Alaska Aerospace Corp Floats Idea of Privatization. The president and CEO of Alaska Aerospace Corp. said Wednesday that the state-owned corporation would like to become a private company. Craig Campbell told the Senate Finance Committee he does not believe shutting down the corporation and the Kodiak Launch Complex that it owns and operates would be a good decision, given the investment that's been made and the future opportunities. He also said if the state put the facility up for sale, as some have suggested, it would probably be disappointed in the response. Fairbanks Daily News-Miner

Inuit: The Genes That Bind. It has long been known that many modern Greenlanders who consider themselves Inuit have some amount of European ancestry. This should come as little surprise, given the intertwined history of the island's Inuit population with first the Norse, from the 10th to the 15th centuries, and then with Danish-Norwegian settlers, starting in the 18th century. A recent paper now adds additional detail to those previous studies while at the same time offering a detailed look at Inuit settlement of the island and the divergent development of its isolated communities. The paper, published in the American Journal of Human Genetics, indicates that more than 80% of the Inuit living in Greenland have European genes. On average, the researchers, led by Ida Moltke, of the University of Copenhagen, found that 25% of Greenlanders' genome is European (the rest is Inuit). Arctic Journal

Navy Prepares for Arctic Operations as Ice Thins. A new cold war is forming - very cold. The Navy expects to have enough trained personnel and equipment by 2030 to respond to contingencies and emergencies in the Arctic, said Robert Freeman, spokesman for the Oceanographer of the Navy. Beyond 2030, the Navy "will be capable of operating deliberately in the Arctic region as needed." Rapid melting of Arctic ice is advancing nations' economic and strategic concerns, and is becoming another front on which Russia is becoming more assertive. Military Times

Oil Drilling Banned in Arctic Area That Attracts Walrus. A plateau on the Arctic Ocean floor, where thousands of Pacific walrus gather to feed and raise pups, has received new protections from the Obama administration that recognize it as a biological hot spot and mark it off-limits to future oil drilling. But the announcement from Interior Secretary Sally Jewell triggered an uproar from Alaska leaders, angry that the federal government was making a decision that they said would harm the state's economy. ABC News

Sen. Murkowski Meets With Kerry on Arctic Issues. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) met with Secretary of State John Kerry to discuss what she thinks the Obama administration's focus should be for diplomacy with Arctic nations. Murkowski, chairwoman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said her main goal in the 40-minute meeting Wednesday was to reduce what she sees as the administration's extreme focus on climate change as a top Arctic issue, at the expense of other priorities. The Hill