Amy Hartley
907-474-5823
4/29/11

NASA is seeking public comment on its sounding rocket program at the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Poker Flat Research Range. The comments will be reviewed as part of an environmental impact statement.

There will be two opportunities for the public to offer comment in Fairbanks, both of them on Monday, May 2. The first meeting will run from 2 to 4 p.m. in the Wood Center on the UAF campus. The other meeting will run from 6 to 8 p.m. at the civic center at Pioneer Park.

For more information, email [email protected].

MEDIA CONTACT: Amy Hartley, GI information officer, at 907-474-5823 or [email protected]. Marmian Grimes, UAF public information officer, at 907-474-7902 or via email at [email protected].

ON THE WEB: http://sites.wff.nasa.gov/code250/pfrr_eis.html

AH/4-29-11/219psa-11

UAF photo by Todd Paris
Andy Soria stands shows some of the components of his research on using fish waste as fuel.

When one of Alaska’s largest seafood processors was fined $1.9 million for discharging fish waste into the ocean last month, UAF assistant professor Andy Soria watched the media coverage closely and shook his head.

His experiments could benefit fish processors by turning salmon waste into fuel.

“In Alaska alone, there are 100,000 metric tons of salmon wastes dispersed into the ocean each year,” Soria said. The waste is so massive that it can’t decompose into fish food. “There are underground mountains of fish waste.”

Soria has been experimenting with mixing fish waste and the sawdust of coastal alder or black spruce to create pellets. The mixture of fish and sawdust is compressed and placed inside a gasifier to produce a natural gas equivalent.

The pellets can accommodate up to 25 percent wet fish slurry and still retain heating value. The ideal proportion of salmon fish slurry—a mixture of guts, heads, tails and viscera with a moisture content of 70 percent—is 20 percent of the total pellet.

“In practice, reducing 20 percent, or 20,000 metric tons, of wastes that are dumped into the ocean is a very positive thing,” Soria said.

The pellets smell like a fresh fishy river, Soria said, not like rotting fish. “It looks like wood and smells like fish.”

The results have been very positive, Soria said. “We can use an industrial waste product, a natural resource for Alaska, as high-quality feed stock and provide heat to the cannery. They can reap the benefits of excess waste and offset operating costs by displacing the diesel fuel needed to run the cannery operations.”

Soria’s work, performed in the Renewable-Based Hydrocarbons Lab at the Palmer Center for Sustainable Living, has been done on a small scale. He knows that canneries would have to make a capital investment to set up such a system, but he deems that a better answer than paying fines.

“This is the first piece,” he said. “This project proves fish waste can make energy.”

He would like to continue studying the ash composition and emissions profile.

“There is still additional work that needs to occur,” Soria said. With a major source of his funding, the USDA Agricultural Research Service, slated for the federal budget chopping block this October, Soria isn’t sure about the future of the research.

“The long-term goal is to design reactor and reaction conditions that will optimize the production of combustible gas from these Alaska-specific waste streams and be able to run generators and provide process heat,” he said.

ADDITIONAL CONTACTS: Andy Soria, 907-746-9487, [email protected].

NT/4-28-11/218-11

Jenn Wagaman
907-474-5082
4/26/11

A University of Alaska Fairbanks scientist has launched Frontier Scientists, a new website that aims to link Alaska scientists and those curious about Arctic discoveries.

Frontier Scientists shares first-person accounts from archeologists, biologists, volcanologists, climate change specialists and other scientists studying the North. The site chronicles scientific discoveries via video clips from the field, Twitter feeds, blogs and web reports. The research is organized into six categories: Grizzlies, petroglyphs, paleo-Eskimo, Cook Inlet volcanoes, Alutiiq weavers and climate change watch.

“We want travelers, teachers, students, aspiring scientists and anyone else interested in science to feel as if they are along when scientists are tracking a grizzly or documenting how climate change is disrupting Alaska ways of life,” said Greg Newby, chief scientist of the UAF Arctic Region Supercomputing Center and the project’s leader. “Visitors to Frontier Scientists can ask their own questions to our scientists directly, follow some of them on Twitter and Facebook, and converse on their blogs.”

Frontier Scientists also provides resources and tips on things to do in Alaska for those considering travel to the Last Frontier, whether on an Alaska cruise or a backpacking expedition. To encourage people to post their own Alaska photos, the site is holding the “My Alaska” photo contest from April 26 until May 9.

Frontier Scientists is funded by the National Science Foundation, with additional support from the National Park Service and 360 North.

ADDITIONAL CONTACTS: Greg Newby, project leader, at 907-450-8663 or [email protected]. Elizabeth O’Connell, WonderVisions, at 541-312-2419 or [email protected].

ON THE WEB: www.frontierscientists.com

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Amy Hartley
907-474-5823
4/26/11

Clear skies and fair weather are the only requirements needed for the third and final sounding rocket to launch from Poker Flat Research Range this year. At midnight on April 26 a Terrier Black Brant will take off, flying through the upper atmosphere to a peak altitude of more than 183 vertical miles. Scientists from NASA will study the rocket’s performance and test a variety of recovery aids packed into the rocket’s 22.5-foot payload.

Principal investigator Chuck Brodell, from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility, says this rocket launch provides NASA personnel an opportunity to learn what recovery mechanisms work best in the Alaska terrain. “This will be a tremendous help for us in the future,” Brodell said. “Recovery aids will help us recover hardware more quickly and reliably.”

The recovery aids consist of strobe lights, various sized streamers and a GPS unit that will deploy from the rocket by parachute. The GPS unit will transmit its coordinates as it floats back to Earth, notifying NASA and Poker Flat Research Range personnel. Within hours of the launch, a fixed wing airplane will be on the ready with staff to visually locate the rocket by air and plan for its recovery by helicopter later in the week.

The rocket motor used on this launch vehicle is of particular interest to NASA. The Black Brant motor is cast with a new mixing process meant to improve performance. Brodell and NASA colleagues will collect pressure data from the motor and analyze it against data from similar launches they’ve conducted.

Poker Flat Research Range staff supports all of the logistics for the launch, which includes everything from loading the rocket onto the launcher, providing the countdown to launch and chartering aircraft for the rocket’s recovery. These tasks and a multitude of planning and preparation before and after the rocket takes flight keep the range abuzz with activity.

The range is managed by the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska Fairbanks under contract to NASA. The facility opened in the late 1960s. It is the only high-latitude sounding rocket range in the country, as well as the only rocket range owned by a university. It’s located north of Fairbanks at Mile 30 on the Steese Highway.

As of May 1, 2011, the year’s rocket launch season will officially close. In January and February, rockets were launched to obtain images of far-off galaxies and to measure nitric oxide — a molecule that destroys ozone in the ionosphere.

ADDITIONAL CONTACTS: Poker Flat Research Range at 907-455-2110. Marmian Grimes, UAF public information officer, at 907-474-7902 or via e-mail at [email protected].

AH/4-26-11/211-11

Carin Stephens
907-322-8730
4/22/11

It took 26 years for marine invertebrates living on the Port Valdez seafloor to stabilize after Alaska’s Great Earthquake of 1964, according to a scientist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

“The earthquake, which measured 9.2 on the Richter scale, and the tsunami waves that followed, impacted every marine community in Prince William Sound,” said Arny Blanchard, a research assistant professor at the UAF School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences. Four decades of monitoring, including samples collected last year, have confirmed that the seafloor now resembles that of an undisturbed glacial fjord.

Blanchard’s findings, along with those of Howard Feder, UAF professor emeritus, and Max Hoberg, UAF researcher, were published in the journal Marine Environmental Research. The findings shed light on how long it takes for seafloor ecosystems to recover after earthquakes.

The 1964 earthquake and resulting tsunami wreaked havoc on intertidal beaches and seafloor of Port Valdez, according to Feder, the leader of the biological component of the project from 1971 to 1990. Marine plants and animals on Port Valdez beaches were destroyed by the tsunami while the earthquake deposited massive amounts of sediment on the seafloor. This caused the whole community of bottom-dwelling marine invertebrates—such as sea worms, snails and clams—to change.

Some seafloor invertebrates usually found in glacial fjords like Port Valdez, such as the sea worms Terebellides stroemi and Galathowenia oculata, virtually disappeared. Other animals took advantage of the disturbance and colonized the area. One of those animals is a family of sea worms called Capitellidae. They became unusually dominant in the region for a few years. According to Blanchard, Capitellidae are known for being highly opportunistic and tolerant of disturbance.

The diversity and abundance of marine invertebrates in Port Valdez was highly variable from 1971 to 1989 compared to other glacial fjords, primarily as a result of the earthquake. Over time, the community of animals stabilized. Today, the balance of bottom-dwelling animals looks more like an undisturbed glacial fjord.

“The ecosystem was in such flux that responses by seafloor communities to regional climatic variability were masked by the recovery process,” said Blanchard.

Samples collected in 2010 marked the fourth decade of sampling in Port Valdez, making it one of the longest-running research projects at the UAF School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences. The Port Valdez study resulted in numerous scientific publications, including three books, and provided research opportunities for more than 50 undergraduate and graduate students.

The project began as an investigation of the Port Valdez ecosystem prior to the construction of the Port Valdez marine oil terminal. The study is multidisciplinary, with Blanchard currently leading the biological component. An important part of the project includes looking at the potential effects on seafloor animals of wastewater and treated ballast water discharges at the terminal. David Shaw, professor emeritus at UAF, has been the leader of the hydrocarbon chemistry component of the project since 1976. Scientists say that effects on animals on intertidal beaches and the seafloor from wastewater discharged by the terminal have been minor.

The Port Valdez project is funded by Alyeska Pipeline Service Company.

About SFOS
The School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences conducts world-class marine and fisheries research, education and outreach across Alaska, the Arctic and Antarctic. 60 faculty scientists and 150 students are engaged in building knowledge about Alaska and the world’s coastal and marine ecosystems. SFOS is headquartered at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and serves the state from facilities located in Seward, Juneau, Anchorage and Kodiak.

CONTACT: Carin Stephens, SFOS public information officer, 907-322-8730, [email protected]

ADDITIONAL CONTACTS: Arny Blanchard, research assistant professor of marine biology, 907-474-1123 or via e-mail at [email protected]

ON THE WEB: www.sfos.uaf.edu

CS/4-22-11/209-11

UAF photo by Todd Paris
Officials gather to break ground at the site of the new greenhouse being built on UAF's West Ridge. From left to right: Jack Wilbur from Design Alaska, Murray Richmond representing state Sen. Joe Thomas, local businessman Jay Ramras, University of Alaska Regent Jo Heckman, Chancellor Brian Rogers, Dean of the School of Natural Resources and Agricultural Sciences Carol Lewis, local entrepreneur Bernie Karl and Bert Bell of GHEMM Co, Inc., General Contractors.

The university’s golden shovels were put to good use for the second time in a matter of weeks, as ground was officially broken today for a new greenhouse for the UAF School of Natural Resources and Agricultural Sciences.

The greenhouse project is wrapped into a bond for the Life Sciences facility that voters approved last fall, as the school’s old greenhouse was removed to make way for the Life Sciences building.

The $5.325 million greenhouse will contain 4,300 square feet of growing areas and 1,278 square feet for growth chambers (similar to big refrigerators). The greenhouse will be used for research and teaching.

“We’ve been working toward this for a long time,” SNRAS Dean and Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station Director Carol Lewis said. “This facility will serve us well.”

Lewis said this year is a time of transition, while construction occurs and researchers have to make do without a space to call their own. Lewis thanked Facilities Services and the Institute of Arctic Biology for sharing their greenhouses with SNRAS this spring.

UAF Chancellor Brian Rogers said people have wondered why he is holding groundbreaking ceremonies when it is still chilly out. “We can’t wait to get started,” he said. Fenced areas behind Rogers attested to the fact, as they contained construction equipment and a huge pit already dug.

Rogers said today’s groundbreaking was the second part of the Life Sciences ceremony which occurred March 30.

“This is a critical component for education and outreach of SNRAS and AFES,” Rogers said. He said there has been some public concern about the Georgeson Botanical Garden, a project of SNRAS, and its fate this summer because of losing the old greenhouse. “Sherry and I are life members of the botanical garden and if it closes it is not going to happen on my watch,” he said.

“Every construction project involves a little bit of sacrifice,” Rogers said. “What we’ll see out the other end is a greenhouse ready for the 21st century.”

Rogers said there may be problems with federal and state funding for agriculture, “but we’ll get through this.”

UA Regent Jo Heckman stressed the advantages that the new greenhouse will offer students, who will then take their knowledge to Alaska businesses. “This is a model of connectivity to research, education and outreach and entrepreneurs,” she said. “The workforce trained here will evolve into success for Alaska.”

Former state representative Jay Ramras, owner of Pike’s Waterfront Lodge and a collaborator with SNRAS on greenhouse projects, lamented the lack of focus on agriculture in Alaska. He reminded the audience that UAF is one of the country’s land grant institutions (which traditionally support and sustain agriculture).

“People don’t realize how a few square feet can grow a tremendous volume of product,” Ramras said. “It’s extraordinary. Alaska can prove things that other parts of the world cannot.”

He urged the university to finish this greenhouse then build more in rural areas. “We could save a generation in remote parts of Alaska who have never eaten anything that didn’t come out of a bag or a microwave,” he said.

Bernie Karl

Holding up a basket of produce fresh from his greenhouse, Bernie Karl, owner of Chena Hot Springs Resort, told the crowd, “We are what we eat. Shame on us for growing only 2 percent of our food.”

Karl urged everyone to get behind agriculture. “We could be totally self sufficient in the state of Alaska,” he said. “I expect miracles out of this new greenhouse. Maybe we can feed all you rascals.”

University knowledge can go a long way when melded with entrepreneurship, which is what Karl has done with his greenhouses at his resort. He worked closely with SNRAS horticulture experts and got good advice all along the way; now he is growing fresh lettuce and tomatoes year round at Chena Hot Springs and is planning to build 20 acres of greenhouses on the Richardson Highway.

The SNRAS greenhouse, which was designed by Design Alaska and is being built by Ghemm Co. Inc., will feature state-of-the-art technology. It will have an energy curtain, along with controls to program the temperature, lights, humidity and integrate the environmental variables with plant growth.

“This will open up all kinds of opportunities,” said Professor Meriam Karlsson. “This will be a place to come and see all the modern equipment and have educational opportunities.” The structure is slated for completion by October of this year.

Nancy Tarnai
907-474-5042
4/21/11

The University of Alaska Fairbanks will hold a groundbreaking ceremony for the new School of Natural Resources and Agricultural Sciences West Ridge Greenhouse Friday, April 22 at 11 a.m.

The $5.325 million facility will be located on the south side of Arctic Health Research Building. When completed, it will include 4,300 square feet of greenhouse space and nearly 1,300 square feet of space for growth chambers. It will replace the aging 4,800-square-foot greenhouse facility that was dismantled in March to make way for the construction of the Life Sciences Facility.

The facility will feature an energy curtain that can be pulled down to conserve energy in the winter.

“Every modern greenhouse has this,” Meriam Karlsson, horticulture professor, said. “It will also have more accurate greenhouse controls so we’ll have better ability to program the temperature, lights, humidity and integrate the environmental variables with plant growth. This will open up all kinds of opportunities. There is a lot of interest in greenhouse production. This will be a place to come and see all the modern equipment and have educational opportunities.”

Fairbanks is a wonderful place to do greenhouse research, Karlsson added. “It’s where research should take place. The greenhouse manufacturers will be excited. If we can run a greenhouse in Fairbanks, it will work anywhere.”

The new greenhouse facility also includes 1,100 square feet in the adjacent Arctic Health Research Building, which includes space for laboratories, classrooms, a headhouse, soil preparation, offices and storage. Those renovations were completed last summer. This summer’s project will complete most of the new facility. The university plans to complete the last portion of the project, air handling and climate controls for the lower-level greenhouses, this winter.

The ceremony will be held on the west side of Arctic Health Research Building and a reception will follow inside the building. Speakers include Chancellor Brian Rogers, UA Regent Jo Heckman, Sen. Joe Thomas, Cooperative Extension Service director Fred Schlutt, SNRAS dean and Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station director Carol Lewis and local businessmen Bernie Karl and Jay Ramras. Ghemm Co. Inc. of Fairbanks is the contractor. Design Alaska did the architectural design.

ADDITIONAL CONTACTS: Marmian Grimes, UAF public information officer, at 907-474-7902 or via e-mail at [email protected].

NT/4-21-11/205-11

Julie Estey

474-1144

4/15/11

The UAF Alaska Center for Energy and Power will present a community lecture, “Moving towards the zero energy house,” Tuesday, April 19, from 6 – 7:30 p.m. at the Blue Loon, 2999 Parks Highway.

The lecture will be by Rich Seifert, community sustainability coordinator for the UAF Cooperative Extension Service and author of “Solar Design for Alaska.” Thorsten Chlupp of REINA Alaska will also discuss lessons learned from designing and building near net-zero energy homes in Fairbanks.

For more information contact the Alaska Center for Energy and Power at 474-5702.

CONTACT: Julie Estey, Alaska Center for Energy and Power, 474-1144 or [email protected]

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

Marie Gilbert
907-474-7412
3/17/11

Climate change in the Arctic could change the balance of power between humans, animals and the germs or pathogens that make them both sick, according to a paper by University of Alaska Fairbanks microbiologist Karsten Hueffer.

Hueffer, an assistant professor at the UAF Institute of Arctic Biology, published his findings in a recent issue of the online journal Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica.

“Interestingly, people and animals can reach a point of equilibrium in which the pathogens that affect them do not cause a lot of disease,” said Hueffer, who studies zoonotics, infectious diseases that spread between humans and animals. “Day length and temperature are thought to play a significant role in regulating this equilibrium.”

The rates of predicted climate change for the Arctic could spell disaster for this longstanding host-pathogen balance. A warmer Arctic could increase survival of organisms that carry disease and decrease survival of the animals they infect – including animals used as subsistence food by people living in the Arctic.

“What happens when a caribou has its calf on ground warm enough to have pathogens the calf cannot fight off?” said Hueffer. “The same issue could face bears giving birth in dens.”

Muskoxen are affected by a lung worm known to develop much faster when it’s warmer. “The faster the worm grows the more generations are born, which increases the disease pressure on the muskoxen,” said Hueffer.

Humans are at risk as well. A warmer Arctic and the prospect of an ice-free Northwest Passage is expected to drive an increase in development and other human activity in the North, all of which will increase contact among wildlife, humans and domesticated animals.

One potential outcome of increased human-animal contact is rabies.

Hueffer and colleagues from IAB, North Slope Borough, Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Alaska Department of Public Health and U.S. Centers for Disease Control plan to begin a large-scale project on the movement of red fox, arctic foxes and rabies this year.

“Arctic fox carry rabies, they move long distances and congregate where they find food,” said Hueffer. “One infected fox can infect other foxes and if they congregate near humans, the opportunity for rabies to infect domestic dogs and possibly humans increases.”

Both arctic and red foxes carry rabies. Arctic foxes spread the disease because they roam over large areas, while red foxes tend to be more territorial.

“The general presumption is that the reds will replace arctic fox in large areas of the Arctic, as we’ve seen happen in Europe and Canada,” said Hueffer. “We’re studying that movement and want to know if the reds will continue to remain territorial or start to move around a lot and spread rabies like the arctic fox.”

Red and arctic foxes are the primary wild carriers of rabies in Alaska. The Alaska State Virology Lab has 50 years of rabies data on foxes.

“With rabies, if we had a good understanding of the interaction between red fox and climate and how that affects rabies epidemics, we could be better at surveillance and prediction and be more proactive in issuing public health advisories to protect people, their domestic animals and wildlife,” Hueffer said.

Much of the research on host-pathogen interactions has been conducted at lower latitudes and may not be applicable in the Arctic. Hueffer and co-authors Todd O’Hara, UAF associate professor of wildlife toxicology, hope their paper can garner attention for a topic they believe will be of significant importance to Alaskans in the near future.

ADDITIONAL CONTACTS: Karsten Hueffer, assistant professor of microbiology, UAF Institute of Arctic Biology, at 907-474-6313 or [email protected].

MG/3-17-11/174-11

Marie Gilbert
907-474-7412
3/3/11

The University of Alaska Fairbanks Institute of Arctic Biology has announced that veteran researcher Brad Griffith will serve as the new leader of the Alaska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit.

“We are very pleased to have a leader with so much knowledge of and experience in the Alaska and circumpolar environment,” said IAB director Brian Barnes. “Brad is internationally recognized for his research in caribou biology, especially in migration and population dynamics of the Porcupine Caribou Herd, his research on Yukon River Basin ecological structure and function, and his work toward incorporating the effects of climate variability into the structured decisionmaking and adaptive management of Alaska’s wildlife resources.”

The Alaska unit is part of a nationwide cooperative program within the U.S. Geological Survey and Department of the Interior to promote research and graduate student training in the ecology and management of fish and wildlife and their habitats. The program has a record of high research productivity and, via graduate and post-graduate training, provides professionals whose science helps Alaska’s fish and wildlife managers make informed decisions.

“It is a great honor to have been selected leader of one of the oldest and largest Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units in the nation,” said Griffith, an associate professor of wildlife ecology who has been a scientist with the unit since 1989 and an assistant leader for wildlife since 1996.

The unit provides a direct link between UAF and the research needs of management agencies in Alaska.

“Our graduate training mission delivers trained natural resource professionals to Alaska,” Griffith said. “Our applied science program is explicitly focused on topics that are relevant to contemporary challenges faced by natural resource management agencies in Alaska.”

Those topics include lake drying and its effects on wetland biodiversity, enhanced ecosystem and salmon stock-recruitment models, and assessments of climate-change effects on invertebrate and shorebird communities in Arctic coastal lagoons. Griffith’s research focuses on the potential effects of industrial development and climate on circumpolar ungulates, such as caribou; the potential effects of climate on wetland biodiversity, and the implications of changing habitats for natural resource management agencies.

The Alaska unit exists as a cooperative agreement among the USGS, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the Wildlife Management Institute.

ADDITIONAL CONTACTS: Brad Griffith, leader, Alaska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit leader, at 907-474-5067 or [email protected]. Brian Barnes, Institute of Arctic Biology director at 907-474-7649 or [email protected].

MG/3-3-11/162-11