Published Jan 3, 2024 by Gavin Struve

UAA’s men’s basketball team sat at 8-0 and ranked among the top-25 Division II teams nationally when we last checked in on them in late November. In the time since, they dropped consecutive Great Northwest Athletic Conference (GNAC) games before a 2-1 stay at the Hoops in Hawaii Classic in mid-December.

Despite sitting tied for last in the GNAC standings, UAA still holds the second best overall record in the conference at 10-3. So it’s likely their trajectory in league play will improve in the new year, but their return to play isn’t the most auspicious. The Seawolves will visit UAF — a team they’ve lost to in two of their last three matchups, including in Fairbanks last season — on Jan. 6.

The UAF women are on a different trajectory despite an identical conference record. They curbed a four-game losing streak (which doesn’t account for two exhibition losses to Division I teams in the Great Alaska Shootout) with four consecutive victories. Unfortunately, none of those Mid-December wins came in conference play, where they also sit 0-2 despite a winning (6-5) overall record.

The Seawolf women have an immediate opportunity to shift their fortunes, however, with three consecutive home games concluding with a Saturday matchup with UAF on Jan. 13.

UAA’s hockey team has experienced the least success, losing all four of its games in early December. Two of those defeats came at the hands of the Nanooks, who clinched the Governor’s Cup after four wins in as many matchups this season. The Seawolves’ next game on the ice? At UAF on Jan. 13 before a road series with No. 10 Providence.

UAA is in just its second season back on the ice after the program was reinstated, so a 6-13-1 record isn’t catastrophic. The goal for the rest of the season should be to prevent a season sweep at the hands of its rival and snag another upset win after taking down top-20 Big Ten squads Wisconsin and Penn State earlier this season.

The Seawolves ski team opened its season by hosting the Alaska Nordic Cup (which also serving as a Super Tour event and the Besh Cup) and losing to UAF. UAA will be competing alongside UAF at the US Cross Country Ski Championships this week.

Published Jan 3, 2024 by Josh Reed

The UAA Nordic ski team had a pair of top 10 finishers in the 10-kilometer classic races at the U.S. Cross Country Skiing National Championships Tuesday in Midway, Utah. Senior Astrid Stav finished fifth overall and fourth among college competitors in a time of 28:10. Fellow senior Tuva Bygrave wasn’t too far behind, coming in seventh among collegiate skiers with a time of 28:24 to lead the women’s team.

In the team’s last action before the new year, the UAA women’s basketball squad extended its winning streak to four in row with another victory over a California opponent Dec. 19. The Seawolves blew out fellow Division II foe San Francisco State 71-51 and were led in scoring by junior guard Senya Rabouin with 14 points. Junior forward Tori Hollingshead added 12 and she nearly recorded a double-double by tying for the team lead in rebounds with nine.

The last time the UAA men’s basketball team touched the court, senior guard and East Anchorage alum, Jaron Williams, dropped a season-high 29 points in a 77-72 win over Hawaii Pacific University on Dec. 19, 2023. He earned GNAC player of the week honors after sinking 11-of-13 from the field that included going 4-of-5 from behind the arc and recorded a season-high three steals as well.

Published Jan 2, 2024 by Alaska Native News

Has the moon seemed exceptionally noticeable this winter? There’s a reason: The full moon currently never sets for many Alaskans.

During the winter of 2023-2024, we are passing through a period when the moon is at one extreme in its precession cycle. The full moon is now higher in the sky than it will be at any other time during the next 18.6 years.

People of ancient civilizations noticed this pattern, and the Druids living in southern England more than 3,000 years ago incorporated it into their alignment of the monoliths at Stonehenge.

North of the Arctic Circle, the sun never rises during the winter months and never sets during the summer. A similar situation prevails for the moon. However, the lunar Arctic Circle is not fixed like the solar Arctic Circle, but changes its latitude with pendulum-like regularity over the years.

The lunar Arctic Circle is now near its southernmost position, causing the full moon to never set for a good number of Alaskans. It swings down in the north (like the midnight sun), but will never set below the horizon for observers living north of Wasilla.

Published Jan 2, 2024 by Ian Sample Science editor@iansample

“What’s happening here is happening on a huge scale,” says Ken Tape, an ecologist at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, who is tracking the influx of beavers into the sparse northern landscape. “Our modelling work, which is in progress right now, shows that this entire area, the north slope of Alaska, will be colonised by beavers by 2100.”

Scientists now have evidence this is happening. Armed with high-resolution satellite imagery, Tape and his colleagues located beaver ponds in the lower Noatak River basin area of north-western Alaska. They then analysed infrared images captured by Nasa planes flying over the region. Overlaying the two revealed a clear link between beaver ponds and methane hotspots that extended for tens of metres around the ponds.

“The transformation of these streams is a positive feedback that is accelerating the effects of climate change, and that is what’s concerning,” says Tape. “They are accelerating it at every one of these points.”

Published Jan 2, 2024 by Moira Ritter

More than 16 years ago, Margaret Billington noticed a strange mass of fly larvae near her home in Alaska. A few weeks later, another report of a peculiar mass was reported nearby.

After learning of the sightings, researcher Derek Sikes visited one of the sites in Fairbanks where he collected some of the larvae and took photos.

Now, Sikes and a team of researchers have identified the larvae as a new species of gnat: Sciara serpens, or the snakeworm gnat, according to a study published Dec. 30 in Integrative Systematics: Stuttgart Contributions to Natural History.

The team examined 36 adult gnats, 18 specimens between their adult and larval stages and hundreds of larvae, they said. They also used existing literature, University of Alaska museum records and reports from citizen scientists to study the new species.

Snakeworm gnat larvae form “migratory columns” in which they “crawl on top of one another in multiple layers” to maintain body contact, scientists said. These masses are “snake-like” in “movement and appearance,” and they often resemble “a thin, gray snake.”

Published Jan 1, 2024 by Haley Lehman

Fireworks lit up the sky and welcomed in the new year Sunday night at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Published Jan 1, 2024 by Antonia Gonzales

A new children’s book in the Lingít language was celebrated at a gathering in Juneau, Alaska on Friday, the first of its kind in decades.

As Rhonda McBride from our flagship station KNBA tells us, it is the first of a nine-part series.

Jill Meserve, a Lingít language instructor, says the new book will help learning become more meaningful.

“These kids are so fortunate to see themselves in their teachers, in their curriculum, and in their books and in our community.”

Lance Twitchell, Director of Alaska Native Languages at the University of Alaska Southeast: “If you’re looking for the English translation, it doesn’t exist.

X’unei Lance Twitchell says it’s important that the language stand on its own.

He worked with a team of elders to produce the book including Kaxwaan Éesh George Davis, Shaksháani Marge Dutson, and Daasdiyáa Ethel Makinen,

X’unei produced a video of the book, so everyone can both see and hear the story.

The books are free to children of tribal members.