Alaska
Alaska’s Indigenous join hands with whale researchers as Arctic melts
- In Utqiagvik, Alaska, the Iñupiat rely on whaling and subsistence hunting for the bulk of their diet, a practice dating back thousands of years.
- Powered by mineral wealth, the Iñupiat-run North Slope Borough Department of Wildlife Management employs a collaborative team of scientists and hunters.
- Though the arctic is warming nearly four times faster than the global average, the Iñupiat are confident in their ability to adapt their practices to changing conditions.
- The Department of Wildlife Management provides a potential model for collaborations between Indigenous peoples and western researchers — with Indigenous leaders in charge of funding and resource allocation.
For a few days each June, the saltwater wind that blows over the fairgrounds in Utqiagvik, Alaska mixes with the smell of coffee, salmonberry pie and fresh whale meat.
The festivities start early and end under the midnight sun during Nalukataq, the annual whaling festival. By noon, the tables at the center of the fairgrounds are filled with slabs of whale blubber, cauldrons of stew and baked goods — enough to feed the town for a month. After a prayer, crew members circle the fairgrounds and fill coolers with food. Meanwhile, captains trade turns making speeches, pumping up the crowd and singing songs into a megaphone.
On the first day of last summer’s festival, one cut of whale meat was conspicuously absent from the spread. The whale kidneys, which are usually slow cooked through the morning, were sitting in wildlife veterinarian Raphaela Stimmelmayr’s laboratory eight kilometers (five miles) away at the North Slope Borough Department of Wildlife Management.
Stimmelmayr received the organs back in March, just hours after the Little Kupaaq whaling crew successfully harpooned a 25-ton animal. Little Kupaaq member Martin Edwardsen was in the boat that day. With the community’s help, the Little Kupaaq crew hauled the animal onto the ice and butchered the meat. But, as Edwardsen cut out the kidneys, he noticed something off. Tiny translucent worms wriggled along the surface of the organs. He set the kidneys aside and called Stimmelmayr.
“Nobody knows anything about them,” Edwardsen said of the worms. “So we don’t take them because we don’t know if they’re a parasite that could affect us.”
Stimmelmayr is now working on a study of the worms for publication this summer. She aims to find out where the parasites came from — perhaps they are spreading from other whale species that are moving into the Arctic as the climate warms. She also hopes to discern if the worms are a threat to the health of the whales or the humans that eat them. It’s a process that she’s been through before. During her time with the department, Stimmelmayr has evaluated numerous environmental threats to marine mammals, such as exposure to petroleum and algae toxins in seals.
In Utqiagvik, threats to marine animals are existential. Because the region is so isolated, most of the food that residents eat still comes from subsistence hunting. The only ways into the North Slope, aside from a small airport, are seasonal: a winter ice road and a summer shipping corridor. Food brought in from outside is prohibitively expensive, but the region is full of wild game.
The North Slope Borough Department of Wildlife Management is the community’s first line of defense. The team includes ecologists, biologists and hydrologists who work under the leadership of an Iñupiat director, Taqulik Hepa. The researchers are just half of the equation. The department also employs a robust team of Iñupiat subsistence hunters who are revered in the community for their ecological knowledge.
“It’s a real unique situation that’s different from anyplace else,” Hepa explained. “We have local hunters and local people working together with very well-respected scientists.”
The department’s approach makes it a potential model for the “true collaborations with local and Indigenous peoples” that the National Science Foundation called for in a 2021 letter, according to Eduard Zdor, a Chuktotkan PhD candidate in Anthropology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. In 2022, a White House memorandum also urged federal agencies to consider Indigenous knowledge in “federal research, policies and decision making.” These recent calls to action have spurred new collaborations between researchers and Indigenous peoples.
Yet, collaborative efforts between Western researchers and Indigenous groups often run into unforeseen barriers or fall short of their goals, due to issues like mismatched interests and research fatigue.
The North Slope Borough Department of Wildlife Management has found a way to avoid these pitfalls and foster mutually beneficial cooperation. Perhaps, because the relationship between Indigenous knowledge and Western research is not so new in the North Slope. The people of Utqiagvik have worked at this intersection, for better and for worse, for nearly half a century.
A unique approach
The Prudhoe Bay oil strike of 1968 turned Alaska into a petroleum state, with the North Slope Borough at its epicenter. In order to offer contracts to oil companies, the federal government first had to settle outstanding land claims with Native groups across the state. In 1973, the Iñupiat emerged from the negotiations with immense mineral wealth, and the newly-founded Ukpeaġvik Iñupiat Corporation became a powerful player in the oil industry.
Around the same time, Alaska began the slow process of reforming its education system. A whole generation of Iñupiat had been stripped of their language and traditions. Now, a new generation had a chance to reclaim the practices that had almost disappeared. Chief among them was whaling.
So, shock waves rippled through the Northern Slope in 1977 when the newly-formed International Whaling Commission (IWC) removed an exemption that had previously allowed the Indigenous bowhead whale hunt. Overnight, the people of the North Slope lost an essential food source and a cultural practice dating back thousands of years. In Barrow, the town that changed its name to Utqiagvik in 2016, the news was felt by everyone.
“I was a teenager,” Colleen Akpik-Lemen, director of the Iñupiat Heritage Center, told Mongabay. “It was the saddest year.”
The document that led to the ban, the commission’s 1977 scientific committee report, estimated that the current population of bowheads in the region was only 6 to 10% of pre-commercial whaling levels. A National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration report from the same year urged that Iñupiat whaling was “of great concern.” However, the data used to back these statements amounted to a handful of infrequent reports with widely varying estimates.
Iñupiat leaders saw a different reality. Whaling crews were encountering more healthy bowheads than ever.
“There are a lot of bowheads out there that the scientists aren’t counting. Many are out in the ice and therefore are not seen when they pass by Barrow. As a result of poor counting the scientific community helps put these unfair quotas upon us,” whaling captain Harry Brower Sr. told wildlife veterinarian Thomas Albert at the time.
The year before the ban, Iñupiat crews caught a record number of bowheads. From an Iñupiat perspective, that number suggested a healthy population of whales and a growing need for whale meat in the community. From the IWC’s perspective, the numbers represented an Indigenous community overhunting a vulnerable species to extinction.
In the end, the IWC’s perspective won out, in large part because Iñupiat leaders had no Western science or data to support their claims. So, the Iñupiat went looking for some.
Just months after the ban, North Slope Borough Mayor Eben Hopson formed the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission. In the early years, the commission worked under the watchful eye of the federal government to monitor bowheads and establish strict subsistence hunting quotas. Slowly, the community regained its right to harvest whales.
By 1981, the monitoring and management program was handed over to the North Slope Borough’s newly formed Department of Wildlife Management. Following in the footsteps of the Whaling Commission, the department hired a mix of community leaders, subsistence hunters and scientists.
“It was always a combination of very well-respected scientists and very well-respected hunters learning to interact with each other,” Hepa said.
Though it arose in the face of a crisis, the department’s approach proved enduring. And, fifty years later, it’s still unique. The major difference lies in who is working for who. The scientists at the department are employees of the Iñupiat municipal government of the North Slope Borough, not outside researchers seeking input from Indigenous knowledge holders. The work that they do starts and ends with the community.
Today, that dynamic is still paying off. The bowhead whale hunt is now protected, but the Iñupiat face another existential threat: climate change.
Ice Trails
During the past few decades global warming in the Arctic, which is occurring almost four times faster than the global average, has presented a new set of research questions. Utqiagvik loses more than 15 meters (50 feet) of coastline every year to erosion, melting permafrost wreaks havoc on local infrastructure and environmental changes present new challenges for subsistence hunters.
One of the biggest challenges for whalers is the changing nature of sea ice. Each spring, junior whalers chip away a trail across the ice from the coast to where the ice meets open water. Back in the 1970s, the trail traveled over 16 or 24 km (10 or 15 miles) of smooth, multi-year ice to reach this edge. Now, the trail traverses a shorter distance over younger, thinner ice to an edge that often lies within a kilometer from town. The young ice is less stable and more unpredictable.
“I remember, 35 to 40 years ago, going out to the edge when I was 10 or 11 and seeing the ice breaking off,” said Lucy Leavitt, captain of the Pamiilaq whaling crew and subsistence research coordinator at the Department of Wildlife Management. “The ice was as high as the ceiling at the edge. Today it can be from inches to a couple of feet.”
Though the journey to the edge has become shorter, it is also more difficult. The young ice is rough and forms large ridges that must be razed to make way for whaling equipment.
“It’s gotten a lot rougher,” Billy Adams, a seasoned whaling captain and assistant director at the department, told Mongabay. “It’s made it really difficult for us to find smooth ice to pull up whales on.”
The changing ice inspired a new collaboration. Since 2007, researchers from the University of Alaska Fairbanks have worked with local scientists and Iñupiat whalers to create annual maps of the trails made through the sea ice. Year by year, the collaborators are building up a record of the passages used each season under varying conditions.
“There’s a long-term record of, not only where the trails are, but also the sea ice thickness along those trails,” said Donna Hauser, a research professor in marine biology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and director of the Alaska Arctic Observatory and Knowledge Hub. “The maps get distributed back to the whaling captains each year. It’s a resource that has come to be expected.”
How much is too much?
As climate change emerged as one of the most urgent scientific problems of our era, research in the Arctic has intensified. Now, scientists flock in droves to the North Slope every summer, and sometimes their interests clash with locals.
“There’s so much research up here, it’s almost too much,” North Slope Borough search and rescue coordinator Brower Frantz explained. “The way I see it, everybody that comes in is going to be disturbing wildlife in one way or another… We’ll get those calls and complaints in — ‘Hey, we were on a caribou and a helicopter flew between us and now we have no caribou.’”
In some ways, the prolific scientific inquiry in and around Utqiagvik has benefited the town. For instance, research on permafrost has helped the community plan and build local infrastructure that will withstand the test of time. Visiting scientists also bring money into the community.
“With that much influx of personnel it’s definitely good for the economy up here,” said Frantz said. “There has to be a balance.”
That balance, one that takes into account both local needs and important research questions, is frequently discussed in both scientific and Iñupiat circles. Yet, it’s hard to know exactly how to get there.
One solution may lie in a critical assessment of the underlying motivations for science. In a place as studied as Utqiagvik, it’s not enough to appeal to global importance if there is no local tie-in.
“This is their homeland and it’s their resource,” Stimmelmayr said. “It cannot be research for research’s sake. It has to benefit the resource.”
The projects that do this well tend to involve Iñupiat community members from start to finish, like the publications that come out of the Department of Wildlife Management. The work is not pure Western science, nor is it an expansion of Indigenous knowledge divorced from the scientific method: It’s a combination of both.
“Traditional ecological knowledge is an inherent knowledge system that has theory behind it and goes through the same motions as Western inquiry,” said Stimmelmayr. “Research will always benefit if you bring the two together.”
Adapting to climate change, no matter what
In the coming years, the Arctic will continue to warm. As it does, the Iñupiat will hunt, forage, travel and live in one of the northernmost ecosystems of the world, as they have for more than a thousand years. All that has changed is the tools of the trade — snowmobiles, rifles and aluminum watercraft have replaced sleds, clubs and seal skin boats.
Veteran hunters like Billy Adams feel a sense of responsibility toward the animals they hunt year after year. He can tell if a seal is looking for a mate, and will let it go on its way regardless of whether it’s technically hunting season or not. He makes sure to leave an egg or two when collecting from a goose nest.
“It’s nature’s way of stewardship — helping each other,” he said at a roundtable discussion at the Department of Wildlife Management. “Iñupiat people, and Indigenous people all over the world, are a part of the ecosystem,” said Billy Adams
Northern Slope locals are adamant that they can continue to adapt to an increasingly complex natural environment. In fact, you won’t find almost anyone in Utqiagvik bellyaching about global warming. They’re not worried, because they have a plan. They will care for the animals that sustain them, and develop new practices that function in a new climate reality.
In the 20th and 21st centuries, the Iñupiat have realized that it pays to have good scientists on their team, and their payroll. Now, the tools of the subsistence hunting trade include ecologists, hydrologists and veterinarians. And, in turn, the Iñupiat have provided these scientists with access to a wealth of Indigenous ecological knowledge — something invaluable.
“We’ve come so far and we’ve adapted so well,” Edwardsen said. “We’re going to continue to adapt to whatever is thrown at us, whether it’s the ice conditions or whatever else. We’ll try to figure out a solution and keep our traditions alive.”
Banner image: A crowd gathers around a seal skin stretched between posts for “blanket toss” at Nalukataq. Image by Gabe Allen for Mongabay.
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Alaska
Norwegian filmmakers’ documentary spotlights homelessness in Anchorage, aims for Alaska screening
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – Two Norwegian filmmakers say their debut documentary, Anchorage Welcomes You, is meant to put viewers face-to-face with people living on Anchorage streets — not to prescribe a political fix, but to “describe the situation” and the human stakes behind a crisis visible across the city.
“I think the core story is to shine a light on the prevalence of the problem that is in Anchorage when it comes to drug abuse and homelessness,” said director/cinematographer Peter Gupta. “But it’s also to show how people are … capable of taking a wrong turn in life and coming back from it.”
The documentary was shot over multiple trips to Anchorage spanning roughly two years, beginning with a summer 2022 visit, followed by a winter 2024 return and a completion last fall.
Gupta, along with editor/screenwriter Rasmus Aarskog Sætersdal, said the project first grew out of Gupta’s canoe trip down the Yukon River, where he said he saw “communities ravaged by drugs and alcohol.”
“I canoed the whole length of the Yukon in 2017,” Gupta said. “And I saw what was going on in all the villages. And I wanted to go back and make a film at some point.”
Gupta said he met Anchorage resident Erinn Leann — a central figure in the film — at the end of that trip and told her then he planned to return to Alaska to make a documentary.
A title drawn from a sign — and the ‘duality’ beneath it
The film’s title comes from the weathered “Anchorage Welcomes You” sign seen by commuters entering the city — and, the filmmakers said, from what they described as the contrast between Anchorage’s image and the encampments they saw nearby.
“It was interesting when we were there the first year and we saw this Anchorage welcomes sign falling apart and a whole … camp growing up beneath it,” Sætersdal said. “And it was just this … you can say duality of presentation for the city.”
Gupta said the pair debated keeping the name, but after multiple test screenings they found Alaskans preferred the working title.
“We’ve had ambivalent feelings about the title of the film because it’s kind of tongue in cheek,” Gupta said. “We didn’t want to keep it at some point, but the people from Anchorage really wanted to keep it.”
Building trust — and setting rules
Much of the film unfolds in intimate, up-close moments that are hard to capture in traditional daily news reporting.
Sætersdal said filming required clear rules and consent. He said the filmmakers spent time walking the same routes and meeting the same people repeatedly. Gupta added that trust was foundational.
“I think it’s so important, that respect for whoever is participating, that’s a prerequisite for bringing them into the project,” he said.
Anchorage through outsiders’ eyes
Asked what makes homelessness in Anchorage distinct, Gupta said his travels shaped his perspective. Gupta described what he called “social fragmentation” and “hopelessness” — a situation he said can be more than just a lack of material resources.
“I’ve been around the world,” he said. “And the poverty in the United States is different.
“When you go to the United States, there’s a social fragmentation in a way that is quite unique. And I think there is a hopelessness and a different character to it … it’s not only a material problem. It is also a social problem.”
Sætersdal added Alaska’s identity as a frontier draws people seeking escape.
“Alaska still has this mythical place in imagination as the last frontier,” he said. “You see also people coming from all over the country … coming to Alaska in escapism of something. And then there’s nowhere else to go.”
‘Not to tell the people of Anchorage what to do’
Gupta and Sætersdal said they hope the documentary sparks conversations without presenting a single prescribed solution.
“What we’re trying to do with this film is not to tell the people of Anchorage what to do about homelessness,” Gupta said. “It’s about describing what’s happening and sparking a conversation.
“We hope that we can kind of make the homeless appear as resourceful and also capable of changing. But it’s not down to us what to do with it.”
Returning to Anchorage — and trying to bring the film home
Now, the two say the hope is to screen it in Alaska — and eventually get broader U.S. distribution. They said navigating distribution has been its own grind, but Sætersdal added that Alaska continues to pull at them creatively.
“Alaska really is a place that it sticks to you,” Sætersdal said. “You can’t unsee it once you’ve been there and you can’t like brush it off. It becomes a part of you.”
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Alaska already has glaciers, whales, old gold-rush towns, wild seafood, and mountains. But Princess Cruises is taking the year by storm with something bigger than a standard summer schedule. The line is sending eight ships to Alaska, adding new North-to-Alaska programming, and giving travelers more ways to turn their trip into a full land-and-sea adventure.
Princess Is Going Bigger Than Ever
Credit: Wikimedia Commons
The 2026 Alaska season gives Princess its largest presence in the region to date, with eight ships, 180 departures, and visits to 19 destinations. Travelers are not boxed into a narrow route or one small batch of dates. The ship lineup includes Star Princess, Coral Princess, Royal Princess, Ruby Princess, Grand Princess, Emerald Princess, Discovery Princess, and Island Princess. For anyone comparing Alaska cruise options, that much capacity means more itinerary choices.
Star Princess Gives The Season A New Headliner
Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Star Princess is the newest ship in the Princess fleet. This matters because Alaska cruising can easily feel like a trade-off between destination and ship experience. Princess is putting one of its newest vessels into one of its most important regions. Star Princess also hosts the new Après Sea experience inside The Dome, a high-positioned venue designed around big views.
Glacier Days Get The Full Main-Event Treatment
Credit: Getty Images
Glacier viewing has always been one of Alaska cruising’s biggest draws, but Princess is giving it extra structure through “The Glacier Experience: A Signature Princess Day.” On select Glacier Bay sailings, guests get close-up glacier views, live narration, and Park Ranger commentary from the bridge and open decks. There are also theater presentations and Junior and Teen Ranger programming. VIP viewing areas and bowfront access add another layer for guests who want the best possible look at the ice.
The Trip Can Extend Deep Into Alaska By Land
Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Princess has long built part of its reputation around cruisetours that combine time at sea with inland travel. A seven-night sailing can deliver a strong Alaska trip in itself. However, inland travel opens the door to scenic train journeys, Princess Wilderness Lodges, and routes to places such as Denali, Kenai, and the Mt. McKinley lodge area. The 2026 season continues to lean into sea-and-land travel.
North To Alaska Makes The Ship Feel Local
Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Princess first introduced its North to Alaska program in 2015, and in 2026, every Princess ship sailing in Alaska will carry the new programming. The whole idea is to bring local culture, food, personalities, and storytelling on board so guests learn something about Alaska between ports. This includes Native Alaskan speakers, naturalists, enrichment presenters, and destination-focused events that connect the trip to the place outside the ship. Names in the speaker series include Tlingit voices, Alaska Native educators, writers, and photographers.
Alaska Seafood Gets A Bigger Seat At The Table
Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Princess is leaning into Alaska’s food identity with “A Taste of The Great Land.” The 2026 specialty restaurant offerings feature sustainably sourced, wild-caught Alaskan seafood created with regional suppliers. Crown Grill offers dishes such as Wild King Salmon, Alaskan Jumbo Lump Crab Cake, and Jumbo Lump Crab paired with Butter-Broiled Lobster Tail. Sabatini’s Italian Trattoria also brings Alaskan fish into an Italian-style setting.
The Entertainment Has Alaska In Its Bones
Credit: Wikimedia Commons
This season also features “Candlelight Concert Series: Fire & Ice,” with Alaska singer-songwriters performing in a candlelit setting twice per voyage. This gives the onboard entertainment a stronger sense of place than a generic music night. Returning favorites add a livelier side, including Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show elements with axe-throwing recruits, trivia, and timber-sports storytelling tied to Ketchikan. Select sailings also feature Deadliest Catch captains and crew members sharing Bering Sea crab-fishing stories. The lineup draws from Alaska’s labor, music, weather, and folklore.
Families Get More Than A Pretty View
Credit: Tripadvisor
Younger travelers are getting special attention, not a watered-down version of the adult trip. Glacier Bay Junior Rangers let kids complete activity books, attend presentations, and earn a badge and certificate through a partnership with the National Park Service. Gold Rush Adventures pulls families into a shipwide Klondike-style search, while Great Alaskan Expedition offers youth and teens a three-hour team-based experience across land, sea, and air. As puppies in the Piazza also return on ships visiting Skagway, guests get to see Alaskan Huskies and sled-dog culture.
Après Sea Gives Alaska A Stylish Cooldown
Credit: Wikimedia Commons
After a long day outside, Princess is adding a dedicated wind-down ritual through Après Sea. The setup is inspired by après-ski culture. Guests can expect warm drinks, happy hour, and panoramic views after they return from exploring. On Star Princess, the experience is in The Dome, and it provides a strong visual setting at the top of the ship. A relaxed lounge concept gives the evening its own personality, and guests don’t have to jump straight from adventure into dinner.
MedallionClass Keeps The Whole Trip Moving Smoothly
Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Alaska days can get busy fast, with early excursions, glacier viewing, dinner plans, family meetups, and plenty of time spent moving around the ship. The Princess Medallion Class setup helps cut down on small hassles. The wearable Medallion supports contactless boarding, keyless stateroom entry, onboard ordering, contactless payment, ship navigation, and locating travel companions through the app. When the day already includes ports, wildlife, ice, and dinner reservations, fewer friction points onboard can make a real difference.
Rachel Feltman: Happy Monday, listeners! For Scientific American’s Science Quickly, I’m Rachel Feltman. Let’s kick off the week with a quick roundup of some science news you may have missed.
First, you may have seen some headlines last week about an outbreak of hantavirus on a cruise ship. Here to tell us more about what happened is Tanya Lewis, SciAm’s senior desk editor for health and medicine.
Tanya, thanks so much for coming on to walk us through this.
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Tanya Lewis: Yeah, no, thanks so much for having me.
Feltman: Why are we talking about hantavirus and this cruise ship? What happened?
Lewis: Just to catch people up, this outbreak was first noticed about a week ago on a ship called the MV Hondius, which was a cruise ship departing from South America, Argentina. And the people that were sickened and unfortunately passed away, two of those individuals were a married couple who had been traveling—it was a Dutch couple—we think were infected in Argentina and then boarded the ship. And then subsequently, multiple other people have been infected. As of May 7 the number of people on this cruise ship who had been infected with hantavirus was eight people. So that probably could still change.
But you might not have heard of hantavirus before, but it is a virus family that people have been sickened with before, and it’s generally spread by rodents, like rats or mice. And this commonly happens in places where people are exposed to the feces of these animals.
And it causes pretty severe disease. It can cause anything from respiratory distress and fluid in the lungs to some forms of it can be more of, like, a hemorrhagic fever, kind of like Ebola. But the kind that we’re seeing on this cruise ship is more the respiratory kind.
But yeah, this is a virus that, while it is fairly rare to be infected with it, it’s quite lethal. The estimates of its lethality vary, but anywhere from, like, 30 percent to even 50 percent of people infected have died of it.
Feltman: Right, well, and like you said, it, it’s usually spread through rodent feces. But unfortunately, the specific virus we’re talking about, with regard to this cruise ship, is one of the rare instances where it is technically possible to spread from human to human. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?
Lewis: Basically, these individuals on the ship were thought to be infected by human-to-human transmission. At least, that’s the working hypothesis right now. And the reason has to do with the exposure routes.
As I mentioned two of the people were a married couple, so we’re talking about, like, very close contact. This is not something like SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID, where it’s, like, in the air and wafting around for hours or something. This is something that you would probably need to be, like, breathing very closely, in the same space. And of course, cruise ships are, like, kind of the perfect petri dish for that.
Feltman: Yeah.
So I think there are two things to talk about. There’s, one, why experts are not immediately super concerned about pandemic potential from this specific thing, but also why it is reasonable that I think so many of us, when seeing this news, went, “Uh-oh. We’re—this is a reminder of public-health paradigms I do not wanna be reminded of.”
So let’s start with the good news: Why are experts not freaking out about this?
Lewis: Yeah, so we have to remember that this is a virus that is very different than a lot of the pathogens that have caused respiratory pandemics in the past. In order for a pathogen to be a major pandemic concern, it needs to be very transmissible, and that is something that we have not yet seen with this hantavirus.
I should say, this particular strain is the only strain that has been shown to transmit human to human; it’s called the Andes strain. Most hantaviruses are not thought to spread that way. So the good news is, it’s kind of rare. The bad news, maybe, is that it does appear to have spread, at least, you know, in a limited way, between people.
But yeah, in terms of why experts are not, like, immediately concerned that this will spark a larger epidemic, I think the reason is just that this type of virus and the way it spreads is not conducive, as far as we know, to that type of outbreak. And it’s also happening in a very contained space, so although there have been reports that several of the people on board the ship have disembarked and we are still following that closely, at this point there is no indication of wider community spread, which is what we call it when people are getting infected who have not had direct exposure to the infected individuals.
Feltman: Is there any concern that the time that this virus spent, you know, in such a perfect petri dish may have given it the opportunity to mutate and be better at jumping from person to person?
Lewis: I think what virologists would tell you is, like, the more opportunities a virus has to jump between people, the higher the risk of it developing, like, a concerning mutation that makes it more transmissible.
That said, we’re still talking about a relatively small number of individuals. I mean, eight people sounds like a lot, but, you know, when you’re talking about this being very close quarters on a ship, this is not like, oh, you’re walking into a giant city like New York City and infecting everyone around you or something. So I think that is a little bit reassuring, perhaps, at this point.
But that said, we’ve been humbled before, and I think if there’s one lesson we can take from the COVID pandemic, it’s that we shouldn’t panic, but we should definitely pay attention. And at least scientists wanna know and learn more about this virus and understand it better.
Feltman: I think a lot of people are getting a little freaked out by this news. [Laughs.]
Lewis: Yeah, and I mean, I would be the first to say, like, something like this you hear about, it’s, like, instantly puts you back in that fearful space of 2020. And of course, there was the famous cruise ship, the Diamond Princess, where some of the early COVID cases happened. So that is always concerning.
On the other hand, you know, we have to sort of put it in perspective and remember this is a rare virus and it is something that people have been infected with in the past, so it’s not a completely new virus, unlike SARS-CoV-2, which we had never seen before. So we do have some idea of how this virus works, and while we don’t have any specific treatments for it, we do at least have experts who study it. So that should hopefully give some reassurance that, like, this is not a complete unknown. We are not starting from square one.
Feltman: Thanks for that, Tanya.
Now, listeners, keep in mind we had this conversation on Thursday, May 7. But you can always go to ScientificAmerican.com for more up-to-date science news.
Now for new research on micro- and nanoplastics—but this isn’t the health story you might be expecting. According to a study published last Monday in Nature Climate Change, these tiny bits of broken-down plastic could be contributing to our planet’s warming temperatures.
For starters, just in case you are blissfully unaware: yes, there are, unfortunately, microplastics in the sky. According to a study published in 2021, some of these particles swirl up into the air from the road, where tires and brakes frequently shed small pieces of plastic.
Now, the idea of microplastics permeating the air and even seeding clouds into existence is creepy enough, in my opinion. But this new study suggests they can also have a warming effect on the atmosphere.
Here’s how that would work: if you’ve ever spent time on a patch of blacktop on a sunny summer day, you know that black material absorbs heat. Conversely, white material reflects heat. The same thing happens when you scatter bits of dark and light plastic into the atmosphere, which is what humanity has inadvertently done quite a bit over the past few decades.
Unfortunately, according to this new study, any cooling effects we might get from light microplastics are probably vastly outweighed by the warming effects of dark microplastics. While the estimated effect is a small percentage of the warming fueled by soot from coal power plants, the results are still worrying.
As Jackie Flynn Mogenson reported for SciAm last week, we don’t actually know the concentration of micro- and nanoplastics currently in our atmosphere. But the authors of the new study argue that global climate assessments should do more to factor in these tiny plastic bits. And their findings serve as a great reminder that when we talk about the downsides of plastic, we should recognize that there may be impacts far less concrete and obvious than creating growing piles of trash in landfills.
Now I’ll turn the mic over briefly to SciAm’s chief newsletter editor, Andrea Gawrylewski. She’s gonna tell us about the science behind a tsunami that caught Alaska by surprise.
Andrea Gawrylewski: Thanks, Rachel.
Last summer, in August, a small cruise boat called the David B spent the night in an inlet about 50 miles from Juneau, Alaska. They were supposed to be at anchor nearer to Juneau in this beautiful fjord called Tracy Arm, but bad weather had forced them to pick another place to stay. And it turns out that detour may have saved their lives.
In the morning, from where they were anchored, the boat’s owners noticed seawater rolling over the nearby [sandbar] and shoreline. It was weird because the tide was supposed to be out at that time, and they had no idea why the water was so high.
When scientists heard about the strange sea-level rise, they began examining seismic data, they looked at aerial footage and satellite images, and determined that a massive landslide had occurred at the top of the Tracy Arm fjord.
So what had happened?
The South Sawyer Glacier at the top of Tracy Arm has been steadily shrinking and retreating for the last 25 years. In the spring and summer of last year the ice retreated inland several hundred feet, exposing so much bare rock that it ultimately caused a landslide.
That big slide hit the water and sent a tsunami racing through the fjord—like, so much water that the tsunami surged more than 1,500 feet up the sides of the fjord and sloshed back and forth, like in a bathtub.
That event also produced a seismic signal equivalent to a magnitude 5.4 earthquake. Scientists found smaller seismic events in the data that had occurred at least 24 hours before the big one, and they were increasing exponentially in intensity in the six hours before the landslide.
So now the question is: Could these early seismic signals be used as a warning system? One scientist at the Alaska Earthquake Center has been testing a landslide detection algorithm, and so far it’s detected 35 landslides in near real time. Sending out warnings within three to four minutes of big events could make all the difference to people who live in the area, so scientists are working to improve tools like these.
If you want more updates like this, sign up for my free daily newsletter, Today in Science, at SciAm.com/#newsletter.
Feltman: That’s all for this week’s science news roundup. We’ll be back on Wednesday to talk all about protein. Why is it everywhere all of a sudden? We’ll cut through the hype so you can just enjoy your tofu in peace.
Science Quickly is produced by me, Rachel Feltman, along with Fonda Mwangi, Sushmita Pathak and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was edited by Alex Sugiura. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our show. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Subscribe to Scientific American for more up-to-date and in-depth science news.
For Scientific American, this is Rachel Feltman. Have a great week!
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