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UAF Research News
  • A man in a white hardhat and orange safety vest talks while pointing to a metal structure under a large pipe. Other men stand around him listening.

    The greatest story of man and permafrost

    May 29, 2025

    In 1973, Elden Johnson was a young engineer working on one of the most ambitious and uncertain projects in the world -- an 800-mile steel pipeline that carried warm oil over frozen ground. Decades later, Johnson looked back at what he called "the greatest story ever told of man's interaction with permafrost."

  • an illustration of two types of birds, including a group of birds that look like baby ducks, in a prehistoric landscape with dinosaurs in the background

    Study finds birds nested in Arctic alongside dinosaurs

    May 29, 2025

    Spring in the Arctic brings forth a plethora of peeps and downy hatchlings as millions of birds gather to raise their young. The same was true 73 million years ago, according to a new paper in the journal Science. The paper documents the earliest-known example of birds nesting in the polar regions.

  • A bird with a bright orange breast, black head and back, and yellow bill stands upright on grass.

    The American robin returns on time

    May 22, 2025

    American robins have returned to northern Alaska.

  • A human hand holds a small bird by the legs; the bird's mouth is open.

    An old friend returns to the far north

    May 16, 2025

    A Fairbanks biologist recently cupped in his hand a tiny bird whose arrival he had been rooting for. That bird -- a female Hammond's flycatcher -- now holds the title of the oldest known of its species.

  • Three children holding cups gathered around a table. One of the children is holding a bug.

    UAF to host free Arctic Research Open House

    May 12, 2025

    The University of Alaska Fairbanks will host its annual Arctic Research Open House Thursday, May 15 from 4 - 7 p.m. on the West Ridge of the Troth Yeddha' Campus in Fairbanks.

  • Black and white photo of Dale Guthrie in a heavy turtleneck sweater and jacket leaning against a birch tree and looking directly into the camera.

    Dale Guthrie opened door to lost world

    May 09, 2025

    Sometimes -- but not very often -- a door creaks open to a lost world. Sometimes the right person steps in. Dale Guthrie, an Alaska biologist and paleontologist who died in 2024 at the age of 88, was that guy.

  • four people lying on a steep gravel hill digging with small hand tools, with a large body of water in the background

    New ancient fish species earliest known salmon ancestor

    May 09, 2025

    A new paper published this week in the journal Papers in Paleontology has named three new species of fish from that time period, including a salmonid, dubbed Sivulliusalmo alaskensis.

  • A woman in bright yellow pants, a gray jacket and a blue ballcap directs a long white plastic pipe into a hole in a spot of dirt emerging from a snowy forest floor.

    The 'Hole-in-the-Ground Girl'

    May 01, 2025

    Leanne Bulger recently found a new hole in the forest floor on the west end of Fairbanks. Into it, she poked a long plastic pipe.

  • Tundra swans take two pathways to Alaska

    April 25, 2025

    Tundra swans -- at 15 pounds and with a wingspan of almost six feet -- are now touching down on the ponds and snowfields of Alaska.

  • On a river, a stern-mounted paddlewheel drives a large white boat with three main stories. Passengers line the foredecks above the first and second stories. Smoke pours from a stack that rises above a fourth-story wheelhouse near the boat's fore end. The boat pushes a smaller open barge.

    An early ascent of the Yukon River

    April 17, 2025

    Civil War veteran Charles Raymond was 27 when he accepted an assignment to visit the new U.S. territory of Alaska, a place so far away from his home in New York City he couldn't imagine it.

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