There are 'Superbug' Genes in the Arctic. They Definitely Shouldn't be There. A "superbug" gene that was first detected in India - and allows bacteria to evade "last resort" antibiotics - has now been found thousands of miles away, in a remote region of the Arctic, according to a new study. The findings underscore just how far and wide antibiotic resistance genes have spread, now reaching some of the most far-flung areas of the planet. Live Science 

A Fading Culture Adapts to the Changing Times in this Arctic Town. We were eating more than I thought possible, including jellied whale casserole and fresh apricot buns, while Elizaveta Dobrieva's family explained that their ancestors descended from the polar bear and the killer whale. Then Elizaveta disappeared into the back room of her apartment in Lavrentiya, Chukotka, and came back cradling a dark wooden carving. Its eyes slanted down to a long nose, and many thin vertical lines extended below the chin. Elizaveta told me that the lines represent tattoos and indicate that this figure is a woman. National Geographic

American Indian/ Alaska Native Clinical & Translational Research. The American Indian/Alaska Native Clinical and Translational Research Program (AI/AN CTRP) is soliciting proposals from investigators to support and develop research programs relevant to AI/AN health disparities in Montana and Alaska. The AI/AN CTRP has the goal of developing the capacity of several Montana and Alaska institutions to address health disparities faced by Native communities in these states. Applications are due March 20, 2019 (for new & revised proposals) and April 10, 2019 (for competitive renewals).  Award amounts will be up to $100,000, to be spent by July 31, 2020. Montana State University

 

Rapidly Receding Glaciers on Baffin Island Reveal Long-covered Arctic Landscapes. The study, published today in the journal Nature Communications, uses radiocarbon dating to determine the ages of plants collected at the edges of 30 ice caps on Baffin Island, west of Greenland. The island has experienced significant summertime warming in recent decades. "The Arctic is currently warming two to three times faster than the rest of the globe, so naturally, glaciers and ice caps are going to react faster," said Simon Pendleton, lead author and a doctoral researcher in CU Boulder's Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR). Science Daily

 

Bowdoin to Build Barry Mills Hall and New Center for Arctic Studies. ... The Center for Arctic Studies. The study of the Arctic has a long and broadly interdisciplinary history at Bowdoin College. It includes the work of faculty teaching and conducting scholarship in areas such as government and legal studies, environmental studies, earth and oceanographic science, marine science and ecology, anthropology, economics, art, history, and physics. The new Center for Arctic Studies will stand with Bowdoin's Roux Center for the Environment and the Schiller Coastal Studies Center in Harpswell as significant and unique facilities for the interdisciplinary teaching and study of the environment, the Arctic, and the North Atlantic region, and it will provide new teaching and laboratory spaces to encourage, enhance, and expand collaborative work among faculty, students, and visiting researchers focused on this increasingly important region of the world. Bowdoin

Killer Whales are Moving Northward into Pacific Arctic, Possibly Spelling Trouble for Local Mammals. Orcas aren't necessarily new to the Chukchi Sea, which lies just north of the Bering Strait between Alaska and Russia. But the whales were only occasionally seen in the area and only for the warmest few weeks of late July and early August. That may be bad news for marine mammals in these areas, and climate change seems to be to blame. In a new study in Marine Mammal Science, a researcher reports detecting acoustic recordings of the clicks and whistles of killer whales in the Chukchi Sea as early as 1 June, and as late as 16 November. The percentage of days when killer whale calls were detected in the southern Chukchi Sea-from September to November-also increased from about 10% in 2009 to about 30% in 2015. Science

New Study Reveals Local Drivers of Amplified Arctic Warming. The Arctic experienced an extreme heat wave during February 2018. The temperature at the North Pole soared to the melting point of ice, which is about 30 to 35 degrees (17-19 Celsius) above normal. Recent studies indicate the mass of Arctic glaciers has declined significantly since the 1980's by more than 70%. These sudden climatic changes affected not just the Arctic regions, but also the water, food and energy security nexus throughout the globe. This is why climate scientists around the world are paying increasing attention to this accelerated warming pattern, commonly referred to as "Arctic amplification." Phys.org

 

Scientists Identify Two New Species of Fungi in Retreating Arctic Glacier. The scientists published their results on DATE in two separate papers, one for each new species, in the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology. "The knowledge of fungi inhabiting the Arctic is still fragmentary. We set out to survey the fungal diversity in the Canadian High Arctic," said Masaharu Tsuji, a project researcher at the National Institute of Polar Research in Japan and first author on both papers. "We found two new fungal species in the same investigation on Ellesmere Island." Science Daily

 

How Arctic Cyclones Change the Sea Ice.  Scientists have observed for some time that the level of sea ice concentration tends to increase shortly after an Arctic cyclone passes over. But in August of 2012, the powerful Great Arctic Cyclone traversed the entire Arctic. Shortly after its passage, scientists recorded the lowest sea ice levels ever, so they thought that the cyclone may have contributed to the sea ice loss. This conundrum sparked the interest of Erika A. P. Schreiber, a graduate student with the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) at the University of Colorado Boulder, and her supervisor, Mark Serreze. EOS