, that's not true. I met Cindi at the AGU Exploration Station, San Francisco, an annual free science event for families and teachers where kids can get hands-on science. I'd never met a space android girl before... what did she do up in space? What were those nets for?

CINDI

Laura Nielsen for Frontier Scientists.

Volunteers across the world are participating in a global air sampling network run by by NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, to monitor greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere.

February 28, 2012. Bureau of Land Management archaeologist Bill Hedman cries out in amazement as he uncovers a prehistoric tool from a small hole he has dug in a treeless expanse of tundra. As the lone BLM archaeologist for 12 million acres of public land in northwestern Alaska, Hedman covers a gigantic area, nearly all of it roadless. He’s thrilled when his instincts for where to look are rewarded by a find like this. Wow, a Biface! is a real-time video of Hedman’s experience.

“We have literally thousands of archaeological sites in every recognized period of history and prehistory in Alaska on the lands that we manage,” Hedman says. Through the BLM’s Northwest Drainages Archaeological Survey, Hedman has uncovered even more sites during the past several years. “It tells us Alaska has never been a backwater — it has consistently been occupied. We’ve got a rich archaeological record in the state of Alaska,” says Hedman.

Bureau of Land Management: North West Drainages area

by Laura Nielsen for FrontierScientists

We know that space weather can play havok with technology. Space weather has real effects on human society, technology, and our economy. How do we ready ourselves to deal with it?

This rubber chicken can help.

Camilla Corona SDO - NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory's mascot at AGU 2011

By Liz O’Connell for Frontier Scientists.

Bob Gill with Godwits

Early on Bob Gill, Research Wildlife Biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), thought Bar-tailed Godwits’ journey from Alaska to New Zealand was a non-stop flight. Faced with skepticism from his colleagues, but armed with satellite technology, Gill tagged a female Godwit he named E-7. By tracking E-7 in 2007, Gill was able to prove that Godwits are airborne from Alaska to New Zealand for a week or more—the longest non-stop migratory flight for any bird.

by Laura Nielsen for FrontierScientists.

We're all attached to our cellphones. Did you know that the Sun has the potential to disrupt your service?

The Sun, the Earth, and our solar system are all part of an electromagnetic system. Our star emits charged particles, radiation, plasma, and dynamic magnetic fields. As these variable particles and electric currents impact Earth's ionosphere and magnetosphere, and interact with Earth's own magnetic fields; they cause our systems to change- sometimes drastically. We use the term 'space weather' to describe the dynamic, ever-changing space environment caused by the Sun's interaction with our planet.

Solar activity affects you; as our society becomes increasingly reliant on technology, the Sun has an ever-greater potential to affect us... and not just in good ways.

NASA: Camilla Corona SDO: An artist's rendering of solar wind coming towards the Earth and its magnetosphere.

Frontier Scientists Releases New Videos about Permafrost, A Blog about the Dog Mushing Weather Dance, and a Video Description of FLOPs.

Fairbanks, Alaska, January 31, 2012--- Permafrost is an underground phenomena but three new videos, with beautiful footage and photos, allow you to see permafrost with your own eyes.

University of Alaska-Fairbanks scientists Vladimir Romanovsky, Sergey Marchenko, and Ronald Daanen describe permafrost in videos “It’s a Bore Hole”, “The Permafrost Tilted House” and “Permafrost Patterns”.

By Kristin Knight Pace for Frontier Scientists.

The brittle cold of Dead Dog Flats is enough to make my parka crinkle as I ladle out the hot mixture of fat and tripe, chicken protein and kibble. One by one the dogs emerge from their houses and, by the time I have gone through the whole yard, a cloud of steam rises above us like a big, collective breath. All our warmth and exhalations are suspended above and around us, encased like a bubble in the -50 night air. Another day like this goes by and yet another. Too cold to run.

Finally a break in the cabin fever-inducing weather and we are back on the trail

Fairbanks, Alaska, --- If you know what a FLOP is, you can stop reading now. But if you don’t, take note and watch “What’s a FLOP?” http://frontierscientists.com/projects/computational-science/ It will be your primer to the next step in computational science.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Cray XT5, Cray Inc.

"Computational Science is a primary means of discovery in the world today.