Breast pumping breakrooms, banking regulations and the Board of Regents at the University of Alaska. Those are some of the topics covered in bills filed by Interior legislators preparing for
New year brings giant storms, big waves and chilly winds January 15th |
Alaska went big on New Year s.
First, on New Year s Eve 2020, a superstorm spun its way through the North Pacific Ocean and into the Aleutian Islands.
The twirling mass of gases surrounding Earth was more than 5,000 miles wide, its boundaries stretching from northern Japan to middle Alaska. That s about 10 times the width of a typical hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico.
The Alaska storm that covered a good portion of the globe induced a Dec. 31 low-pressure reading on the Aleutian island of Shemya of 924.8 millibars, a record low for Alaska. Winds on the island registered more than 80 mph. A buoy in the ocean south of Amchitka Island farther east than Shemya in the middle of the Aleutian chain rode up and over a 58-foot wave.
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By feeding arctic ground squirrels special diets, researchers have found that omega-3 fatty acids, common in flax seed and fish oil, help keep the animals warmer in deep hibernation.
By feeding arctic ground squirrels special diets, researchers have found that omega-3 fatty acids, common in flax seed and fish oil, help keep the animals warmer in deep hibernation.
A University of Alaska Fairbanks-led study fed ground squirrels either a diet high in omega-3s or a normal laboratory diet, and measured how the animals hibernated afterward. Researchers found that the omega-3 diet helped the animals hibernate a little warmer than normal without negatively affecting hibernation. The omega-3 diets also increased the amount of a heat-producing fat, called brown adipose tissue, the animals pack on.
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Wed, 01/13/2021 - 9:57am
The North Pacific pollock fleet starts its 2021 season Jan. 20 after a rough last year market by elusive and small fish along with multiple COVID-19 outbreaks aboard fishing vessels. (Photo/Dreamstime.com/Tribune News Service)
Skipper Kevin Ganley spent most of the summer and fall pulling a massive trawl net through the Bering Sea in a long slow search for pollock, a staple of McDonald’s fish sandwiches. The fish proved very hard to find.
“We just scratched and scratched and scratched,” Ganley recalls. “It was survival mode.”
Ganley’s boat is part of a fleet of largely Washington-based trawlers that have had a difficult year as they joined in North America’s largest single-species seafood harvest. Their catch rates in 2020 during the five-month “B” season that ended Nov. 1 were well less than long-term averages.
Print article Numerous industry sectors and groups, including teachers, are urging state officials to move up their eligibility for the COVID-19 vaccine even as it became clear Alaska’s allocation for the month is all but used up. During a hearing Monday, several educators and the president of the Anchorage teachers union urged the state’s vaccine allocation committee to move teachers into “immediate” vaccine status before in-person learning begins for K-2 and special education classes through sixth grade at the Anchorage School District in about a week. Representatives of the state’s trucking and shipping industries asked to be bumped up as well. Warehousemen and truck drivers in the Lower 48 are seeing 20% to 25% workforce reductions due to the effects of the virus, Matson vice president Bal Dreyfus told the committee during the hearing, held remotely via Zoom.