Lael Oldmixon
907-474-6679
2/2/12

The University of Alaska Fairbanks will participate in an online college fair Wednesday, Feb. 8 from 8-5 p.m.

Students will have an opportunity to learn more about the admissions process, financial aid and the Alaska Performance Scholarship. Admissions counselors will be on hand to answer questions in real time.

The event is free and can be accessed by registering at www.collegeweeklive.com or by visiting www.uaf.edu/admissions.

ON THE WEB: www.uaf.edu/admissions/

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Nancy Tarnai
907-474-5042
2/2/12

Years ago when Jennifer Ansley encountered goats at the Tanana Valley State Fair she was so smitten that she declared to her husband, “That’s what I want; they are so beautiful.”

Even though her husband, Gregory Kahoe, failed to see the beauty, Ansley achieved her dream and now has 11 goats and a thriving goat milk bath product business, Far Above Rubies.

By reading books and doing research, Ansley taught herself to milk goats (“It didn’t work like the book said,” she commented.), make cheese and create a product line. She couldn’t have predicted this lifestyle growing up outside of Philadelphia. Ansley earned a B.S. in environmental science and English at the College of William and Mary. While working as seasonal rangers in Denali National Park Ansley and Kahoe met and then settled in Fairbanks in 1996.

A teacher at West Valley High School, Kahoe has been extremely supportive of his wife’s farming endeavors, building barns, mucking them out and coming up with great ideas. “I couldn’t do it without him,” Ansley said..

Her goats are Toggenburgs, one of the oldest and purest breeds from the Swiss Alps and the first breed to be registered in the U.S. Some are crossed with Saanen but all are Swiss breeds. The large goats do very well in the cold and are good milk producers, Ansley said. “I love my goats; they are very personable and have lots of character. They are very intelligent.”

The goats follow her to the school bus stop when it’s time to meet her children. “They keep me in sight and stay right with me,” she said. “They don’t like cars.”

Showing off the goats in their barn, Ansley fairly gushes, “Aren’t they cute?” Indeed they are, but a lot of work too. They must be milked twice a day and fed. Their feet have to trimmed and sometimes they need help giving birth. Going against their reputation for eating old shoes and such, they are picky eaters, munching on hay, dairy grain ration and a salt mineral mix. “They stay healthy if they are fed properly,” Ansley said.

Ansley learned to milk by trial and error. The first book she bought, “Cheesemaking Made Easy” was not helpful. “We joked it should be called ‘Cheesemaking made Practically Impossible,’ “ she said.

When she found “Goats Produce Too!” she hit the jackpot. The recipes are specific to goat milk, not cow milk. Goat milk has smaller fat globules that make the milk easily digestible, Ansley said.

For her family’s consumption Ansley makes chevre, feta, ricotta, colby and cheddar cheese. She pasteurizes the milk herself and firmly believes it doesn’t compromise the nutritional value. “All you need is a pot and a thermometer,” she said.

Ansley even wrote to Cornell University about how goat milk changes when pasteurized and the answer was that the only thing affected is Vitamin C. “Pasteurization alters the protein so the body can utilize the proteins,” she said.

Her secret to tasty goat milk is to pasteurize it immediately after milking or the fat turns quickly to a goaty flavor. That is often what turns people off to goat milk, she said. They pay dearly for it in a shop and are disappointed by the nasty taste. That is not the case with the rich, creamy milk at Ansley’s house.

If people argue with her that raw milk is better Ansley is prepared to debate. “No matter how careful you are you can’t keep bacteria from milk,” she said. “It’s not worth it because you can get really sick.” People sometimes call her wanting to buy raw milk. “First of all, it’s illegal,” she said. “Some people listen and some say they know all about it.”

Some goat producers offer shares so they can legally sell the milk but Ansley isn’t interested in doing that. “I use up all my milk with the business,” she said. Her regret about the goat milk situation is that 4-H Club members miss out on dairy opportunities with goats. “I would like to see a legal way to share milk with neighbors but I don’t think that is going to happen.”

For nine years Ansley has been selling an array of soap and lotions at the Tanana Valley Farmers’ Market. She learned the basics and then created her own recipes, finding that her scientific background came in handy for figuring out the exact concentrations of ingredients. “It’s a lot of work but it’s a lot of fun,” she said. “I wouldn’t have thought I’d be making soap but it’s a great business.”

The products are sold online and at Alaska Feed, Cold Spot Feed, Arctic Travelers, the Alaska Bowl Co., Chena Hot Springs Resort and the Ornamentary and the Bag Ladies shop in Pioneer Park seasonally.

The keys to Ansley’s success are good luck and hard work, she said.

Contact info:

www.alaskagoatmilk.com
(907) 457-3890
[email protected]

This column is provided as a service by the UAF School of Natural Resources and Agricultural Sciences and the Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station.

Shelbie Umphenour
907-474-2417
1/31/12

Fairbanks poet Nicole Stellon O’Donnell will give a free public reading Friday, Feb. 3 at 7 p.m. in the Wood Center Ballroom on the UAF campus.

The reading will also launch her latest book, “Steam Laundry,” a collection of poems about Sarah Ellen Gibson, a woman who moved to Fairbanks during the Gold Rush.

This reading is part of the Midnight Sun Visiting Writers Series sponsored by the UAF English Department. For more information, including a full schedule of events, visit www.uaf.edu/english.

ON THE WEB: www.uaf.edu/english

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Marmian Grimes
907-474-7902
1/20/12
Download full schedule
The University of Alaska Fairbanks financial aid office is offering a full day of free seminars to increase financial literacy among current and future university students.

Financial Sense Day will take place Wednesday, Feb. 1 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Wood Center on the UAF campus. It will include workshops and seminars designed to help students pay for school, create a budget, file for taxes and deal with other financial responsibilities. There will also be two evening sessions at the UAF Community and Technical College in downtown Fairbanks: “Paying for College” at 6 p.m. and “Discover You Money Personality” at 7 p.m. All seminars are free and open to the public.

Sessions begin at 9 a.m. There are four sessions during the day with several to choose from each hour. Some panels are offered more than once. This is the third year the financial aid office has held the event.

9 a.m. panels include: “Living on Less,” “Money Skills,” “Money Management Tools”

10:15 a.m. panels include: “Paying for College,” “Understanding Personal Finance”

11:30 a.m. panels include: “Writing a Scholarship Essay,” “Getting Out of Debt”

12:45 p.m. panels include: “Money Realities,” “Tax Filing”

From noon – 2 p.m., financial aid experts will also be on hand to help students complete financial aid applications and the FAFSA. The computer lab at CTC will be open from 6 – 8 p.m. for the same purpose.

ADDITIONAL CONTACT:  Ashley Munro at 907-474-1934 or via email at [email protected].

ON THE WEB: http://www.uaf.edu/finaid/

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Ned Rozell
907-474-7468
1/30/2012

The latest meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco in December 2011 featured hundreds of talks about Earth science, some of those relating to Alaska (and some of those comprehensible to a non-scientist). Here are a few items from the notebook I carried around the Moscone Center:

An Aleutian Island morphs at high speed: Chris Waythomas of the Alaska Volcano Observatory in Anchorage spoke of how Kasatochi Island in the Aleutians has changed in diameter since its explosive 2008 eruption. “Erosion by wave action has eaten away the coast at about (1,000 feet) per year. This may be a world record,” he said. That’s about three feet of shoreline disappearing daily.

Waythomas also noted that the northern part of the island has lost about 70 percent of the ash and mud deposited by the eruption four years ago, but that the ocean deposited much of it to the south end of the island. “It should be three or four more years until Kasatochi gets to its original size.”

Canada ice on the wane: Glaciologist Garry Clarke of the University of British Columbia said that the portion of the St. Elias Range in Canada will lose half its volume of ice by the year 2100, and almost all the ice in the north and central Rocky Mountains in Canada will be gone by then. “We’re going to be witness during the next century to the disappearance of glaciers in western North America,” Clarke said.

Double the midges on northern river: A second generation of midges hatched last summer along a stretch of the Kuparik River. Normally, only one generation per summer of the small flies emerges from that water, said Michael Kendrick of the University of Alabama. He said scientists once added nutrients to that section of river during a study, but he’s not sure if that, a longer ice-free season, or both made the midges spawn twice as many generations as before.

Atigun squirrels get a jump on summer: Brian Barnes of the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Institute of Arctic Biology reported on two groups of ground squirrels that he and his colleagues have been studying for years on Alaska’s North Slope. Because of high winds in Atigun Gorge, a group of ground squirrels there has early access to leaves, berries and mushrooms that squirrels at snow-covered Toolik Lake do not have. “They don’t wait for greenup,” Barnes said of the Atigun squirrels, which emerge from hibernation two weeks earlier than Toolik squirrels. “Two weeks is a long time in the Arctic.”

We are still emitting too much carbon dioxide: James Hansen, the Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City, shared a message about carbon dioxide at a press conference. He said our releases of the greenhouse gas are “overwhelming.”

“The C02 we’re putting in the atmosphere by fossil fuel burning will stay in the atmosphere a long time before it can be put back into carbonate at the sea floor,” he said. “That tells us we cannot burn all of the fossil fuels (that remain to be extracted from the Earth). If we burn all the fossil fuels, we would send our planet back into the ice-free state . . . If we’re hoping to maintain a planet that looks like the one humanity has known, we’re out of time. We’ve got to turn (carbon dioxide emissions) around.”

This column is provided as a public service by the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, in cooperation with the UAF research community.

Brook Gamble
907-474-7812
1/27/12

The Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy will host a statewide webinar on Tuesday, Jan. 31 at 10 a.m.

Hydrologists, engineers and others use precipitation frequency estimates when designing infrastructure to survive runoff. The new Alaska digital atlas will replace estimates published in early 1960s. Join this webinar to learn more about the data collection, analysis and results of the updated atlas.

For registration, visit ine.uaf.edu/accap and follow the webinar links or call 907-474-7812.

ON THE WEB: http://accap.uaf.edu/teleconference.htm

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Marmian Grimes
907-474-7902
1/26/12

A $1.6 million software donation to the University of Alaska Fairbanks petroleum engineering department will allow students to learn on the same programs they will use in the workplace.

The gift from Edinburgh-based Petroleum Experts includes 10 copies of a suite of six programs, along with the network license required to run the programs at UAF.

The software allows the oil and gas industry to model oil reservoirs, wells and pipeline networks in an integrated way, according to Shirish Patil, professor of petroleum engineering at UAF. This practice is known as “integrated production modeling, or IPM, within the oil and gas industry.

“The IPM suite models the reservoir, the production and injection wells and the surface gathering system. Multiple reservoirs, naturally and artificially lifted wells, plus single and looped surface pipeline networks can be handled in an integrated way,” Patil said. “UAF petroleum engineering undergraduate and graduate students will be able to use the software in their class projects as well as for their senior capstone design projects, while learning state-of-the-art software.”

Oil companies use models to make production forecasts for existing oilfields and in the development of new fields, Patil said. “For new fields, models may help development by identifying the number of wells required, the optimal completion of wells, the present and future needs for artificial lift, and the expected production of oil, water and gas.”

Petroleum Experts is a petroleum engineering company with offices in Texas, Scotland and China. The company developed the IPM software to improve the efficiency of oil and gas fields. The software is used by more than 350 oil and gas companies.

ADDITIONAL CONTACTS: Aida Rodriguez, Petroleum Experts Inc., at 281-531-1121 or [email protected]. Shirish Patil, UAF petroleum engineering, at 907-474-5127 or [email protected].

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Stevie Seibert
907-474-5229
1/27/12

As the Coast Guard Cutter Healy and the tanker vessel Renda moved slowly through sea ice toward Nome, University of Alaska Fairbanks personnel used unmanned aircraft to survey the terrain and plot the safest path for approaching the harbor. The aircraft captured images that allowed scientists to assess ice thickness in places that were too dangerous to traverse on foot. The deployment of UAF’s fleet to Nome is but one example of the aircraft’s application.

Poker Flat Research Range Manager Greg Walker will discuss the growing role of unmanned aircraft in Alaska at the first Science for Alaska Lecture Series presentation Tuesday, Jan. 31 at 7 p.m. in the Westmark Gold Room. The lecture, “Alaska – As Seen From an Unmanned Aircraft,” is the first in the 20th annual Science for Alaska Lecture Series.

Researchers at UAF are harnessing the rapidly developing technology of unmanned aerial vehicles and Geophysical Institute scientists are quickly learning the possibilities as well as the limitations of the aircraft as they deploy their fleet of flying machines from boreal forest to ocean. From climate change to emergency management, unmanned aircraft are able to observe and collect data from a vantage point impossible for human researchers.

Science for Alaska 2012 is sponsored by the Geophysical Institute, UAF and Alyeska Pipeline Service Company. The series runs on Tuesdays through March 6, 2012 and is free to the public. Hands-on activities for all ages begin at 6:30 p.m. inside the Gold Room. Families are welcome.

ADDITIONAL CONTACTS: Greg Walker, Poker Flat Research Range manager, at 907-455-2110 or [email protected]. Amy Hartley, Geophysical Institute public relations manager, at 907-474-5823 or [email protected].

ON THE WEB: http://www.scienceforalaska.com

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Ned Rozell
907-474-7468
1/26/2012

One of the prettiest places in Southeast Alaska has felt some of nature’s most violent behavior.

Lituya Bay, on the Pacific coast about 100 miles southeast of Yakutat and 40 miles west of Glacier Bay, is the site of the largest splash wave ever recorded. In 1958, a magnitude 8.3 earthquake triggered a tremendous landslide into the ocean. The wave that followed reached 1,740 feet above sea level on a hill opposite the slide. The slide also triggered a wave more than 100 feet high that raced down the bay.

Neil Davis, a Fairbanks author, geophysicist, and emeritus professor at the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, flew over Lituya Bay in a Super Cub two days after the earthquake.

“When I got there, it was a truly amazing sight,” Davis said. “The bay was filled with icebergs and trees, and there was a tongue of trees and ice going out to sea outside the bay.”

Seven miles long, two miles wide, and shaped like a T, Lituya Bay is the only refuge for boats along a 100-mile stretch of the Southeast coast. The bay, carved by a glacier and nestled within the snow-covered Fairweather Range, impressed French explorer J. F. La Perouse so that he named it “Port of France” in 1798.

La Perouse soon witnessed the dark side of this beautiful place. The extreme tidal current at the narrow mouth of the bay killed 21 of his men as they explored in small boats. The current at the bay entrance reaches about 14 miles per hour, twice as fast as the Yukon River at Eagle. After a futile search for bodies, La Perouse named the only island within the bay Cenotaph, meaning “empty tomb.”

The shallow entrance to the bay was the most predictable hazard at Lituya Bay, but the absence of Native villages within the bay and distinct lines on hillsides that separated old trees from newer growth hinted at the other. The inland part of the bay lies dead on the Fairweather fault, a weak section of Earth’s crust, which, like the San Andreas fault, causes earthquakes when it fails and slips from side to side.

The 1958 earthquake shook loose millions of cubic yards of dirt and rocks from a 40-degree slope in the northeast corner of the bay. The rock mass displaced a large body of water, causing both the splash wave that rose to 1,740 feet and a gravity wave that was 150 feet high at the head of the bay. The waves sheared and stripped the bark from thousands of trees, some of them four feet in diameter.

The late geologist Don Miller flew over Lituya Bay 12 hours after the earthquake. Miller later interviewed the captains of two of three trolling boats anchored in Lituya Bay at the time of the earthquake. He described their experiences in the U.S. Geological Survey publication, The Giant Waves of Lituya Bay.

The wave sunk one boat near the entrance to the bay, killing a husband and wife. A second boat in mid-bay survived the wave by riding over its crest. Moving about 100 miles per hour, the giant wave carried the third boat over La Chaussee Spit and into the open ocean. The captain recalled riding the wave “like a surfboard” and looking down on trees of the spit as the wave carried him 80 feet above. The captain and his wife survived the trip outside the bay, though their boat did not.

The July earthquake in 1958 was not the first time a giant wave had raced through Lituya Bay. Miller dated the trim lines on the hills and confirmed witnesses accounts of a several giant waves in 1936, and also found evidence of similar waves in the 1850s and 1874. Despite the bay’s violent history, Miller didn’t discourage people from visiting there. He estimated the odds of a giant wave occurring in Lituya Bay on any given day as 9,000-to-1.

This column is provided as a public service by the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, in cooperation with the UAF research community. Ned Rozell is a science writer at the institute.

Geophysical Institute Information Office
907-474-7558
1/25/12

The University of Alaska Fairbanks is offering a professional development course for Alaska educators this spring.

Teachers can enroll to earn up to three credits. The course will build upon topics introduced in the 2012 Science For Alaska Lecture Series and will cover how to connect classrooms with practicing scientists and cutting-edge research.

All assignments are completed online, so teachers can set their own schedule. For more information and registration forms, visit www.scienceforalaska.com.

ON THE WEB: www.scienceforalaska.com

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