UAF

After eight years on the job, Chancellor Dan White is retiring from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. An announcement late Friday says he’ll be leaving at the end of July. In spite of cuts in research funds, he says the institution is stable and well-positioned.

The latest installment of the art and science collaborative known as In a Time of Change is currently on view at the Fairbanks Arts Association’s Bear Gallery in Pioneer Park. The collaborative process enhanced interaction among artists to create works that re-imagine the boreal forest in the new exhibit called “Boreal Echoes.”

For the past decade more Arctic residents have noticed an increase in beavers and the way they change the land and affect other animals. The Arctic Beaver Observation Network, or ABON is meeting for three days in Fairbanks to inform each other about new findings.

Hibernation scientists at University of Alaska Fairbanks have invited colleagues and students from around the world to a workshop in Fairbanks. They reviewed each others’ findings indoors last week, and will head up to Toolik Lake Research Station in the Brooks Range this week for outdoor lab work.

The University of Alaska and the State are hosting a three-day international drone aircraft conference in Anchorage starting today. It will showcase how uncrewed aircraft can respond to emergencies, haul freight and gather scientific data. Recent test flights have proven drones can replace traditional piloted planes.

Fairbanks’s drone center is celebrating 25 automated flights to Alaska villages last month. The flights were made in a Cessna Grand Caravan, without a person in the pilot’s seat, (although there was a safety pilot ready to take over on every flight.) The tests demonstrated how emergency medicine, and eventually cargo, could be delivered across the state.

The UAF drone program is getting ready to test a pilotless plane for freight deliveries to villages. It is the very first step in a testing regimen that may expand the supply chain in Alaska.

Lawyers in the Sophie Sergie murder trial stepped the jury through evidence and testimony in four hours of closing remarks on Monday. 47-year old Steven Downs is charged with 1st degree murder and 1st degree sexual assault. Judge Thomas Temple turned the case over to the jury, who started their deliberations Monday afternoon.This next story refers to violent acts and may be disturbing for some listeners.

Nicholas Dazer shared a dormitory room with Steven Downs, who is accused of killing Sophie Sergie in 1993

Tanana residents who harvest wood for a local biomass project are six times more likely to engage in subsistence activities. That’s according to a study…